A mum has told how her son was stuck at Dover for 16 hours with no running water.
Gillian Charlton, 43, said her son Ned, 13, and his friends were stuck in the holding area for more than 12 hours waiting to go on a ski holiday.
The students set off for their ski trip at 9.30am on Saturday morning from Chorley, Lancashire, and had been expecting to catch an overnight ferry before continuing their journey by coach to Pila, Aosta Valley, Italy.
She said the children are only allowed to get off to use a portaloo and were given one KitKat at midnight.
Gillian said yesterday: "They are on the ferry at last. Following a delay at Dover port of almost 20 hours my son and his school friends are finally boarded and once again have access to food, water and their sanity."
Other parents have said shared their stress about their children being stuck at Dover.
Marc Mitchell-Miles, 47, said His daughter Lily set off from Weston-super-Mare at 3pm on Saturday with school friends for a week-long ski trip in Italy.
Father-of-two Marc said: “As parents, we’re terribly upset and worried that they’re having to go through this and I can’t be there to provide comfort and reassurance in person.
"We can’t settle until we know what’s going on. There is also the cost of the trip which they’re going to be missing out on a sizeable chunk of.
"It cost around £900 for the trip, but then there is also spending money and ski lessons before going on top of this.
“We wanted this to be a memorable experience, but not for this reason."
He added: "The irony of the whole situation is that one of the schools going with them was let down last minute by their coach company and had to book a flight instead.
"They thought they were going to miss out, but it has very much worked in their favour and they are probably already there by now.”
Other families said they had to walk 45 minutes into Dover to get food while waiting at the port.
Cerie Bullivant, 40, said the queue for the women’s toilets at the port is "snaking round the building" and there doesn’t seem to be any access to free drinking water.
The father-of-four left London Victoria at midnight with his wife Astracia and his kids aged nine, seven, five and one, and they were hoping to get the 10am ferry across to Amsterdam to visit Astracia’s parents for the Easter holidays.
Cerie, of Croydon, south London, said: "We don’t seem to have any access to free drinking water and can’t find anywhere to fill up our water bottles.
"I have just come back from walking into Dover town centre to find my family some food.
“It was a 45-minute walk each way.
"At the port, there is a small Costa to provide for all the people here and all the vending machines in the port are completely empty."
The Port of Dover says a backlog of coaches trying to cross the English Channel was cleared last night - with lots more holidaymakers expected to visit today.
In a statement the Port said: "All of this weekend’s coaches have been processed through immigration controls at the port and have headed off to France. The critical incident has been stood down.
"The Port of Dover continued working round the clock with the ferry operators and border agencies to get coach passengers on their way and the backlog is now cleared.
"Along with the final coaches being processed through the port, all tourist cars and freight vehicles were also processed successfully.
"We continue to offer our sincere apologies to all those affected by the prolonged delays that have occurred over this weekend. We will be conducting a full review of our plans with the ferry operators early this week to ensure improvements are made ready for the forthcoming Easter weekend."
