Wightlink Isle of Wight Ferries Avis 

Holy Mackeral! Wightlink wants £347.25 for crossing 5 miles from Portsmouth to IOW. Is this for real? We're booked for Devon instead. PS. Came back from Europe on P&O to France in March for £178. Love the IOW, but we won't be used as a cash cow.

You must not leave your dog in the car if you cross on the ferry. When the boat moves, all of the car alarms go off. It turns into a living hell and will traumatize your dog. Now, booking instructions say you can keep your dog in the car, but do not make it clear that owners cannot stay with them. The ferry does warn people when booking and when arriving to turn car alarms off. However some cars, mine included, make this impossible. I used to have a menu setting until my service last year and it has disappeared. I disabled the motion sensor for internal and external movement, but it still goes off.
Having never taken a car ferry at all, took a bit of a risk also taking dogs. But have fond memories of the isle of wight as a child.
Staff are hit and miss. Some very kind. Some arrogant. Pet friendly areas on the boat are anything but friendly. First crossing the floor was really filthy, can't imagine the last time it was cleaned. On the way back, the outside area was really full of screaming school kids. If you have dogs, think through if this ferry crossing is worth going to the IoW - until this improves, definitely won't be going back on this ferry.

Love the island but £240 return is just appalling. Why d0esnt the council do something? Its killing tourism.
Wightlink are crippling the island and no profits remain in the UK. Next year: Skeggy!

They do not except cash in on board cafe .. very poor customer service

Rip off and ZERO interest in customer.
The ferry left early we had 5 minutes left before it went and they wouldnt let us on despite there being space claiming that they had the bridge already up.
These people are trained with zero customer care in mind. Be glad to be shot of them

Myself and my family have been visiting the IOW for over 25 years. Have not been since COVID. Myself and my partner decided on a 5 day break. The cost of the ferry was horrendous. We paid £196 return (including disability discount). When we turned up at Portsmouth was told my ticket was not a disability ticket!
I was upset and appalled at how the island has declined so quickly. The beachfront restaurants & hotels at Sandown beach look like they have been in a war zone! Everywhere is tired and lacking tourists. What the hell happened?? Most shocking were the ferry prices for such a small crossing. It is obviously affecting tourism, trade and the residents themselves!! What sense does it make for Wightlink to charge so much! We are in a cost of living crisis and even the Islanders cannot afford tickets! Surely they are putting themselves, islanders, visitors, tourists etc at risk and will eventually collapse. All through greed! I am based not far from Dover and you can cross Dover to Calais with 4 people and car for less than a one way ticket to Isle of Wight. I wanted to bring my grandchildren over to make memories for them! But not now. Unfortunately the IOW will continue to deteriorate and will lose all tourism!! What a terrible shame and it’s so very sad.

I found this company lovely to deal with - something that is increasingly rare these days!

I've been booking ferry tickets for IOW festival so they're probably super busy at the moment but I can always get straight through to their customer service team who are exceptionally helpful and friendly.

They swapped my foot passenger tickets to a later ferry for no additional cost and gave me very good advice on return ferries too. Thank you Wightlink!

The check-in gate staff desperately need customer service training. I incorrectly named my ticket a flexi ticket and he was fast to rudely correct me. He then informed me he had been working here seventeen years and has never been a flexi. I was not arguing with him but my politeness was not returned.

Extortionate prices. Cutting families off from one another, destroying island tourism. UK’s best ferry operator?? What an absolute farce.

Way too expensive to cross a short stretch of water with a small car, simply cannot be justified! Unreliable, and the toilets are disgusting … a health hazard. Beyond a joke - time for a Ferries Regulator.

This has to be a joke. Unacceptable pricing in any circumstance. Blatant profiteering.

Booked a return journey in my car but due to an unexpected breakdown I needed to change the booking to take my van. This amendment was 2 weeks before the sailing and the van is about 20cm longer than the car. The cost for this amendment was an additional £264. This would have made the total cost £377 for a 2 day period return and it was actually cheaper to hire a car and just change the number plate on the booking. The pricing structures are disgusting and Island residents are being held to ransom.
When we arrived at the port on the return leg of our journey boarding did not start until 30 minutes after the boat was due to depart. This wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to watch the giant screen telling everyone that the boats were running to schedule.

We are local people living on the Isle of Wight. We can no longer afford the car ferry and the same applies to our friends who would like to visit. The answer is not to buy a multi link pass, because on a fixed income, we just can't afford the initial outlay. Plus many sailings have no capacity to use them. The answer is to provide competitive and affordable fares for local people and visitors, a reliable timetable and stop creaming off profits rather than providing a proper service . Oh, and to change the biased feedback loop where we're asked not to comment on the price and timetables!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Total rip off for locals and visitors. No discounts in week Website is slow tedious to use, complicated and app simply redirects you to webpage. Staff of course are lovely. Cigars allround for the shareholders!

Wightlinks prices are absolutely horrendous. They really do make my life an absolute misery. I travel to the isle of wight evert month to see my little girl and it costs me an absolute fortune on the ferries I basically cannot afford to see my daughter as often as I desperately want to because of the horrific prices wightlink charge and they have the audacity to advertise that they keep loved ones together!!! They literally keep me from seeing her. Absolute scumbags who run this company.

I live on the IOW and ferry cancellations and extortionate prices have forced us to make decision to move off the Island. My husband has to travel to hospital in Portsmouth regularly and the ferry charges are disgusting.

Extortionate prices - they really make it so difficult to go anywhere off the Isle of Wight. Something like a trip abroad becomes such a difficult having to factor is ridiculously expensive ferry prices and a frustrating timetable.

They know we have to pay, so they charge us extortionate rates. The Isle of Wight really needs a fixed link to drive this awful company out of business already.

prohibitive prices, unreliable service.
Far too expensive to cross a short stretch of water with a small car. We've had holidays on IW for 35 years but can no longer afford it so will now be going elsewhere.
They are also constantly taking ferries off so you can turn up for a ferry and find that it's not running, and there's no guarantee that you'll get on the next one over an hour later.

Astronomical price for a day return. Shocking! Delayed, no announcement as to why. Paid a small fortune. Very limited crossing times so It wasn't particularly convenient. Amenities at the terminals is minimal.

Staff on ticket desk bloody rude and ignored customers in favour of bones with ticket. Certain way to get customer to travel with you again