Wightlink Isle of Wight Ferries Reviews 400

Far too expensive travellers are being milked for little or no service

My policy is to not bother giving a review of less than 3 stars, unless there issues of criminality or risk to health.
The service provided by staff on the vessels and port side is good, hence the 3 stars.
As an actual timetabled ferry service for the residents and visitors to the Isle of Wight, it’s bad. Wightlink is a company owned and run by an opportunistic parasite that is maximising profitability by revising timetables, reducing number of crossings and cutting staff. Passengers are charged excessively high prices on a dynamic ticketing price so even discounted tickets are expensive at certain times if the day and week.
Sadly, this model of business is supported by our MP and his government.

If I could give 0 stars I would.

Not a service but a way to fuel the pockets of shareholders.

A skeleton timetable, inconsistent crossings, a business that does care about their customers and the costs are estraonmocical.

WL is so expensive now that I can only afford to travel before 0800, or after 2000. As a regular traveller I can't understand why it is so expensive. Look at the massive profts WL are making. Quite often things go wrong (ramps don't work, emergency repairs), and they don't inform travellers quicly wnough, or offer refunds. I have many friends who won't visit me due to the expense. And I can't easily go to events in Portsmouth as the last fast cat from Portsmouth stops at 8pm!! They only care about shareholders and not customers or their hardworking staff

Considering the company is for an Island sailing times are whatever they dictate. Always the same excuses for cancellations aswell.
Also costing goes astronomical during peak season and bank holidays. You'd think they didn't want the custom.

The staff are great and I love the Isle of Wight but the prices!!!! So high that it’s unaffordable. It’s such a vital link for the island, I can’t understand why they are allowed to charge so much.

Being cashless is discriminatory against those who wish to have the choice of using cash. Against the people who don’t have cards, or whose card is declined. Those people whose cards have been cloned or hacked and therefore frozen until they get a new one.

Prices are just dumbfounded, and the reliability of them is not worth the money.

I cannot fault the service when I'm on the vessels, the staff are friendly and helpful. HOWEVER the service before boarding leaves a lot to be desired. Holding islanders hostage with obscene prices to cross a small stretch of water is disgusting. Falsifying reliability stats. A complete lack of services in the evenings. There is no excuse for it. How am I, as an islander meant to get home past 8pm in the evening as a foot passenger, it's disgusting. Shame on those at the top who make the decisions. Stop putting profit over service, and actually provide the Island with the service that we deserve.

You’d think the most expensive ferry crossing in the world would have adequate WiFi available for their customers. Unfortunately they do not.

We travelled with wightlink last July and I thought the whole trip was great. We were let on, the ferry was clean and looked after. No issues whatsoever.

Very efficient service, both on to and off the Island.

More wightlink incompetence. This firm needs investigating due to its multiple failures on departures. Arrived at Portsmouth at 05.20 for 06.00 sailing. Ferry never turned up, no explanations from staff why this happened left on quayside guessing what time ferry I will get. I have time sensitive cargo on my vehicle which wightlink are not bothered about. Amateurs. Use Red funnel in future.

Better experience that usual, the staff can some times be hard to be found

Wightlink are an abysmal 'service'. The last catamaran to the Isle of Wight is at 8.15pm - effectively a curfew for islanders, or indeed anyone wishing to visit Ryde for the evening. There is also a two-hour gap around midday with no 'service'. The fares are extortionate because it is a monopoly situation. The only alternative later in the evening is a ferry which takes about twice the time and arrives in Fishbourne where there is no public transport. It is appalling.

Haben heute im Stau gestanden und die gebuchte Fähre nach Fishborne leider verpasst. Der Mitarbeiter am Check-in hat uns unbürokratisch und sehr freundlich problemlos auf die übernächste Fähre umgebucht, sodass wir noch rechtzeitig in Freshwater angekommen sind. Vielen herzlichen Dank für den super Service.

Wightlink strikes again delivering more Bah-Humbug than the Grinch over the festive period.

Having secured their sky high fares and filled their ferrys full of what they should view as customers seeking to spend time with families at Christmas, Wightlink then took their large ferry out of service for scheduled winter maintenance. Apparently this was akin to Rudolph emerging from the fog one starry night on the South Coast and could not be foreseen. Treating their customers like kids on Santa’s naughty list Wightlink then used a smaller ferry and offering no compensation, randomly moved people to ferrys at totally unsuitable times. We moved from Portsmouth to Lymington and six hours earlier. Extra fuel costs are obviously on us!

Having made it to Lymington the Scrooge non service reliably continued. No bacon sandwiches at breakfast time - just the continued perception that all customers are turkeys and will have to take whatever thin gruel they are given.

Dreadful company whose only concern is the maximising of profits. To the extent that they get their buddy MP to obtain millions of pounds of public funds to boost their profits even further. Local corruption and cronyism will ensure this company can do whatever they want given that people have no choice but to use them.

Had a booking to visit family for Christmas, a 4pm booking on the 23rd December. Had a text saying the ferry is going info servicing, they have changed the time to 4am! I'm travelling with children, so that is ridiculous. Spent 3 days trying to call to amend the booking (the website will not let me) left various messages, no replies or calls backs. Appalling service. As they have a monopoly they do not seem to care.

Paid for priority boarding waiting in the que to get checked in because we were 5 minutes late said we couldn't have it. Complete joke, waste of money. Really annoyed we use this ferry a lot as our family are over there