Please note that if you travel by Eurostar, you will go through UK immigration control in France before you board the Eurostar. Any comments/concerns? You could also buy Paris metro tickets, which was useful, and the onboard wifi worked. This is how it works for Eurostar trains from the UK, and Eurostar trains from Belgium and France to the UK. Heathrow to Kings Cross Train-How much time? The British pound has hit a record low. I'm travelling Brussels to London tomorrow and was planning to get to the station about an hour before my train. That's not that obvious when you first asked about ways to get into the country illegally ("Are ferries an option with less strict border control?"). Anyway I'll just turn up an hour before an hope for the best. Once upon a time, in the 1970s, I made a few journeys on the Tauern Express or equivalents, when the passport and customs checking procedure between Belgium and Germany and Germany and Austria was by officials walking through the train whilst in motion between the border stations. Once you arrive, your tickets will be checked. No need to change anything if it works for Ireland. The solution integrates passenger identification (biometric verification, passport checks, passenger assessment and profiling) with real-time monitoring of operations. It has been thought through. However, you will not be denied boarding if you turn up at the old 30 mins/10 mins check in times. Each border crossing that required an immigration check took around 1 hour for trains with far fewer passengers than Eurostar. Strike action in France: revised timetable on 07 March. Just a quick maths point. I just got back from (ta && ta.queueForLoad ? Please note that all persons travelling must have appropriate documents to travel; a Livret de Famille will not be accepted by border controls. I've never heard of anyone being denied for camera equipment. She said the Covid pandemic, when international travel was largely ruled out, had reduced drastically the number of border police staff in Paris Nord and St Pancras, and with Brexit rules in force, you have to stamp UK passports. Sure, but we don't know how much camera equipment the OP had and we don't know what questions he was asked or what answers he gave. ta.queueForLoad : function(f, g){document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', f);})(function(){ta.trackEventOnPage('postLinkInline', 'impression', 'postLinks-85239455', '');}, 'log_autolink_impression');flight from Malaga here. CATCHING A LOCAL RER TRAIN FROM PARIS GARE DU NORD. Only Immigration Control takes place at the station where you depart. If necessary they'll put you on the next train. It doesn't matter where you are travelling out of, the Schengen passport checks are the same in London and Brussels (and Paris) except as regards the order, which reflects the direction of travel into or out of Schengen: at Brussels (and Paris), Schengen exit controls first and then UK entry controls second, in London, UK exit controls first (if they bother - there have been times when they didn't) and Schengen entry controls second. Tentatively planned week London trip. The terminal is located at the far end of platform 15b. The UK Border Force doesn't turn away people, particularly those who don't need visas, without good reason, let alone hand them a six year ban on entering, so there is something that you aren't telling us. Since roughly 40 per cent of Eurostars customers are British, this has caused a significant increase in the processing times at these stations.. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con) The extra time arises because all Schengen countries are now scanning (as the article has it, "swiping through a reader") EU passport/ ID card details in both directions instead of giving these only a cursory glance as some were doing before. The Bulgaria - Turkey border took around 2 hours: the whole train was delayed in the middle of the night and the middle of nowhere because of 2 people who didn't have the right visa. Vision-Box facial recognition software is currently being tested at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. However, lots of other people get into the UK who have no accommodation booked and they have no problems getting in; so.. No accommodation, no onward travel booked, loads of professional photography equipment, who wouldn't be suspicious.?. Reopening the Ebbsfleet and Ashford International stations in Kent would put too high of a strain on local police resources. Whats so special about Eurostar? The Vision-Box's vb i-match ABC eGates solution . There's no need to check in for Eurostar, just scan your ticket at the ticket gate. If youre taking a connection, please allow at least 30 minutes to make your onward train. It would be even longer if it required people to get off. Saturday 01 AprilWere currently working out the impact on our timetables.Well update this page as soon as we know more and will be in touch if your Eurostar journey is affected by timetable changes. Some trains go on sale as early as 11 months in advance, with more trains added about 6 months in advance. Eurostar recommend you arrive 120 mins before for Standard Class and 90 for Std/Business Premier Class due to COVID protocols. In an effort to maximize the speed and efficiency of the immigration clearance process for passengers travelling from the UK into continental Europe and the Schengen zone, Eurostar selected Vision-Box to deploy a facial recognition-based automated border control solution at St Pancras International rail station, located at the French border. SIx year ban - wow impressive - you must have done some serious stuff. As long as theres a capacity issue it throws up difficulties, he added. Its a good idea todownload your ticketto check the most-up-to-date recommended arrival time.IMPORTANT:Please come to the station early and not just before the ticket gates close. So although 100 border guards per train sounds a lot i think it would be a good investment as it would allow Eurostar to run busy trains without any delays at passport control. Oh its a really important train (so THEY say - the security checks are part of their brand). Please plan ahead and allow extra time for your journey. The pity is we cannot offer enough seats because of these station bottlenecks, she added. . It has now been postponed until at least the end of 2023. It's effectively an "entrance clearance" but does NOT provide a right of entry. Children aged 4-9 get a 50% discount on the RER network and children under 4 can travel for free. OMG sorry this has happened to you. The issue on Eurostar is that if somebody makes it to the UK they can claim Asylum and the UK is bound by international treaty to process that claim. Merriman posted the responses on Twitter, saying that the UKs transport select committee will write to the new Minister and Rail Regulator sharing these observations and interventions to support Eurostar; a vital cog in our transport system.. Hello everyone, we are Americans visiting for two weeks. You need a valid passport to travel between the UK and the EU. So in effect you turned up to a country claiming to be a tourist, with the tools of your trade? It doesn't matter where you are travelling out of, the Schengen passport checks are the same in London and Brussels (and Paris) except as regards the order, which reflects the direction of travel into or out of Schengen: at Brussels (and Paris), Schengen exit controls first and then UK entry controls . It has escape tunnels every 400m to the service tunnel and opposite bore. "Your passport will need to be stamped when you leave and re-enter the U.K., so please check that you have a clear page," Eurostar told passengers in another guidance email. This would also allow the EMR and SE and TL services to use the Eurostar platforms when necessary which would be very helpful considering their platforms often get very full but the Eurostar has six platforms which are mostly empty. People are working from home more, cutting the number of commuters using the service. Yes I know checks are the same at both ends. About 350 out of 900 seats are normally left unsold on the first services between London, Paris and Brussels despite huge demand for the greenest form of international travel, Eurostar bosses said. You enter your reservation code and then print the tickets. Typically, you go through exit customs, take your plane, and then meet the border agent in your country of arrival. And that's if those checks were carried out on the train itself. Contents show 1 Is there passport control getting off the Eurostar? more, You seem to have JavaScript disabled. She said the demand for travel in the UK was huge, with leisure fully back and about 80-85% of business travellers compared with 2019. You walk through the Customs Inspection area. P&O Ferries said people were having to queue for two hours at border control and a further 30 . Caf Mtropole can be found in coaches 6 and 13 on our original trains and e300 and coaches 8 and 9 on an e320. Also the RoI being outside Schengen (and having a formal opt-out for it) means they conduct somewhat stronger checks. If youre travelling in Standard, you can pop along to Caf Mtropole, our onboard bar buffet, to pick up drinks, snacks and meals en route. With Eurostar, border and luggage checks take place before departure, so we ask our passengers to arrive at the station early enough to complete them. We are not talking a once-a-day charter (ta && ta.queueForLoad ? We started off in (ta && ta.queueForLoad ? Stamping passports adds at least 15 seconds to each passengers border crossing time, Damas explains in the letter. also reported that he reaffirmed the UK Government's commitment to working with the French Government to ensuring any border control . FCA authorisation can be checked on the FCA register at https://register.fca.org.uk/s/, E-mail: Insurance@allianz-assistance.co.uk, 2023 Eurostar International Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Assuming that passport checks at embarkation are done at a reasonably even rate from the time the gate opens to the departure of the train, then the average delay per passenger for passport checks for a stopped train would be twice as long (for the same number of immigration officers) becuse all passengers would be stopped from the start of checks to the end of checks, which isn't the case with the current system. If you are actually US citizens and you were intending to visit the UK for less than 6 months and purely for tourism reasons, and you had reasonable proof of adequate funds, etc, you didn't need visas. (ta && ta.queueForLoad ? Anyway - we will go the Embassy route and see what happens. They cost 5 one-way. This is the version of our website addressed to speakers of English in the United States. I advise you to arrive a little earlier at St Pancras (I think 30 minutes is not enough 45 minutes is better). Do they check passports on trains in Europe? If you try to enter the UK by other means then you will be banned for even longer. Land border checks exist, but are usually targeted rather than general. ta.queueForLoad : function(f, g){document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', f);})(function(){ta.trackEventOnPage('postLinkInline', 'impression', 'postLinks-86776817', '');}, 'log_autolink_impression');Paris, and our plan was to travel to the UK via Eurostar today. - Are ferries an option with less strict border control? We started off in (ta && ta.queueForLoad ? When travelling to the UK, check the UK governments website to see if you need a visa. Please select Disneyland Paris (Chessy/Marne-La-Valle) as your destination. The rail operator is also facing "unique" financial pressures in the. In those circumstances the ONLY visa that might have (or would in the future) allowed entry would be a visa that specifically covers an entitlement to work. Some trains go on sale as early as 11 months in advance, with more trains added about 6 months in advance. Etias is intended be part of a smart-border solution for travel into the bloc, but with around 1.4 billion people required to use it, there are concerns that it will significantly delay border . Then comes Belgian passport control followed by UK passport control and the relatively painless X-ray security check. I assure you it was a complete misunderstanding, and unfortunately we were not working with very reasonable people. After a horrible morning of interviews and waiting, we are sitting in a Starbucks with a 6 YEAR ban of entry into the UK. . If you want to visit again within the next six years, I'd be seeing an immigration specialist in your home country and probably getting a visa - or certainly making sure I had a return ticket and very clear evidence of what I planned to do & not do while in the U.K. And, as I said earlier, I suspect that the OP was winging it and no accommodation booked in the UK which probably made UK Border Force suspicious. In that case we could have exactly the same on Eurostar, instead of all this enhanced nonsense that is approaching. 10 years ago, I had a flight cancelled at Stansted. If there was 100 border guards per train (so around five or six per carriage) they could easily check and stamp the whole train in five to ten minutes. Find out more. We started off in Paris, and our plan was to travel to the UK via Eurostar today. BORDER checks have been stepped up on Eurostar services after a shocking security loophole allows passengers to travel to Britain without any form of identification. Trains like the Tauern Express were otherwise handled much like ordinary trains, picking up noticeable commuter traffic near large cities. How long before departure should I arrive? If youre travelling to Amsterdam or Rotterdam, there may be customs officials on board carrying out checks during the journey. Good luck to anyone checking passports on the UK/Ireland border, or even an Irish Sea border, and if there are checkpoints on entering Dublin from the EU/EEA, no matter what the UK government might want, Ireland would have to allow almost all of them into Ireland otherwise they would be breaking EU laws. And that decision seemingly was that the amount of photographic equipment or other observations aroused a suspicion that the purpose of entry was to work. The difference here is that the OP had camera equipment AND runs a photography business. more, You seem to have JavaScript disabled. ABC gates | biometrics | border security | epassport | facial recognition | France | Vision-Box. Sitting in a Starbucks. With Eurostar, border and luggage checks take place before departure, so we ask our passengers to arrive at the station early enough to complete them. Cazenave, who has run the group since October 2022, added: Even I I have a work permit, they know who I am they ask: What are you going to do in the UK?. Find out more. As a result of some incidents on these services, we dont sell alcohol on board or allow travellers to bring their own alcohol with them. No-one here can give you legal advice or knows why you have been refused entry (presumably there is a lot more to the story). Schiphol airport: More flights to be cancelled as passenger caps extended until March 2023, Thinking of moving to Europe? He goes on to add that the restricted timetables and limited capacity trains that have been running post-Brexit are the only way that the company can avoid daily queues in the centre of London. We are tourists! Following the UKs departure from the European Union, additional border checks apply to UK citizens seeking to enter Schengen, Damas writes. We have friends in the UK we were planning on visiting. Strike action in France: revised timetable on 07 March. Ireland is as likely to reject non EU citizens at the border as the UK is. Whole process about 15 minutes. This initiative also represents the beginning of the next-generation of PARAFE, the French automated border crossing system that uses biometric authentication technology to verify passengers identity at the countrys borders. If by some miracle you do get into the UK the odds are that you will be arrested when you try to leave. SmartGate is an automated self-service border control system operated by the Australian Border Force and located at immigration checkpoints in arrival halls in eight Australian international airports. When you arrive, you may see Belgian customs officers on the platform carrying out routine checks. Obviously we want to be legal about this, but perhaps there is an easier way. Re: Eurostar Brussels border controls. She said tackling capacity issues at stations was her main priority, with Eurostar only able to offer about 70% of pre-Covid and Brexit seats across the Channel. Any alcohol is confiscated during check-in and only non-alcoholic drinks in sealed bottles are allowed to pass through security at your departure station. I agree with BrianC that some of the speculation on this thread is ridiculous. If you are on time at the terminal they will have to honor that. Since our trains dont have space to carry animals comfortably, we feel its in the best interests of pets, their owners and other passengers not to let them on the train. EU states are entitled to refuse entry to anybody, even EU citizens, who pose a risk to public safety or security. For information, we are unfortunately unable to accept pets for travel on Eurostar. Ridiculous! But Eurostar carries a different kind of "political symbolism," said Karine Varley, a lecturer in modern French history at the University of Strathclyde. Places to visit between London and Edinburgh?? No need to be there hours on advance. After a horrible morning of interviews and waiting, we are sitting in a Starbucks with a 6 YEAR ban of entry into the UK. The automated gate solution is designed for passenger convenience, including cameras that automatically adjust to the passengers height and innovative patented document feeder technology that promotes a high reading success rate. Cheapest place to fly into in the UK from the USA. Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; Good luck to anyone checking passports on the UK/Ireland border, or even an Irish Sea border, and if there are checkpoints on entering Dublin from the EU/EEA, no matter what the UK government might want, Ireland would have to allow almost all of them into Ireland otherwise they would be breaking EU laws. For all your plans to come to France, this section will give you all the practical information you need, together with links to the agencies of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs responsible for providing specific advice. Actually, for the trips from Brussels or Paris to London, the UK does immigration at the departure point and customs (nearly always just a walk through, but I have seen them stop some people) upon arrival in London. It might also help if the OP showed documentation confirming onward travel and where they intend to stay if it's not with the friends. You then wait in the Eurostar departure lounge (where there's a cafe, bar & shop) until your Eurostar is ready for boarding. Where are these checks? Please advise. She ruled out reinstating Eurostars popular ski train service or reopening Ebbsfleet and Ashford stops in Kent until the situation at big hubs was resolved. The Vision-Boxs vb i-match ABC eGates solution has been deployed for use by all passengers from the EU, the EEA and Switzerland over 18 years old and holding a valid electronic passport. Two out of three security scanners working, but that didn't matter as the queue for Belgian passport control backed up to security so you wouldn't get through any quicker. Eurostar says that, whoever's fault it is and at whichever end, it is losing 30% of its traffic because the frontier controls are not working properly, four years after Brexit started. Does The English Aristocracy Still Exist? Eurostar has been forced to raise prices and slash services to focus on its most profitable routes as it struggles with Brexit border controls and high interest rates on commercial loans agreed in . Hello everyone, we are Americans visiting for two weeks. When you arrive at your destination, you just walk off the train. Immigration checks are don. You must log in or register to reply here. The EU is looking to introduce its Entry/Exit System (EES) by the end of May 2023. Ridiculous! I've just been reading about horrendous queues at airports across the EU because of extra border controls: Does anyone know if Eurostar is also affected? (mins). As long as you check in 30 mins before departure of your train (or 10 mins if you're traveling business premier) you will be fine. Very strange. Normally that is plenty of time but am worried if these extra checks are in place I might have a problem. Sounds like you need to give up on the idea of the UK this time around. 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