School ski trip cancelled due to chaos in Dover - fuck the tories

[TheColourofspring]

My 15 year old son has just spent 17 hours in a coach in dover waiting to go on a much anticipated ski trip. It’s cost us over £1500 over a year and we hoped, given everything our kids lost over covid, it would be a positive experience.

The school just notified us to say that now- due to health and safety, drivers hours etc- the trip needs to be cancelled and the kids are on their way back from dover.

Absolutely FUCK the lying Tory cunts - they ruin everything. They try and blame the French yet all of this lies at their door. Fuck them all for ruining 100 kids trip (and probably thousands more) and ruining everything they touch with their stinking corrupt lies and their lies about brexit.

My son was in tears.

The main factors for the capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise were not linked to people rushing to get a ferry boarded, or to keep queues down. It's rather disingenuous and faintly scaremongering to suggest so.

It is not safety concerns that are slowing down things at Dover.

‘I've never been so well of’

I presume you mean ‘well off’. But are you actually happy? You frequently pop up on posts just to make mean little remarks or to make people feel bad. These are not the actions of someone who is genuinely content, are they? Maybe have a little think about that and what you can do to improve your internal happiness. Brexit can’t fix that I am afraid.

It was already £1500 they should have insisted on flying it's quicker.

You don't need to be able to read and write to be a critical thinker. Its your ability to access information independently which is challenged not your comprehension. If literacy was everything we would have much better politicians than we have!

Ah the Daily Mail, that bastion of unbiased neutral reporting, never known to print an inflammatory xenophobic half-truth 🙄

@Villssev are you like me struggling to find any evidence of any Easter holiday delays in 2010?

2010 being the first year I searched for and the results seem to be dominated by David Cameron's pledge to make sure that all passports would be checked on entry and exit to the UK, which of course is what is causing the delays now.

Who do you blame then?

The Conservative government only held a referendum in the first place to appease their own right wing head bangers. And made the result carry if it was a simple majority rather than needing say 75% yes to make such a huge and impactful decision.

Wow, they should have asked you for your insight, because that's absolutely a straight swap. Once a day and thirteen hours on the boat. I can't why the wouldn't have changed, probably exactly the same cost.

I blame But Jeremy Corbyn for most things.

Sometimes also Keir's beer.

Nope. It wasn't an issue before "taking back our borders" meant every single person getting off the coach and showing their passport individually to get it stamped. Remember the halcyon days when the coach could go through with the students all sitting comfortably on board.

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Yeah, I did, cos I used to be a child, and I used to attend school. I studied three languages and so went on regular European coach trips. With two drivers.

Then, somehow, I dont know, I must have eaten all my greens, but I grew up and stopped being a child, and at that point I started being a teacher, and I started organising coach trips to the continent.

I'm not sure how you're not understanding, or how you're so desperate to die on the "you only need one driver" hill - my only guess is this thread has attracted some politically desperate people who need to blame the government at all costs. Somebody else has pointed out that there are delays because of loading of ferries. If delays are unavoidable, yes you need two drivers.

Your poor son OP, I am so sorry to hear they were all disappointed like that.

Brexit voters, you should be ashamed.

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Yeah, I did, cos I used to be a child, and I used to attend school. I studied three languages and so went on regular European coach trips. With two drivers.

Then, somehow, I dont know, I must have eaten all my greens, but I grew up and stopped being a child, and at that point I started being a teacher, and I started organising coach trips to the continent.

I'm not sure how you're not understanding, or how you're so desperate to die on the "you only need one driver" hill - my only guess is this thread has attracted some politically desperate people who need to blame the government at all costs. Somebody else has pointed out that there are delays because of loading of ferries. If delays are unavoidable, yes you need two drivers.

Imagine having that person as a parent no less?

These threads have anger and remarks from those who didn’t vote for Brexit mostly though so I’m not sure this follows, unless it applies to all those posters too. They are probably happy who knows.

So you think fact that decades ago when you travelled coach long haul is more relevant than the “many school coach trips from UK to France” that you have arranged? 😂

@Villssev Indeed!

This is probably one of the stupidest posts that I've ever read on MN. And I have read a lot of stupid posts over the years.

You're not making any sense. I spoke about both. Both are relevant. Are you a troll?

So many things to respond to on this thread but I’ll start with this one.

As the organiser of our school’s trips abroad, my school will only let us go in a school holiday and essentially limit us to the Easter holiday by arguing many factors. The Easter
holidays are busy throughout but of course, this weekend is the busiest. However, I have taken trips abroad during this exact weekend since 2011 and we have never encountered any problems with delays like this (including during genuine very bad weather conditions). Brexit really has made this situation as bad as it is.
The reason this weekend is preferred; the staff who run the trip are not paid and don’t get any time back in lieu and so to get enough staff, it really does have to be as convenient as possible. Most volunteers have their own children that they may want to take on holiday themselves and so a four day trip in the middle of the holidays makes that very inconvenient. It also means that the Responsibility of being in charge of others people’s children in a foreign country is over at the start of the holidays so that staff can enjoy the rest of their time off as contrary to belief, it is not a holiday for staff.
So, I wouldn’t say poor planning by the school. It’s perfect planning for the trip to even run in the first place. Poor planning by the government though whose Brexit policies have caused these huge delays.

@TheColourofspring I am so sorry for your son. The school should have a very robust and specialist insurance policy for this, so you should get your money back (expect perhaps the deposit). Get him a takeaway and some treats for when he gets back!

I’m a teacher and have never been on a coach to trip with two drivers, but then I’ve never gone as far down as ski resorts. Sometimes you meet a driver somewhere else don’t they

I'm sure the children will be disappointed however this kind of thing (as with Covid) probably is a huge learning curve which they would not have had otherwise. They will realise that things don't always go to plan. They will learn to be resilient (hopefully).

@midsomermurderess

you get it, right?!

Oh come on.

a learning experience.

id be happy for my children not to have learning experiences that involve 17 hours coach delays and then a holiday cancelled