Can anyone tell me their experiences with entering Spain with all their household effects? We will enter at Santander or Bilbao with a 7.5 tonne lorry full of stuff, plus two cats. We will not travel by road through France due to the overall journey time for the animals.

My concern is based on many trips Dover/Calais and Newhaven/Dieppe in the 70s and 80s when camping in France. Not once did we get aggro from the French customs on entry, but on our return to England we had about a 1 in 3 chance of being hugely delayed by zealous customs officers, who would spend an hour or so going through things like our camping cutlery and dirty underwear. Mmm!

Obviously an estate car loaded with 2 weeks camping gear is nothing compared to what we will bring to Spain. Are the Spanish customs very fussy? There won’t be anything dodgy in our stuff, but I’m concerned about significant delays while checks go on, especially as the cats may be sedated and we want to keep moving to minimise the journey time. Any feedback appreciated!

Drove over via the tunnel. No problems anywhere. We had a cat also sedated.
Customs looked in the back when leaving the UK, but nothing more

I took the Bilbao route with a Dodge people carrier filled to the roof with about a ton and a half of stuff on it.
It was a lhd and the passenger seats in the front were filled up to the windscreen, the only comment i got was at the driveby ticket office as they checked the paperwork for the ferry " got a load on there incha"
A friend who does removals has to leave a space below the roof so that the sniffer dog can crawl across the cargo.

Sedated why??? We are travelling over via the tunnel with four cats - yes four and we won't be sedating them. We are having our stuff taken over separately with a removal firm and will just have the cats and our overnight bags in the car. Got an estate and are currently pondering how to make the cats comfy for the journey

Hi Lionda,now dont roll over laughing will you,I thought you could get four of them inglo beds for them for in your boot,then they can each get nice and comfey,yes /no told you so

Oh - I love you Jean

Hey Jean - hubby has said to tell you - he is thinking of four poster beds for them, a Kitty-Kat vending machine and a video of 'what's new pussycat'

Im very lovable,good idea hey I bet your really excited now ,Iv kept meaning to go and find your thread and ask how the packing ect.is going,not been about that much,but now the O/H is back at work watch this space................tra

Tell him hes definatly a man after my own heart,you can live without my ideas whilst you have such a star

He's laughing Jean

Well that is a sure good sign,theres hope for him yet,must be very stressfull at the momement

He doesn't do stress Jean - he's playing his sax at the moment (he's always in a good mood, very laid back

Well with five nice pussy cats puuuuuuuuriiiiiig around him I supose its the only way to be oooops I meant four pussy cats

Mmm… A bit of thread creep going on here.

As I said originally I’m concerned about significant delays while checks go on, especially as the cats may be sedated and we want to keep moving to minimise the journey time. I’m not talking about anaesthetised, just sedated.

I’m not sure whether the ‘why?’ question is based on vast experience of transporting cats, or conversely, no experience. I’d be interested to know Lionda, how you get on with four unsedated cats on the long journey.

If you are packing boxes yourselves - suggest that as you pack them write an inventory and number the box correspondingly, if you do get stopped anywhere they are less likely to cause you agro if you produce something like that to show them. Good luck with the cats.