I'm starting this topic for people who want to share information about their shipment of personal items. Whether it be to Ireland, or from Ireland to elsewhere in the world, I think all the information we can gather/share will be useful to others who are moving internationally.
Share what you can on the following questions:
1. Where did you ship your items to/from?
2. Did you sent a full container load, or partial (FCL vs LCL)
3. How long did it take for your things to arrive? (approximate number of days/weeks)
4. What condition did the shipment arrive in?
1. Shipped items from Southern CA to Cork.
2. My items were packed mostly in boxes, and packaged on to 3 pallets (approx 7 feet tall).
3. The items were picked up in CA on May 29, and I received them on August 7th. That's 70 days. The estimate I was originally given was 8-12 weeks, which turned out to be pretty accurate.
4. Most things were in tact. There was some minor damage e.g. bed frame damage, broken radio. Thankfully nothing was missing.
I think this information is important to share, because it may help people plan what to bring, and what to re-buy. For example, if you're planning to move in September, you should expect to re-buy winter bedding (duvets etc), because you probably won't receive that stuff in time. That is unless you're pretty hardy and don't feel the cold too much 🙂 You might even end up having to re-buy Christmas decorations if the shipment is really slow to arrive.
Were those the standard square pallets or the long rectangular ones? How do you figure the space you used would compare to a 20 foot shipping container? (5.598mx2.325mx2.39m / 19'4"x7"8'x7'10" interior dimensions)
David - they were packed on standard pallets. I'll try to dig up the photos of how they looked upon arrival and post them here.
The approx shipment size was 200 cubic feet. A 20 foot container is approx 1170 cubic feet, so I guess I took up about one sixth of it.
I will update when I know more, but thus far I can say we shipped an LCL from Illinois to Dublin in July. Was estimated to take 6-12 weeks initially, we are now on week 16/17 and it's stranded in Rotterdam yet.
So far we've had two surprise charges that should be noted. An additional $500 for "change of address" when the shipping company accidentally shipped our goods to Dublin, UK, supposedly (all email correspondence from us stated Dublin IRELAND, all is in writing, they stated it didn't matter and because it had to be re-routed it was to happen at our expense). And then earlier this week we were charged $230 because our goods were flagged for x-ray inspection in Rotterdam and we were asked to pay for this "service".
@mcrose that's awful! We got hit with something like that before. It was going to the US though. Customs chose to scan the container that our things were in. It cost us $200, which I'm guess means a cost of approx $1200 if you had the whole container!
It's called the VACIS exam. I wonder is there a way to reduce your chances of being selected. e.g. route it takes, how many shipments are in the container etc. Could be worth looking in to for your way home in a few years time...
There's an interesting thread on it the VACIS here. Needless to say people are quite peeved at being caught for it!
I'm crossing my fingers for you on the change of address charge. Next time, draw them a map.