It would seem that things were no better on the other side of the Dover Strait, judging from the extraordinary story below:
Robert Howse, 64, from Nottingham, arrived in St Pancras on Monday afternoon after a journey from the south of France that started at 6am on Friday.
"I've been through hell," he said, advising other passengers not to attempt to take a ferry. "They don't want to be sending people that way. We were dumped 5km from Calais in some field in snow that was this deep," he said, gesturing to his knees.
"There were no buses or anything. Eventually we got into Calais, then we had to walk for half an hour to a ferry port, and then queue because the ferries were horrendous. When we eventually got to Dover every hotel was full and every taxi was full.
"I've only just got here by sheer tenacity and ingenuity. I'm too old for this, my feet are gone. Eurostar are all smiling faces here. If they had to do what I've just done they wouldn't be smiling."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/21/stranded-eurostar-passengers-london
Also it appears that Eurolines despatched a great number of coaches from Victoria bus station but that the Eurostar passengers using them had discovered this alternative by their own initiative.
Furthermore, the option of using the ferries from Dover was given very little mention by the BBC or others with the general assumption being that Eurostar passengers would have to wait until services through the tunnel restarted or they were able to go by air.
The problem with no less than five Eurostars all breaking down in the tunnel appears to have been due to our old friend, the wrong kind of snow. Fluffy snow that penetrated the ventilation grills and melted in the warmth in the tunnel causing control circuits to be shorted out. Eurostar subsequently fitted appropriate grills for the conditions and the trains were able to run again. Prior to that, if the entry on the website below is to be believed, the measures taken consisted of applying polythene sheeting and gaffer tape!
http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2009/12/eurostar-enquiry-has-a-lot-of-questions-to-answer/