Customs hold ups Leaving LIbya?

Movers are here packing us up. 

They just told us we may have some problem getting out of customs because of all our books. WE werent' required to have a packing list of book titiles but we did provide list of all DVDs and CDs we had upon entry. 

Anybody else out already (Sandman, Laurie Loo) or know of friends already left who had problems?

We had a load of books, CDs and DVDs - no problems at all in exporting.

Thanks Mr. Sandman,
Can always count on you for ready info/experience to share.  Did you move to Aberdeen?  We're headed for Calgary.

justice4pal wrote:

Did you move to Aberdeen?  We're headed for Calgary.


Brrrr it's far too cold in Aberdeen! :(

As soon as the girl's visas get sorted, we're off to somewhere called Abu Dhabi. ;)

Same deal Justice - no problems with books getting out.  Had to supply a list of them for import but not export.  All of them got in here to Malaysia so I think you are okay with shipping to Canada. 

Haven't logged into here for a while - congrats on getting your walking papers Sandman!

Sandman, Abu Dhabi sounds nice - and hot! 

Laurie, thanks for the feedback.


Feeling relaxed as the packers work, damn they are slow.  When the guys packed us up in the US - it was 3 days start to finish - 40 ft container too.  Same size crew - three hours are just starting room #2.

Sandman6 wrote:
justice4pal wrote:

Did you move to Aberdeen?  We're headed for Calgary.


Brrrr it's far too cold in Aberdeen! :(

As soon as the girl's visas get sorted, we're off to somewhere called Abu Dhabi. ;)


Heaven in comparison to Tripoli! Enjoy it out there!

justice4pal wrote:

Feeling relaxed as the packers work, damn they are slow.  When the guys packed us up in the US - it was 3 days start to finish - 40 ft container too.  Same size crew - three hours are just starting room #2.


I heard the same story from 4 other expat friends who had moving out of the country this year. They told me that shipping companies here got their crews from "under the bridge", who don't have any packing experience and don't even have a clue how to pack things, and sometimes don't have even the right materials and boxes for packing especially the fragile items.
Can you keep us updates of how's your packing going?

We moved out in December and those movers were fast like lightning.  Nothing was broken despite my concern about how they seemed to just be chucking things into boxes willy nilly.  Only problem is that a brand new camping tent, still in the box, went missing.  Guess somebody upgraded their accomodations "under the bridge." :P

I have had two colleagues move in the last couple of weeks and the packing was very slow compared to what we are used to, generally the feed back is that they are very busy with moves so do not have the people available. That said at this point I expect we will be leaving before we get are stuff, was packed in Malaysia in March and as yet not arrived, apparently it is in customs now but no longer believe anything they tell me 

Friends that left in the last few weeks reported they had to stay in the room with the packers and watch them all day for several days...

edit: Might be a good idea if we put together an on going list here as to which companies are more reliable ?

Hmmmm.  The company moving us out are called Aramex. They are all wearing uniforms - hopefully they aren't one size fits all "under the the bridge" workers. 

The missing tent sucks.  Don't want to have watch these guys like a hawk.  Perhaps that is why they are all together in the same room working - maybe they've been told customers want to be able to see all the workers. 

When we left the states the men were in different rooms of the house all day.

The company which did our packing was IMS. They showed up 2 hours late which meant that I missed the England v Germany game, but they were generally professional, seemed to know what they were doing and packed everything well.

Considering the amount of stuff we were packing was less than a 20ft container load, they were very slow.

Can't comment if anything went missing as it hasn't arrived in the UK yet.

tough you missed the game.

how many days did they take????

Considering the spanking that England received, I wasn't too bothered missing the game! :lol:


The crew turned up at 11:30am - a chief packer and two gophers from under the bridge. Took them until 7pm in the evening to pack and load. As I said previously, there was about 2/3 of a 20 footer and their pace was rather glacial considering.