Wightlink Isle of Wight Ferries Reviews 406

We have just booked a crossing across to the Isle of Wight to meet friends in a couple of weeks time, and I am shocked at how much it is to cross. Our total trip is £246. The return leg afternoon sailing which suit us are £157 - that's one way! We have booked slightly later in the day which is less convenient but it is still £148. We never thought we would be spending this much money to cross the Solent - we have gone to France a few time and been used to £100 return fares in the summer. This pricing is really unfair and surely can't be justified. Someone should be stepping in to stop the greed from companies like this - they know you have to pay out or just not go!

The most expensive crossing ever. Dirty boats. Paint flaking off of the walls of the boats. Food all over the floor.

Absolute pirates.

One of their staff members directed me into the side of the boat causing expensive damage to my car. When a complaint was made and I requested cctv after 9 days I was given a reply to which they told me they don't keep cctv that long so no liability!! They did give me a free one way ticket though to apologise! Now nice!

Absolutely diabolical. Wish I didn't have to use this shocking service at all to get off the Island. Utter pirates....

Incredibly expensive and very poor customer service. I was looking to bring my family back over to the island (where I grew up and lived for 20 years) with a car over the summer holidays and they're charging £250 for the privilege; no wonder nobody bothers coming to the island anymore! Couple this with the fact that the ferry service is very often either disrupted or late and when you email to complain all you get is a passive-aggressive response saying they won't do anything then I would greatly welcome a bridge from the mainland and would gladly see this terrible excuse for a company go out of business. Only rated one star because I can't rate it zero.

I’m an island resident. I use wightlink regularly, I personally think the prices are reasonable, especially with a multilink pass. I’ve been late and the friendly staff on the phone have always helped me, staff on board the boat have always been polite and friendly, staff at the check-in gate have always been helpful sometimes putting me on an earlier boat. The boats are clean and well kept, the toilets are clean. I have never had a problem booking crossings a few days in advance. I have traveled on wightlink probably hundreds of times and I can’t think of a single occasion that would cause me to think it’s a poor service. It’s a lovely relaxing crossing any time of the day.

Terrible service ripping people off for a short travel distance

This is the lowest I could give. Having to travel to the mainland regularly the service is awful boats delayed or cancelled. And having to pay an arm and a leg to use them. Horrible money grabbing company.

I'm from the Island and use the ferry regularly to look after my grandchildren, who are on the mainland. The prices for foot passengers have steadily increased at an extautionate rate. And yet the service for foot passengers is awful. Often the lifts don't work. You can't get past the lorries with a pushchair, which means you have to wait until all the traffic is off before you can disembark.

As for the timetable, it's as if the make it up as they go along. It's either late or it pulls out 10 minutes early.

Terrible service run by a greedy company.

I think it’s really unfair that people leave such negative reviews. The way I look at it is it’s a 45 minute journey slightly longer than a flight to the Channel Islands. Yet you get to take your car. It’s more expensive to fly to the Channel Islands too. Occasionally there are technical problems which happens with everything when they are constantly in use and also the harbourmaster will also allow other sailings to leave the harbour which can delay the ferry that’s out of the control of Wightlink.

People don’t realise the operational costs of running a service of this kind.

If you shop about, you can get some great deals for travel to the island.

WIGHTLINK are very Pet friendly with a designated pet lounge and clean up station.
Staff are always friendly and the service is fantastic.
Travel regularly without issue.
Would highly recommend.

Got an island resident car & driver day return trip quote on the web site @ £160.00. Get the same trip re quoted by phone through a business account & got quoted £60.20.
There is no customer service as it is all ruled by computers & the ferry’s are filthy but yet the prices keep going up.

The cost of a return is nearly £300 and the board are always late. A shambles of a company

I live on the Island and have always found Wightlink staff very helpful, but the prices! Even with a discount through my sailing club it's just cost me more than £150 return on the car ferry. How on earth can this be justified to travel such a short distance and why does it cost more at different times and holiday periods? It's the same ferry, same number of staff, same fuel costs, same travel distance. The current situation is damaging the Island economy and just lining the shareholders' pockets at a captive audience's expensive.

Unfortunately you can’t give zero stars!
I have the displeasure of using this ‘service’ several times a week for work. The prices are ridiculous the vast majority of the staff are rude and incredibly unwelcoming. The only praise I could give them is that they are better than Red Funnel.. god help us.

We take Wightlink ferries about 20 times a year and I can’t understand the negative reviews on here. I appreciate people want cheaper fares but the service is great, the boats run on time, they’re comfortable, good cafes, polite service and, if you’re an islander with a multilink pass, the costs are reasonable. It’s the full fares which Wightlink need to address but that doesn’t detract from the level of service given.

Extortionate prices, unhelpful staff,shocking all round, would say avoid if possible but the options are limited

Great staff and service but the prices are ridiculous.
Extortionate for both islanders and visitors. Soon to be an islander and dreading this part as it will be a necessity for me to visit family & work.

Overpriced. Run empty sometimes to get back on timetable

Having driven from the Dordogne the previous day and just disembarked the ferry from Caen to Portsmouth, we made our way to Wightlink’s Portsmouth terminal.

Upon arrival the person at the entrance said to go down the lane and radioed ahead to say a car was coming. As we got closer to the end of the lane to join the ramp, the staff were putting the barrier down - nearly 10 minutes before departure time.
I asked (twice) if we were getting on the boat as we had been sent down. Out of the 3 people I asked, 1 answered “not this one mate”.

Had we been tourists to the island, this would be the first experience we’d receive. Unfortunately living on the island we have to put up with this attitude.

To top it off the price of the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen was the same price as Portsmouth to the IOW. We opted for a book of tickets as that was the same value too, but gives 5 return trips (who thinks of these prices?!). This sounds good, but you’re then restricted to which sailings you can use the book of tickets on, and some only have 4 slots of ticket holders (according to Wightlink).

We missed our ferry by 10 mins due to terrible traffic on the M25. I wasn't too worried as the website said if you are within 2 hours of your booking you will be booked on the next available ferry crossing. At the kiosk the attendant checked and said that there was no space on the next 3 crossings. He handed us a telephone number and told us to call the contact centre. I asked if we could pull over to make the call and was told 'no we are too busy today you will need to leave the port'. We asked if he knew of any suitable parking for campervans (6 metre) in Portsmouth - the answer was that he couldn't help us. I felt very let down as we were thrown out of the port with a telephone number. We called the contact centre and were told that there was a space 4 hours later. The crossing was slightly more expensive (we accept that happens) and that there was a £25 admin charge for calling the contact centre! We paid up as we had no other choice. Overall it was terrible customer care and nothing like it said on the website. I am not sure why we needed to call the contact centre when we were well within the 2 hour window. I am also not sure why we needed to leave when we could have waited and taken the next available cancelation. When we arrived back for our re-booked ferry - we were subsequently loaded onto the earlier boat.