Hi folks, just a quick question please.

I have a couple of shipping companies coming to look around our house and provide a quote for shipping from here (UK) to Dubai. Just wondered from experience what did everyone else ship? is there anything thats more hassle than its worth?

At the moment we are planning to take everything including the fridge!

Any advice appreciated.

we are in the same boat (no pun intended!). In the midst of getting quotes too. We are leaving our white gooods here as we are renting out the property, but it does seem that white goods are readily for sale on dubizzle. Wont be taking too many coats or umbrellas either.

Apart from our personal items and a few larger electrical pieces we're actually leaving everything behind. We're going to freight over the PC related items and that's it. White goods, furniture, smaller electricals will be bought when we get there. Our place in London will be rented out as furnished so it just made sense for us to leave it all behind.

Having said that my husband who is already in AD, now has the added hassle of having to look for the above mentioned items ready for our arrival on top of working long hours.

I shipped the contents of a large 3 bed room house.

Shipping wasn't that expensive - 1700quid by a company called "city moving"

Based purely on personal experience and current situation I would avoid GAC...

Crown relocation were pretty good.

it's no hassle...we shipped everything over...it was packed for us at one end, and unpacked at the other, all relatively painless...

MM, xx

Hurrah, a fellow "Newbie"!
Thanks for the help, yes umbrellas and coats are off the "To Take" list! We are renting our house out too while we are away otherwise we'd have just taken what we need and not everything!

Thanks for the advice people. Will check out the recommendations and avoid GAC! Hopefully, from the responses, it doesnt seem like its going to be too much of a hassle.

why, you'll need the umbrellas for sure...and depending on how you feel the cold, i'd pack a jacket or two...

MM, xx

yeah remember last December and January!! Mitten went to school dressed as Paddington Bear last year

We used PSS and they were fine. Particularly on the London end they certainly knew what they were doing. The delivery this end was done by a local agent.

We only shipped books/pictures and kitchen stuff as we are letting our London flat fully furnished. Nonetheless we chose to insure everything which I think was a bit of a waste of money. There were some breakages but not enough to justify making a claim.

A tip: if you're not moving everything, make your life easier by going round the house in the weeks before the move and stick "leave me" post-its on the stuff that you don't want to take. 5 minutes a day saves an enormous barrel of hassle on the day of the move.

We used excess international because out of the three quotes the company picked that one (it was in the middle).the office communication was shite, The movers were great that end, ok this end. They assembled some of the furniture really badly- the kids bunkbed was lethal. On the plus side there were few breakages. On the minus, there was an extra charge as they couldn't get a container down near our building.
To be honest the most hassle was getting my company to settle the bill. My container was held for four days whilst my company fanied about...

My husband was supervising the move and therefore we brought everything, including a broken single bed which was supposed to go to the dump, a bag of plastic wine glasses from the pound shop, my sheepskin coat and 16 digibeta masters (proprty itv) from my last TV series. I'm sure they'll all come in handy...

A very interesting thread - we're still in UK, but looking to ship across in April. Have already contacted Crown Relocation, and, following the above recommendation, I've just dropped City Moving a line also.

Has anyone brought antiques across? I'm not talking about ancient stuff, but some of our furniture is getting on for 150 years old - I guess the containers must get rather hot, even at April/May time, and I wonder how well old furniture copes with the move?

What is the score with bringing DVDs? I've heard that customs can be a bit picky. None of ours are remotely dodgy (we're a family), but even so some have scenes where a few clothes are missing (15 certificate stuff, nothing extreme) - will these be confiscated, or cause huge delays?

Thanks!

DVD's will be fine. I would be a bit wary about the furniture though? it is pretty hot here in April/May.

We had all sorts of DVDs in a box clearly marked "DVDs". We also (as I found out yesterday) had several books (e.g. Manwatching by Desmond Morris) which have pictures of nekkid peepl. None of this was touched.

Unless the customs department is severely overstaffed they presumably only check a random selection of boxes across multiple shipments.