Wightlink Isle of Wight Ferries Reviews 400

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.

As an island resident we have multi pass tickets, these enable you to travel at times that suit Wightlink the cost always extortionate there is never any availability pitiful service expensive refreshments and always an excuse for being delayed. You could spend over £150 each way to travel the 40 mins across the Solent easily due to these pirates. keeping prices high as there is no other option if you need to travel.

Overpriced. Can't believe they can get away with what they do, increasing prices every day for a service that gets worse and worse to put in their own pockets.

Had a fantastic experience with wightlink crossing the solent to the isle of wight, the crew was very polite and friendly, the ferry was very clean throughout.
Looking forward to our next trip already.

Shockingly expensive. This is an essential service for people who live on the IOW. How are we meant to afford to travel? J don't want to have to take my children on a 4am ferry to make it doable. And why is a period refund SO much more expensive then a day return? Its a car each way!!!!!!

Overpriced massively. I’m an islander and trying to get off costs more than a kidney!!!