Driving from the UK to the mountains - good idea or not?

[drowninginlaundry]

Inspired by the train-to-Grenoble thread, I suggested to DH that we drive to the Alps this year as on paper it looks fun and would work out cheaper than flying. He thinks I'm mad. Has anyone done it? We have 3 DC, a big VW van, I'm thinking cheap self catering and load the van with food and booze. Or is it three days of traffic jams followed by rapid divorce?

Well done to all those who survived the half term drive. When is a good time to get to the tunnel to avoid the big crush / 3 hour delay ?
Need to plan for next years hol ! Just wondering if I should pull them out of school a couple of hours early on the Friday ?
Might suggest to primary school that this would be a really good day to have as an inset day ! Would reduce their unauthorised absence.

We take a roofbox as take skis so our car is above the 1.80m by about 10cm which I think means we can't do flexipluspass even if we could afford it.

MrsGofG and Wohmum - I now have high hopes for the toll gizmo!

MrsGofG
Just been reading some earlier posts and you mention something about registering the LiberT pass. Mine was ordered and received a few months ago. Do I need to do anything with it before we go to make sure it works ( other than stick it in the car, of course ?)
Thx

I wish, you don't have to do anything with the telepeage thing, except stick it up by the driver's rear view mirror. The first time you go through a gate it takes about 10-15 seconds to register the device (you are still for this bit, feeling very anxious) and then the thiung bleeps and you know you are accepted. after that it takes about 5 seconds to register. Look for the lanes marked 't' only - no green crosses or anything, as i think they can take 'paying traffic' as well (iyswim). esp look for the 30km gates (normally on the left hand side as you look at them - ie the fast lane) at certain toll booths.
I got an email asking me if i would give them a french bank account number, because then if i changed credit card i wouldn't need to tell them - i don't have one so i couldn't, and there has been no problem.
another tip though - don't go straight in behind another british car, just in case they need to back up (if they don't have a telepeage thing) and it also lets you get recognised better.

(to the lady in the big black car who had to reverse out on the way to calais last saturday morning - that man was very mean not to let you into his queue when you had obviously made a mistake - and he held up all the telepeage queue, very rudely i thought).

i think the earlier the better for eurotunnel - they always seem to have some delay, and if you get there early they will often stick you on the next train if they can. But you get there when you get there - we left cheshire at 6 cos my husband got home at 5. too early and the kids just riot all the way!

the ones marked only 't' can't take 'payers' - but the green crosses can - i can see this wasn't very clear. foggy head from starting work!

We drove from Leeds to near Chambery (French Alpes) several summers when I was younger - think 3 early teens on the bench seat in the back of a ford escort estate with no air con in August - and we survived! Took 3 little backpacking tents (1 for DPs, 1 for DBs and 1 for me) and spent about 3 weeks there - loved it! Easy drive, straight down A6 if I remember right butit was a while ago

I had to do something when I received it - sorry - brain is foggy, the instructions that came with it told me to register it asap, which I did - just went online following the instructions and put in the number that was on the gadget.
No probs or delay of any kind at the first peage, I was prepared for this as had heard from earlier posters, and a man I met at a party the week before
A few peages in and we were daringly foing thru the 30k ones, but not at 30k - was still convinced we would have a problem, but no hitched so far ( tho as DH pointed out - we haven't ssen the bill yet...
Re the tunnel delays - Fri pm and Sat am are always awful - we were told at the checkin (sat about 12-ish that there was a 90min delay, so settled back with the picnic, and DS2 alerted me to the fact that our letter was up! I would love to know how they manage their logisitcs, but we were only 10 mins later than we should have been [puzzled]