Airports and Customs

[jlgx50]

so I'm going to England next week, and I don't know how long it's going to take me to get through customs, the guy at the flight center said it took him 4 hours, but i'm not sure if i should believe him, 4 hours seems extremely long

what are you opinion?

 

[CJ1145]

I got through Peru's customs in about 30 minutes, if it eases your worries. England might be paranoid as **** though, you never know.

 

[Almalexia]

Well, mind you, this is when I went to the Bahamas, but it didn't take 5 minutes for me.

 

[jlgx50]

well no I'm not saying i expect them to just wiz me through, i'm just hopping with all the jet lag i'm expecting to have I don't have to stand in line for 4 hours waiting to be told i'm not a terrorist

 

[CJ1145]

Unless England is really bad it shouldn't even be half that long.

 

[Sushiman70]

Four hours sounds like a bad case. You're probably looking at two hours, maybe two and a half. Also, considering it's about a 25-30 hour trip, jetlag shouldn't be too bad if you sleep on the plane.

 

[mor2]

getting early is better than being late, 4 hours sound good, if you count parking, finding the place and meating people, going through the check points (especially if it's holiday season) and buying some good booze at the duty free and just take the whole thing easy...

 

[Jace]

I don't think I spent that long in the UK customs whenever I've flown over. The longest wait was waiting for the darn luggage. And figuring out where to go.

 

[Verbeek]

I've been stuck in Vancouver for 8 hours because of Heathrow. But just getting through customs there never took me longer than one hour.

 

[Jace]

Vilhja: Not that muchly, I believe. Usually the queues are divided into two: Natives and foreigners. Occasionally EU passports might get their own lane as well. Or when flying to F-land, you can just waltz out from the plane and airport without anyone even checking for your passport or anything.

 

[arbites_augmented]

It will take you around an hour, hour and a half to get through customs, and probably another half an hour to an hour to get your luggage.

 

[An4Sh]

so I'm going to England next week, and I don't know how long it's going to take me to get through customs, the guy at the flight center said it took him 4 hours, but i'm not sure if i should believe him, 4 hours seems extremely long

what are you opinion?

Apart from the massive line, it took me about 5 seconds. And I waited at most 15 minutes with a line streching outside the designated area.

 

[Buxton]

We're not as paranoid as the USA, it wont be that bad.

 

[Lord Burgess1]

You'd get through faster if you weren't a terrorist foreigner with a beard.

 

[Familyguy1]

4 hours?! It took me like 30-45 minutes 2 weeks ago... apart from the long line, it was damn easy.

 

[mournful]

Last time I flew, I got pulled from the line getting on the plane and they felt me up. This was after I had already gotten past the check point and metal detector. Not sure what I did wrong... I don't have a beard.

 

[Orion]

finding the place and meating people

Definitely a terrorist.

 

[Nahkuri]

I thought it meant something similar to porking people.

 

[Archonsod]

Doesn't it depend on where you're coming from and what your official nationality is?

Depends on where the flight is from. EU flights in the free movement zone you're unlucky if they even bother checking the passport. Elsewhere is longer, particularly if visas need to be checked. Also depends on the airport. If it's busy you can end up waiting half an hour until they have the staff to open customs, let alone unload the plane.

 

[Bulle]

Longest time I've got was a few seconds, depending on what I have in the bag. In Italy they tend to be very curious and talkative and they make up excuses to look at my technology like a trekstor or a nice camera. Like ones this Italian customs man asked me to open up my bag, then he made some kind of a swap in there and asked me how many gigabytes I had on it, I told him and then he was gloating about how much more he had on his trekstor. Another time some girls told me to take out all technology from the computer so it can go through the scan again, but all they really wanted was to look at my camera.

And I've noticed that if you fly in and out of Holland you will encounter many drugdogs sniffing around customs.