Frustrated holidaymakers were warned travel misery could last all summer - as one traveller reported waiting 30 hours trying to get to Europe.
Major incident status remained in place in Kent as huge queues of cars waited to get to Dover and the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone
Vehicles were once again bumper to bumper as 10,000 cars passed through the Port of Dover. There were also around 3,000 lorries parked on the M20.
Natalie Chapman, from haulier group Logistics UK, said some lorry drivers had waited to cross the Channel for “well over 18 hours”.
Ferry operator P&O told passengers to allow at least six hours to clear the approach roads and security checks, although later in the day they lowered this to four.
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This weekend is one of the busiest periods for foreign travel from the UK as most schools in England and Wales have broken up for summer.
There were also huge queues at airports. At Bristol Airport hundreds of passengers were already snaking around terminals by 4.30am.
Queues for flights were also reported at Heathrow and Gatwick.
Motorists have been warned this weekend will be the busiest for traffic, with the RAC estimating 18.8million trips were planned in the UK between Friday and Monday.
Rail passengers also faced disruption yesterday as strike action by Greater Anglia left the network with heavily reduced services. No services were running from Cambridge and Bishops Stortford to London Liverpool Street.
There will be more mayhem on the railways across the country this week as more than 40,000 rail workers take strike action on Wednesday after talks failed to resolve a dispute over pay, jobs, and conditions.
Travellers stuck in the Kent gridlock told how it was taking several hours just to move a couple of miles.
Pictures posted online showed people walking their dogs on the M20 while one family was seen playing badminton in the traffic jams to pass the time.
Michael Ackroyd and his family were travelling from Saddleworth to Dijon in France. They left their hotel near Dartford at 4.30am to head to the Eurotunnel, arrived in the Folkestone at 6.30am, but then moved only three miles in eight hours.
Pensioners Paul and Wendy Nicholas, from Brockenhurst, Hants, were heading to Cologne, France, to join a Saga river cruise.
They caught a taxi to a hotel near Folkestone, where they were due to catch a coach to take them to the port. But the retired pair were unable to reach the town due to motorway closures - leaving them stranded with their luggage.
Paul said: “The journey went superbly until we were just two miles from the Holiday Inn in Folkestone. It was absolutely chock-a-block. We tried some country roads and they were all solidly blocked.”
They ended up catching a train to the port to catch their coach - but were left waiting for hours as the bus had barely moved.
Former Assistant Chief Constable Paul, 76, Paul said: “At this point it was still 18 miles away and had moved just 800 yards in four hours. We’ve no idea when the coach is going to get here and we’ve no idea how long it’ll take us to get to Cologne to join the ship for the river cruise, which is meant to be departing at 5.15pm. It’s been a disaster.”
Retired probation officer Wendy, 68, said: “They can’t even tell us what time we’ll get there because it’s just gridlocked.”
They said 150 people were due to join the seven-night cruise - most of whom are still stranded on the coach in Folkestone.
Paul added: “This volume of people is normal for Dover - they’ve coped with it before - so something must be different. I can only think there’s a bit more formality now than there used to be.
“I suppose this has been the first big test for the Port of Dover since Brexit - because Covid stopped people travelling.”
As people struggled with the gridlock the political blame game was taking place.
Port of Dover chiefs blamed Friday’s delays, which lasted up to six hours, on a lack of French border officials.
Today they said French border staff had been “fully mobilised” to clear the backlog.
Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss called on France to act over “entirely avoidable” delays at the border.
The Foreign Secretary said the delays and queues were “unacceptable”, blaming a lack of staffing by the French at the border.
She said: “This awful situation should have been entirely avoidable and is unacceptable. We need action from France to build up capacity at the border to limit any further disruption for British tourists and to ensure this appalling situation is avoided in future.
“We will be working with the French authorities to find a solution.”
Local MP Natalie Elphicke said “long, long delays” were expected again and insisted the French authorities “should apologise to Dover residents and holidaymakers for the unnecessary holiday chaos at the start of the Summer getaway”.
But French politician Pierre-Henri Dumont, Republican MP for Calais, blamed Brexit for the chaos and warned the problems at the Kent port will happen again.
He said: “This is an aftermath of Brexit. We have to run more checks than before.”
Mr Dumont also said the Port of Dover is “too small” and there are too few kiosks due to lack of space.
He also said the British government had “rejected a few months ago a proposal to double the number of passport booths” for French police in Dover.
His comments linking delays to Brexit were backed up by the Port of Dover chief executive Doug Bannister, who said it must be recognised that there will be “increased transaction times” at the border due to extra checks needed.
He said: “We are operating in a post-Brexit environment which does mean that passports need to be checked, they need to be stamped and indeed the capable people that do man the booths, police aux frontieres, they’re doing their job that they need to do now.”
He said the port had “created more border capacity so that the overall throughput can be maintained”.
Their modelling had shown some “very peak busy days during the summer season” are expected, but added: “For the most part we should be able to cope with the traffic.”
Jack Cousens, head of roads policy for the AA, said: “Drivers should continue to expect disruption and delays on major holiday routes to the south-west, eastern coast and ports of Dover and Folkestone.
“While many have decided to go at the start of the summer holidays, between now and the beginning of September when schools return, each Friday and Saturday will be busy on our roads.
“This is because these are the main switchover days for holiday lets.”
