Hello Ed, thanks for the Questions.
Yes we can store if for you for 6 months and whomever you are taking with in our sales department, probably John john@upakweship.com will be able to give you a special storage rate on this so its cheaper than a self store. Also your U Crate is then already in the right place to get shipped in the next container when you give us the go ahead to ship.
If though you prefer, we can ship a U Crate to you and then you taker it to a self store and load it and we collect it from there. bear in mind though that someone will have to be there to hand it over to us and also the U Crate would have to be outside on ground flat level for us to collect it.
We can also at a pinch hold the u Crate in our Rotterdam warehouse so it’s in the EU waiting for final delivery to Portugal if you prefer.
Either way works for us so its best what suits you to be honest.
Hope that helps,
Cheers, The International Moving Doctor.

Hello Paul, Yes absolutely, I presume you are talking something like a U Crate 100 which could be delivered to your house and then you could drive it over to a self store by a van or pick up truck and load it at the self store. We would then arrange to collect it from the self store. Don’t forget it would need to be on ground level for the pallet truck to pick it up.
First of all I was thinking you were talking about a 20ft shipping container but that would be hard for you to move across town to a self store lol.
Hope this answer is ok for you and anything else let me know.

Cheers The International Moving Doctor

Hello MCL, thanks for the great question.
First, there are no tariffs on peoples stuff, commonly called Household Goods and in most countries throughout the world, if you are moving to that country with authorization from that country and your items are declared as more than 12 months old, you will be able to import them, duty and tax free.
Second, the political situation in the world is not really effecting service levels or transit times. In fact the volume of moves we are doing from the USA at the moment has resulted in transit times speeding up for shipping where we are nearly loading a 40 foot shipping container full of U Crates and pallets every day.
We tend to specialize in shipping both ways across the Atlantic as well as Australia and New Zealand. Thankfully they are all stable so no political issues there.
There are however some delays in European ports at present (see my mini blog) for more details for the latest news on that. You can also track your shipment through our system tracker as well as we recommend vessel Tracker which is an app for your phone where you can view and track the ship your container is on to see where it is.

I hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions,

Cheers The International Moving Doctor

Hello Geoffrey, good question. Our contract covers a lot of extra blurb for just in case scenarios such as customs inspections and customs x rays. Customs worldwide have authority to search your shipment the same as they can search your luggage at an airport, however a full search of your belonging is rare and particularly rare on the route your shipment will be traveling. There is a chance however that Dutch Custome might put the Shipping Container through an X ray machine, which is where a truck pulling the container drives under what looks like a large arm or arch and Customs can see on a screen what is inside the shipping container and what is inside your crate and pallet. I dont think technology allows them to see your toothbrushes packed in a box yet but it would be able to tell if you had blocks of cocaine in your shipment for example. Typically, the charge we receive for a X Ray exam is about $300 so lets say in that 40 foot container we had 12 customers goods loaded, we would divide the $300 charge by the amount of shippers (12) and ask you to pay your share of the exam of $25. This is just an example but it would be something like that. We only charge you if we are charged although it is common for some not so good companies, particularly those who use different agents overseas to make up or inflate the charges for extra profit. You can see from our Google reviews that we do not do that as those that do normally have a lot of complaints.

So yes it is possible you get an X Ray but if it happens it wont be a lot and there is a much bigger chance you will not be charged anything extra. It’s just there to cover all bases just in case.

I think having our own offices in Charleston and Rotterdam and being established since 1994 allows us to have a good professional relationship with customs as well as we stay away from some ports that tend to have a much higher risk of physical inspections like the West Coast of the USA.

I hope that helps, it sounds like you are well organized and have the packing well under control.

Cheers The International Moving Doctor

Hello Jim, yes absolutely. I suggest getting heavy duty ones as the cheap ones can crack and split open if they are being stacked with a lot of weight on them. The other thing is bear in mind plastic bins are not normally square or oblong so you do waste some space when stacking them but if you are ok with that then yes go with it.
Cheers, The International Moving Doctor.

Hello Kim, yes you can keep the U Crate as long as you would like once the $750 deposit is paid as that covers the cost of the kit and the transport out to your home. If you then decided not to ship, you can keep the kit as we have no way of safely transporting the kit back to us but you would lose your deposit but we wouldn’t charge you anything for the shipping. I suggest if you are not sure about going through with your move you either use the pallet service where you get your own pallet locally (therefore we are not charging you for a crate and transport of it that you didn’t use) or wait to have the U Crate shipped to you until you are certain you are definitely going to be moving.
I hope that helps with alternatives, otherwise if you didn’t move, the worst case scenario would be you lost $750.

Cheers The International Moving Doctor

Hello Charles, you can just go to your local Lowe’s or Home Depot and buy the wood you need and build your crate. Any wood you buy from a store is fine to use. You just cant chop down a tree in your back yard and use that wood to make a crate.
Hope that helps, anything else let us know.
Cheers The International Moving Doctor

Hello Jim, we can still collect it, but will be a little more expensive and it might be collection days of only 3 times a week. If you fill out a quote form on the web site, they will be able to give you a door to door price for whatever service and destination you require.
Cheers, The International Moving Doctor

Hello Tom, thanks for the question. We can either store a U Crate 100 in the USA for $25 / week or in our Netherlands facility for 25 Euros per week if you need it stored. You can also advise us of a new delivery address at any time.
It’s standard procedure that before delivery we check with you to confirm the delivery address so at that time or anytime before, you can change the delivery address. We charge the same price for all of the Netherlands so it does not affect the price either.
I hope that helps, did you watch my video about us moving to the Netherlands with U Crates?
Cheers The International Moving Doctor

Hi Scott, it can depend a little on ship rotations and booking availability but the coordinator would be able to give you an eta of the vessel arriving in Antwerp once it was booked and you could expect delivery the following week after vessel arrives, possible the same week.
So in your case lets say we are allowed to take it into the port of Houston in week 1, then it is loaded and sails in week 2, allow 2 weeks sailing to Antwerp, then a week for unloading and customs clearance and delivery following week, makes on average 5-6 weeks. Once in a while it can be 4 but 5-6 in more likely.
Once we have a booking on a ship though i would budget for 7 days after the ship arrival. There are some delays going on in the USA and Europe in ports at the moment due to congestion.
I hope that helps, cheers The International Moving Doctor

Hello Mads, yes all should be ok but make sure batteries are dead and put in zip lock bag, separated from the tool.
All lumber should be treated, not sure about kiln dried and not sure how small amount it is. If its all in a box listed lumber then I would think customs would want to stop and inspect it, but a small amount in a box listed on a packing list as hobby equipment would probably be ok.
Sorry to be vague but we have to be a little careful in what we say.
Hope that makes sense, any further questions on this feel free to email the moving doctor move@upakweship.com
Cheers The International Moving Doctor

Hello Shipper 101. We ship all our box shipments like the pallet service or U Crates to our shipping facility near Rotterdam and then clear customs and truck your shipment to France to your new residence from there, so we don’t need an EPR so we do not help you get this.
All we need is a copy of your passport and a packing list. I hope this helps and makes sense.

Cheers

The International Moving Doctor