shipping UK-PT

[Polli62]

Good luck with your move and hope everything goes smoothly and unstressfull.

[shanagarry]

Muito obrigado

[Polli62]

De nada

[algarvedave]

I think before choosing any company for any work you need to also look at the companys background and not just their prices.
You need to know how long they have been doing removals.
Do they have experienced and trained staff?
Do they do packing and wrap your things to protect them?
Do they have Goods in Transit insurance?
Does their price include collecting and delivering?
Do they load and unload?
Does the price per cbm apply to all sizes of loads or is it a sliding scale, ie the more cbms the lower the price per cbm.
Do they have the necessary licences - under fairly new laws in Portugal to operate a removal they will need a transport licence, ask to see it. . Without it your goods can be confiscated by the Brigado Transito if they are stopped and checked.

I am guessing they are shipping using sea shipping containers rather than overland by truck.
This takes approx 10 to 14 days door to door from loading the container to arrival in the Algarve.
A truck takes 3 days.
At the end of the day you get what you pay for. If you want a cheap job then cheapest is best.
If you want a professional job by a properly licenced and experienced removal company then I suggest one of the following Algarve based companies -

New Concept International Removals
AIM
DLS
Algarve Removals
Algarve Fre**** Centre
Direct
Neil Richardson

I have lived in the Algarve 20 yrs and all the above have been around a good length of time, have a good reputation and can give you a professional service - but maybe not at the cheapest price.

Good luck.

[jimmyp]

Has anyone got any thoughts on an alternative for shipping small parcels out - Only looking at sending out a box of bits for our holiday to try and avoid getting stung with excess baggage charges from BMI again!!

Any thoughts welcomed!

James

[algarvedave]

Has anyone got any thoughts on an alternative for shipping small parcels out - Only looking at sending out a box of bits for our holiday to try and avoid getting stung with excess baggage charges from BMI again!!

Any thoughts welcomed!

James

Most of the companies I mentioned above will transport small items very cheaply if they are delivered in to their warehouse in UK and collected from their warehouse in the Algarve.

Try these -
New Concept International
Algarve Fre**** Centre
Direct Transport
all these have this facility and weekly trucks and are cheap and very reliable.

[maccasa]

For small parcels of a few Kg, the post office is ok, my daighter uses them for her e bay items! - if its 10kg + use someone like transglobal express who are a cheapo agency for DHL, TNT, etc (try to avoid DHL they are a pain!)

[maccasa]

apologies see www.transglobal.org.uk

[tricky]

Hi don't get caught out like I did. I thought it would be quite reasonable to send a pair of curtains to portugal. It cost £48.00 through the post office!

Next time I will get a few more pieces together and use one of the recommended carriers.

[shanagarry]

Over the course of the last 3 months I have evaluated the offerings of all the companies listed plus some. We are moving permanently to Carvoeiro in the next two weeks and are having our entire UK home moved next Wednesday/Thursday.

I invited price quotations from 9 providers (most recommended on here and on expats site). Given that everything we own is involved I had to make sure they could do the work and had the appropriate insurances. I took note of a number of PMs received as a result of my post on here as the experience of some was 'harrowing'. I took the time to measure the bulky items to avoid the risk of me being hit with an additional cost when the removers arrived to start loading (apparently that is a standard ploy). Of the companies I invited to quote only two thought it necessary to visit us to see the scale of the task.The size of the load is 41m3 - but based on my measurements the prices suggested a range of 34m3 to 53m3.

I received more recommendations for the remover we choose than any other - but I also received warnings about those to avoid. I heard of loads being transferred on the French motorway service areas, loads being delivered in part, missing items of significant value, insufficient insurance resulting in claims being disallowed and many more.

The prices offered ranged from £2,500 to £5,600 but insurance cover was limited to £25,000 in all cases - we needed more than that.

We choose Trans-Portugal because they took the time to visit, their pricing was in the middle of the range, their insurance cost was sensible and they responded to the many questions I asked very quickly.

Our belongings will arrive on Friday 25th June (our preference) as we are driving down and have no desire to rush. Clearly the 'proof of the pudding will be in the eating' and should I have anything negative and positive to report - you can rest assured it will feature on here.

[jonboy]

Did Algarve Removals in Chelmsford come up in your research? They are on the money with regards cost and appear to do that others do.... interested to hear if anyone has used them ?

JB

[shanagarry]

JB - they did but I was not overly impressed with having to chase them continuously for information and their insurance over £25,000 was very expensive. I got the impression that getting greater cover was not straightforward.

Their price was not too dissimilar to Trans-Portugal.

[EMM]

One thing to consider is access, we had to have our goods transferred to 2 smaller trucks as the UK vehicle could not access our small urbanisation. This extra handling did result in some minor damage and made unpacking a longer process. We had to have 3 loads rather than I large one.
We were not charged extra however .

[maccasa]

Did Algarve Removals in Chelmsford come up in your research? They are on the money with regards cost and appear to do that others do.... interested to hear if anyone has used them ?

JB

Used them 3 times and they were very good - picked up on time, delivered on time as stated. We did have one whoopsie with a glass table top but they paid for a replacment top without any hassle.