UK<\/a> airports, DFDS staff invented their own condition: that a British passport somehow \u201cexpires\u201d 10 years after issue. This has never been the case.<\/p>\nMs Drinkeld says: \u201cThe DFDS check-in assistant stated the nine months extra must be removed and my \u2018new expiry date\u2019 was 19 March 2025. She input this date into the border control website and stated I was refused entry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI insisted my expiry date should not be amended, but she passed me to another colleague who confirmed the same. My two children were very distressed as it was a trip for my daughter\u2019s seventh birthday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trip to Holland was the only thing she had asked for on her birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Drinkeld found evidence on the UK government website that confirmed her passport was valid for travel. But she says her protests were ignored: \u201cAs the assistants were refusing to listen to the legislation I was showing them, we had no choice but to leave the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides forfeiting the price of their ferry crossing, the family lost out on museum tickets in Amsterdam, food bought for the ferry and extra costs \u201corganising last-minute birthday plans for my daughter in the hope the whole weekend wasn\u2019t ruined\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Drinkeld then submitted a formal complaint to DFDS and was told, incorrectly, that border control had refused entry. She then contacted The Independent, which investigated on her behalf.<\/p>\n
A DFDS spokesperson said: \u201cUnfortunately, on this occasion, our check-in team misinterpreted the rules regarding the validity of Ms Drinkeld\u2019s passport and refused boarding at Newcastle.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs her passport was issued less than 10 years ago, travel should have been permitted. We are very sorry that the decision led to the cancellation of Laura\u2019s plans, especially given it was going to be such a special occasion to celebrate her daughter\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are writing to her directly to express our sincere apologies and to offer her family the opportunity to travel at a future date at no expense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are rebriefing our check-in team today to clarify and reiterate the correct interpretation of the rules and will work hard to ensure that other passengers do not find themselves in the same circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, Ms Drinkeld said: \u201cThe last three weeks have been so stressful after the complete humiliation we felt in that port. I\u2019m so pleased the team are being retrained, and no one else will have to face the situation we had to deal with.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole thing was handled so poorly, even without the misunderstanding of the rules. They have completely ignored my husband\u2019s lengthy email explaining the way we were spoken to in the port and lack of empathy shown by the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Independent has asked DFDS to check whether other passengers have been wrongly turned away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sailing by: King Seaways, one of the DFDS ships used on the Newcastle-Amsterdam route (DFDS) Four years after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6052],"tags":[20273,20274,6057,20275,20276,20272],"class_list":["post-34880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dfds","tag-british-passport","tag-daughters-birthday","tag-dfds","tag-expiry","tag-laura-drinkeld","tag-passport-rules"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116188521780122824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Sailing](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/714ea367cca76e163282b29957dec510.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n