To and fro Calais! Part 1.

1^st of November 2010 it was, winters had already begun.

...Early morning and a cup of tea, after checking my emails and doodling on Facebook, Twitter and job checking and business networking on Linkdin and Viadeo, then checking my diary on my phone (By phone I mean no hi-fi iPhones or Blackberry, although I wish I had one, its my simple Nokia which I also use as my camera and its handsome and sleek and I love it.) which said that I was absolutely free this week, with a sigh I thought ‘Oh know... what will I do’. But then all of a sudden a light bulb was flickering in my head. I believe it was trying to switch on, an idea was coming in my head, so I thought hard. And there it was a brilliant idea, why not head to Calais for a day or a few hours rather, which was all good, its like a short excursion. Which was excellent as I was on my own, Eureka!

I didn’t really bother to ask anyone as I knew everyone is going to be busy and no one is as crazy or passionate about travelling as I am and this is what keeps me motivated. One of my friend calls me a ‘Globe Trotter’ it sounds like an avatar from one of the games of X-Box. As my laptop was in front of me, I started Googling for ‘cheap ferry tickets for Calais’ literally. Well after the results turned up the one that caught my eye was ‘ travel to Calais for £1 by P&O Feries’, I had to check this one out and I did. It opened up the P&O Ferry website page about the £1 offer. It said that in order to avail this deal one has to be a foot travel passenger and the ferry journey has to depart any time after 9:00 am and will arrive back to England any time after 5:00 pm. This offer was not valid for weekends including Fridays. Well it all sounded too good to be true, hence I called them up. By the way the P&O number is 08716 64 20 20 and is not tool-free, so after hearing a not very short record about toll-charges, advertising there website and ‘please press 1 if you have to make a booking’, I pressed ‘1’ then, immediately a women received the phone. A very polite voice said ‘P&O Ferries, bookings...you are speaking to Sopie, how may I help you?’ she sounded so graceful, wanted to hear that voice again. In that minutes daze I forgot to speak. ‘HELLO, is anyone there?’ with a jolt I spoke ‘Yeh...hi, I need to ask you about the pound one offer, is it still available?’ back to her normal calm voice she answered ‘yes, and when would you like to go?’ she asked ‘On Wednesday, the 3^rd of November... and I am a wheelchair user!’ I said, it just came out of my mouth and I sounded so confident, honestly speaking I hadn’t a clue what I was saying, ‘Okay then, that’s no problem.’ She said. I was baffled by my own spontaneous decision, I am never so quick. Anyways I just went along with it as I had already checked my diary-phone, I had no engagements for this week.

The kind lady, Sophie, then explained me the whole process, including my train timings, getting to and from the Dover port, my ferry timing and so on. But before booking it all in she advised me checkout the train timings as I was coming all the way from Maidstone. I took her advice; she gave me her direct line, reserved my booking, gave me a reference number and asked me to call her back. Well and that what I did nest, I first checked the train timings at http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk, the fare was coming to £25 return. Then I called the South Eastern Travel Assistance at 0800 7834524 (this is a toll-free number) these guys are really helpful when assistance needed on-off trains, for wheelchair users, buggies, push-chairs, prams, etc. the person whom I spoke to had also made a trip to Calais by ferry, which was helpful. She recommended me appropriate train timings for my departure and return journeys and booked assistance on the required train timings. My train journey was as follows: train departing from Maidstone East at 9:39 am, it will bring me to Ashford at 10:08 am where I’ll have to get the next train to Dover Priory Station at 10:30 am. Rather confusing, I do hope nothing goes wrong tomorrow. Anyways now I’ll tell you the return journey: my train departs from Dover Priory Station at 6:44 pm, it gets me to Ashford at 7:11 pm and then I have to get the next train to Maidstone at 7:19 pm which gets me to Maidstone at 7:47 pm. Gosh that is like a tornado with a huge swish!

After jotting all this information down on my MS Word (I use my laptop instead of writing I find it more com convenient everyone knows that but I never get a I-Pad on my birthday!). I then called on Sopie’s direct line at P&O Ferries, ‘P&O ferries, Good Morning, Rich specking how I may help you?’ this time a man received the phone. He was equally polite and sounded young and handsome. ‘Can you please give me your reference number’ he asked ‘sure’ I said. After making sure the timings of the ferry which were 12:30 am departure from Dover Port and 6:25 pm return from Calais and after co-ordinating the train timings, the issue of going from the train station to the port in Dover was raised as I was on a wheelchair, Gosh! Why God why am I on a wheelchair. But this did not discourage me one bit (well I’m being dishonest here. I was feeling let down a bi but I went even further, I had to do this right till the end. Well so I was given a taxi firm number to contact and book a wheelchair accessible taxi for Wednesday. Then I called them up, they were very nice but refused to book me a taxi from before, they told me that they were many black hackneys outside the station. Any of them will take you to the port and will charge £15. After hearing all this I again called up the direct number at P&O Ferries hoping for Rich to receive it. But this time a guy named Stephen received the phone, and sounded very polite as well. I gave him my reference number and he immediately found my reservation on the system. After asking my train timings he suggested that as my train will arrive Dover Priory at 11:01, I should give an hour’s extra before boarding the ferry as I am on a wheelchair. Which I agreed to as I have never used ferries before, therefore my ferry was now departing at 1:00 pm from the Port of Dover. Now the issue can up of me getting into Calais town from Calais port, but this time the man took my mobile number and said he’ll call me back with information on this. Which was good cause now I was getting a bit annoyed by using the tool charge number of P&O ferries. After 10 minutes I received a call by Stephan at P&O ferries, he told me not to worry our crew at the port in Calais will put you on a wheelchair accessible taxi that’ll take you into town, the fare is approximately going to be 15 to 20 Euros. I agreed (had to agree, no choice anyway if I had to do the journey) and now to complete my £1 booking I was asked by the man for my card details. ‘If you pay by credit card there is an extra £2 charge, but if you pay by debit cards they’ll be no payment fees.’ He said, ‘debit please’ I said. After I gave my card details and the booking was complete I was given a reference number ‘P60308362’ and told to arrive the port approximately an hour earlier. We exchanged ‘thank yous’ and ‘good byes’ Gosh that was a good nerve wrecking experience, but I am still going anyways!

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