Any Gibraltarians about?

[pigleychez]

We are due to head to Gibraltar in a few weeks as a day trip as part of our Holiday.
We will be staying in Duquesa about 20 mins away and are hiring car. From reading the news about the long crossing delays, we are now beginning to debate our trip. Not sure I can face 7 hour queues with a 3 and 5 yr old in the heat.

Anyone near there and can confirm the delays etc. I know the press like to exaggerate the truth sometimes!

I'm not in Gibraltar right now, but I've spent a lot of time in Spain (Estepona and Duquesa area) and visited Gibraltar regularly. I don't think the press are exaggerating, I've seen this happen lots of times. Things might change in a few weeks, but since it's the peak holiday period the Spanish may well want to carry on the go-slow as a way of highlighting their objections to the reef. If I were you, with two young children, I wouldn't go.

Maybe you should re-post in Chat - I only saw your post by clicking on unanswered messages, and now it isn't, IYKWIM. You might get more responses like that.

Thanks for replying. We are following the news very carefully on this but its not looking too good. :(

I'm not in Gibraltar either but I used to live there. I don't know what the queues are like for pedestrians but could you park the car in La Linea and walk across? The buses in Gib are good, and we often used to walk over to the market in spain when the vehicle queues were bad.

Also if you drove down there and it was horrendous then you could continue on to the Bahia Park water park at Algeciras which is not far away and imo much better/quieter than the one at Mijas.

Hi, I'm in Gib. The press aren't exaggerating at the moment. The queues are unpredictable and I would advise not driving on to Gib unless you have to. It's very easy to get around by bus and foot. There are a couple of links you could look at www.frontierqueue.gi/split-view-cam.aspx This is for cars going out of Gib. For cars coming in you can look www.alcaidesamarina.com/seccion/en/webcam/104/ You can also ring the border and get a recorded message, at the moment it is telling queuing times in and out 00350 20042777.

If you want to see the monkeys, you can go on the cable car or take a taxi tour.

My advice would be avoid the weekend at all costs and park in the car park by the border queue and walk. Also depending on the age of your children, Bahia Park , a water park in Algeciras is a good day out too.

Hope that helps.

Thanks so much for the info. Definately a help :)

Parking then walking across does sound like it could be a plan.

The water park sounds great. The girls are 3 an 5 and adore swimming. Dont suppose you know if there's any restrictions on children wearing armbands do you? Previously we visited one in Majorca where kids under 8 HAD to wear armbands. The girls were having none of this so we didnt go in the end! They both swim brilliantly unaided so the thought of arm bands is too babyish.

My daughter was 6 when we went and definately no arm bands then