Advice needed driving to dover during Olympics

jmb1

Got ferry booked 7pm Dover to Calais on the 29th July (this sunday).

Been told the M25 is even more a nightmare now with olympic lanes shut etc.

What's best advice? In retrospect we should be staying in folkestone or something overnight and getting a mporning crossing, but its booked now.

Is it possible / worth avoiding m25 if so what route?

Or do we just leave very early in morning (from Swansea) to allow a possible few hours stuck on m25? If so how long do we reckon it will add on top of the 4 hour 40 journey time?

w211

I can't imagine the M25 being any busier than it normally would on a Sunday, but remember it's the last Sunday of the month, too.

Most of the traffic and congestion will be in central London, where the Games lanes take up some of the road.

The cycle race is on as well which goes through Surrey, but that would probably be finished by then, and the roads should be open.

I would just leave early in the morning, leave at least another 4 hours or so just in case.

Can't think of any other routes to avoid the M25, but it's worth getting off at Junction 10 of the M4, use the A329 and A322 through Bracknell, join the M3 at junction 3, and join the M25 at Junction 12.

This avoid the busiest part of the M25 between Junctions 12 and 15, and around Heathrow Airport.

jmb1

w211 wrote: »

I can't imagine the M25 being any busier than it normally would on a Sunday, but remember it's the last Sunday of the month, too.

Most of the traffic and congestion will be in central London, where the Games lanes take up some of the road.

The cycle race is on as well which goes through Surrey, but that would probably be finished by then, and the roads should be open.

I would just leave early in the morning, leave at least another 4 hours or so just in case.

Can't think of any other routes to avoid the M25, but it's worth getting off at Junction 10 of the M4, use the A329 and A322 through Bracknell, join the M3 at junction 3, and join the M25 at Junction 12.

This avoid the busiest part of the M25 between Junctions 12 and 15, and around Heathrow Airport.

Thanks W211 great advice. It's just I had heard the M25 also had lanes shut?

Sambucus_Nigra

w211 wrote: »

I can't imagine the M25 being any busier than it normally would on a Sunday, but remember it's the last Sunday of the month, too.

Most of the traffic and congestion will be in central London, where the Games lanes take up some of the road.

The cycle race is on as well which goes through Surrey, but that would probably be finished by then, and the roads should be open.

I would just leave early in the morning, leave at least another 4 hours or so just in case.

Can't think of any other routes to avoid the M25, but it's worth getting off at Junction 10 of the M4, use the A329 and A322 through Bracknell, join the M3 at junction 3, and join the M25 at Junction 12.

This avoid the busiest part of the M25 between Junctions 12 and 15, and around Heathrow Airport.

This is the route I took for years when driving between Kent and Wales - it does indeed miss a chunk of the M25 and gives your legs a bit of a stretch from all that motorway driving.

w211

jmb1 wrote: »

Thanks W211 great advice. It's just I had heard the M25 also had lanes shut?

There are no Olympic Games lanes on the M25.

Only on the M4 between Junctions 3 and 1, but that shouldn't really affect the M25 at all.