our shipping experience
So many people have asked so many questions during the process of making our move that I thought now it is all over I will in one go try and answer as many questions as possible, in the hope of helping others, as others helped us.
Back at the beginning of April we had recieved PR and started thinking about packing up and moving, so I dug out the NZ moving box and specnt a few hours reading all the glossy brochures from a number of removal companies that we had seen at recent emgirate show. Then I spent a couple more hours googling all of the companies, reading a large number of threads from people who had used them and narrowed the companies down to the good, the bad and damn right dreadful. At this point we had three left on the list so I rang each one and organised them to come to the house look at our stuff and give us a price.
First up was Allied Pickfords, the gentleman who visited was very helpful, tok his time looking around the house and was able to answer all of our questions, most of these we had found on a thread on here, I can't remember where but if anyone wants a copy PM me as I saved the list on the hard drive of the computer.
Second up was John Masons, again very friendly, professional and really knew his job, unfortunately they are only UK based and use Crown relocations in NZ and we were worried about things getting moved about and broken unneccesarily so we didn't go with them.
Last up was Crown, if you have used them and had a really good experience then please ignore my next comment. The man who came to the house was horrible, he spent 10 minutes max looking around, was rude and refused to answer any questions I had so before he left we had both decided against them.
So we went with Allied Pickfords and personally i'm pleased we did. In the UK they wer really helpful returning phone calls and emails promptly and very helpfully. The proce was competitive for a sole use 20ft container we paid just over £3000, we then had to pay MAF and customs on top of that and watch out if you are more than 30 miles from port as they try and add on a bit extra again. The packers were brilliant in the UK they turned up early packed quickly, efficently and made both me and my OH feel like a spare part. They checked the container once it arrived for holes etc. and then packed really well. When everything arrived on Wednesday nothing was broken and only one thing had a very small chip in it, so I really can't complain.
They kept in contact during the shipping, told us when the container had changed ship and although it did seem to spend long time in the suez canal it did arrive on time, I guess we had the weather on our side. Delievery took a week from docking to the house. Again the unpackers were effiecent, polite and hard working, they took all the boxes away with them, and even returned to collect the MAF boxes after the inspection.
So, overall nine weeks door to door was great. We didn't get our insurance form them having read lots of horror stories, instead we went with letton perceival, download the form from their website spend some time looking at NZ websites to give you an idea of replacement values and then fax it off to them. We were all sorted within 7-10 days and it was reasonable priced.
I hope this helps someone, if you have any other questions let me know and I'll try me bes to answer them.
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Originally Posted by explorer
