To go Portsmouth-Caen rather than Dover-Calais in July?

[tourdefrance]

We have 2 weeks booked in accommodation in South East France in late July but not yet booked the ferry.
Seeing all the stories of huge queues at Dover we are considering going via Portsmouth instead. We live in the Midlands so would need to get the 2.30pm boat and stay in Caen when we arrive.
We did this a couple of years ago and it was fine.
Has anyone experienced passport control at Caen since the new rules came in?
Could we just end up in a long queue in France instead of in the UK?

My DS did Portsmouth-Caen this week - it took two and a half hours to disembark and to go through border control at the port in Caen.

It was a horrible experience he said with two grizzling toddlers and a dog who was desperate for some grass and a comfort break after 6 hours on the Ferry.
Never again he vowed.

Never done Portsmouth to Caen but I'm doing Dover- Calais in a couple of weeks time so will bookmark this to and report back. We do a lot of trips to France and the best way to avoid queues has always been on the tunnel. Sunday night seems to be the most quiet time to travel.

We did Portsmouth to Caen on the Saturday morning of bank holiday weekend. It was busy but a dream. We were through passport control and out on the road within 20 minutes while my family (who knew we were getting on a ferry but didn’t know from where) were sending panicked links to BBC News stories about the issues at Dover.

Having done Portsmouth-Caen many times, the thing that determines whether you breeze through security or sit in 2.5hr queues is really just how quickly they move you off the boat. I've been at the head of the queue and found it very fast, and at the back (despite having pre-booked "priority access") with children in the back losing the plot.

We are regulars at the Ouistreham McDonalds because it has a little play area and is next to a supermarket, so has become somewhere we can decompress if the 2.5 hour problem happens.

We did the Dover - Dunkirk route on the Saturday of May half term, so when the queue and chaos hit the news. We were delayed by 2 hours in the end, so not the end of the world - and I say that with a moaning 3 and 6 year old in the car.

the amount of money we saved compared to Brittany ferries that we’ve used 4/5 times now was well worth the queue. And I like that the border is on this side, so when you drive off the boat you are ready to go and refreshed so you can get some good miles in on the journey

we tried the shuttle once but not for us - it’s much more expensive at peak times and doesn’t give the kids a chance for a runaround before being back on the road again

We live in Staffordshire and regularly travel to Normandy on the Portsmouth to St Mall route . It is expensive but very comfortable in the night ferry. We travelled out in April this year. There were no checks and the BF staff did not know when they would be introduced.

So after looking at timings for various options (with a bit of help from AI), we've booked Dover-Calais. If the queues are horrendous and we don't cross until early evening we will still be in France no later than if we take the 2pm boat from Portsmouth but with the worst behind us rather than an unknown wait at 10pm.
We will book a couple of hotels that can be cancelled and then decide on the day whether to drive a couple of hours or not.

Dbro and SiL use that crossing about once a month!

I haven’t been to France for 30 years but we went (to pre-erected campsites) through the 1990s and Newhaven-Dieppe was always our favourite route by far. It’s lovely to have a last early evening meal near the harbour before boarding, the crossing is a nice length, it’s an easy drive away when disembarking on the way out. Beats Calais by a very wide margin!