CalMac Reviews 

I recently interacted with Jude, and had a fantastic experience. Jude was professional, knowledgeable, and incredibly helpful. He listened attentively to my concerns, provided clear answers, and simplified complex information.

His friendly demeanor and genuine empathy made me feel valued as a customer. Jude went above and beyond to resolve my issue promptly and followed up to ensure everything was satisfactory. His dedication and excellent service have greatly improved my perception for CalMac. I highly recommend Jude for his outstanding customer service skills.

Thank you, Jude, for making my experience exceptional.

Our return ferry from Port Askaig to Kennacraig was cancelled without notification, we weren’t informed until we arrived at the port. The CalMac port crew gave us a card with a QR code to claim for hotel and meals etc but that was it. We were moved into a standby queue for the next ferry the following morning with no guarantee there would be space for us. To keep the place in the queue we couldn’t move the car to drive to a hotel so looked like we would need to spend the night in the car. Luckily we got two rooms at the hotel at the port, confident that CalMac would cover the costs. When I submitted the claim for the hotel rooms, it was declined as apparently the ferry had been cancelled due to poor weather! There was no poor weather and CalMac are unable to provide evidence to prove the actual weather conditions but will still not honour the claim. I suspect they are lying to get out of paying for a valid claim and using weather as an excuse. A note for other CalMac users, when they cancel your ferry crossing (high probability) your ticket is null and void and you have to rebook but are given no priority - in our case the next bookable crossing was not for another 2 days so we would have been on the hook for £400 of hotel accommodation plus unplanned time off work. You also do not get any priority on the next ferry crossing, the travellers with a booking on the crossing are loaded first and the standby lane is only loaded if there is space left. You really are left high and dry. Islay really is a lovely place and great to visit but I will never go to any of the Scottish islands again until this shambles of a company loses the monopoly on these routes and a competent company takes over.

Prioritise those who have not booked in standby over those whose bookings they have cancelled. Sadly will not book island trips for some years as not worth the stress.

They don't have a clue what they are doing.. when l booked online. They took all my details and blue badge number and l paid. When l turned up l was told the car wasn't booked in. But l could park it and go as a foot passenger even tho l am disabled..l managed to get to passenger entrance just in time and joined the prepaid ticket queue and was lucky to get on that as we were the last ones on and they turned down passengers who had also had prepaid tickets..it's a poor way to treat your customers and l would not recommend you use them

CalMac are now a national disgrace. Saturday 4th May was an utterable shambles. You must arrange to transfer this Arran service to some party like Western Ferries immediately like by July 2024.

Total joke of a company. Friday boat canceled to Brodick moved to Saturday morning sailing which is also canceled this morning. Good old SNP investing in Scotlands infrastructure

No surprise, awful. Arran ferry rerouted to Troon despite minimal wind, suspect they are trying to make a point with Peel Ports at Ardrossan.

Revised Troon timetable not linked up to Stagecoach buses, so you need to spend 1-2 hours hanging around Brodick terminal.

I feel so sorry for tourists and local businesses impacted by this &hitshow :-(

Website is trash. It is impossible to register an account (it simply doesn't work) and the time table look ups and ticket booking pages are bewildering and simply do not work. I guess it's a lack of competition that leads to such dreadful service.

Trying to make amendments to a booking online but no portal available to do so. My booking is not registered in My Account.
Useless website.

We were visiting friends last week, this involved a ferry trip. Storm Kathleen made this very difficult our ferry was cancelled 2 days running due to the weather. CalMac comms team did a great job keeping everything up to date. Quick, timely and efficient there are multiple ways to keep up to date.

Good job, thank you

I tried to book for three foot passengers and a dog on a day trip to Mull from Oban. Website would not allow me to book an outbound ferry earlier than 11.25am regardless of which day of the week I tried to book for. Then 24 hours after booking the sailing was put back to 12.15pm giving us less than half a day on Mull. When I phoned customer services a helpful lady advised that there was plenty of space on earlier sailings and changed my booking. - The online ticketing service is utter rubbish. My heart goes out to local folk who have to rely on this company. I almost cancelled the booking which would have resulted in a loss of trade to the businesses on Mull. I wonder how many people 'give up' in frustration?

Totally shocking and not fit for purpose.
The captain of the lord of the isles has decided to cancel tomorrows sailing due to weather when the forecast is ok I live on the island and we are all fed up with calmac and there copout so called captains that keep cancelling sailings when the forecast is fine yes breezy but under 35mph really is ok. We have important hospital visits and funerals & family emergencys that are all missed because of senior management & poorly trained and skilled captain's put in charge of important life line ferry's.

We fully understand when the weather is bad to cancel the service but not when there's nothing wrong. The Barra ferry is going the north uist ferry is going but not the lochboisdale ferry as it's not fit for purpose!
Get a private company in to run it who will have the ability to run a proper ferry service.

Re-routed from Androssan to Troon on 7 April due to wind. Sat in queue for 3 hours, then all sailings suddenly cancelled without warning. Offered nothing before Tuesday afternoon. Lost 2 of our 4 nights in Arran (assuming ferry gets us there today..) I get the weather, but a 2-day delay just isn’t acceptable. Zero effort made to put more services on or help at all. Luckily we had local friends for 2 unplanned nights in Glasgow. Ruined our holiday. The result is that we will never plan to stay on a Scottish island again as CalMac just can’t be trusted to get us there and back. Can’t be good for the local island economy.

Not even sure why Ive bothered writing this either, as CalMac doesn’t even bother responding to its reviews. Go on, I challenge you to respond and justify your performance this weekend. Bet you don’t.

Second year in a row our ferry from Oban to Mull has been cancelled! At least this time they didn’t leave it until the night before! Just wish I could give no stars as they don’t deserve any, guess they don’t care as they haven’t any competition

We needed to change our booking to allow our dog to travel with us. Nothing could have been easier! Cheerful and efficient help over the phone from Lynne. Thanks Calmac.

Travelled from Ardrossan to Brodick on elderly ferry on 20th March. Journey out on calm day was good , all was uneventful. Aware on 21st that ferry back had been cancelled after first sailing but no contact from company or updates re our return journey on 22nd.
Our ferry was due to depart at 1.55 pm and the morning website stated decision would be made at 1pm. No communication from Calmac though they had email and mobile number from booking. Hotel advised us to go to Lochranza as better chance of transfer to mainland from there.After a lengthy wait in the queue ( you can’t book) we were fortunately the last vehicle on the ferry otherwise the wait would have been 90 minutes longer. We were able to use our original return ticket and given a refund for thefare difference.
That part was good . We learned in transit that our original return trip had been cancelled as had all subsequent trips for the 22nd.So , we did get home by long diversion but only on the good advice from our hotel. Where is the communication, Calmac?
Surely it is not beyond your IT capabilities to communicate with your customers to keep them updated and offer appropriate advice based on probabilities.I found that aspect very disappointing!

I tried to alter a booking on their website, it wasn’t possible. The system just kept returning me to the bookings landing page.

Also tried to change my log in email. Again, it can’t be done. The only option is to open a new account.

They really do need to test the site properly and make sure that it actually does what they claim.

DISGRACEFUL and SHAMBOLIC company. Thanks for ruining my 40th birthday trip by cancelling my ferry at the last minute from Oban to Barra on Sunday 17th. This is now three holiday trips in a row to various Hebridean islands you have cancelled or delayed causing a huge deal of stress and anxiety not to mention the huge financial loss from lost accommodation fees. Your treatment of clients is awful and shameful. We no longer have any faith in your ability to provide a reliable or professional service. Your generic sorry’s are no longer cutting the mark and you do not deserve the business from trusting clients looking to purchase your unreliable services. AWFULL!!!!

I havent booked with Calmac for 4 years and they have moved to a new system during that time so I needed to re-register. For some reason despite trying to register on different browsers and devices it wouldn't work.
I called their customer service number this morning and the call was very quickly answered buy a delightful operative. He apologised for my experience and in the less than 5 minutes had registered me and sent the link to change the password.
great, efficient service and very friendly and personable to boot. The experience brightened my morning and reflects my previous experiences while using Calmac ferries. Well done!

Booked online Portavadie to Tarbert return. I mucked up the times meaning we had a short visit before the last one back at 5.15. The timetable showed another ferry an hour later that you had to call to arrange. I duly called and spoke to the very helpful Grant. Super helpful and put an email to the ferry. When we boarded the outward ferry, I spoke to the crew member expecting that he would have no knowledge of our request. Wrong! He did and confirmed that they would run the ferry back at the later time to suit us (4 of us). Amazing!! As it turns out, we were ready to come back at the scheduled time but I thought it was superb service that they were happy to lay on the ferry just for us. Well done Grant and the crew 👏👏👏