Wightlink rant

[Harry D]

Can you believe this?? My son came over from the mainland with his car for
the weekend and I think the return ticket cost him around £53. He was booked
to go back at p.m. Sunday evening but due to circumstances thought it might
be better to see if he could change the booking to 7.30pm. He rang Wightlink
and they told him yes this would be fine but there would be a 'supplement'
to pay, when he asked how much this would be he was staggered to hear it was
£40!!! remember this was in addition to what he had already paid. I
suggested he arrive at the ferry terminal a little before 7.30 and say he
was booked on the p.m. and guess what, they put him on the 7.30 at no extra
cost! I know this charge may be hidden in their terms and conditions but
what a rip-off. I know the subject has been aired many times but we really
are held to ransom and what's all this 'ferry cancelled due to operational
reasons' I suppose this is another money saving exercise. Rant over.

[Harry D]

"Harry D" wrote in message news:tb-dnZ7bvdIYRgbT...@bt.com...

Can you believe this?? My son came over from the mainland with his car for
the weekend and I think the return ticket cost him around £53. He was booked

to go back at 8p.m. Sunday evening but due to circumstances thought it might

be better to see if he could change the booking to 7.30pm. He rang Wightlink
and they told him yes this would be fine but there would be a 'supplement'
to pay, when he asked how much this would be he was staggered to hear it was
£40!!! remember this was in addition to what he had already paid. I
suggested he arrive at the ferry terminal a little before 7.30 and say he

was booked on the 8p.m. and guess what, they put him on the 7.30 at no extra

[Qwight]

The guys on the entrance are always flexible if you turn up early or
late. I've never had a problem with them.
It's just the office staff who stick by the rules if you want an
*official* change of crossing.

[Roberts]

"Qwight" <qwi...@not-qwight.invalid> wrote in message
news:6atn97lef8sf4e0t9...@4ax.com...

I've never had a problem with arriving way before my booked time.
Lymington - Yarmouth are always very helpful indeed. Perhaps an IOW accent
helps?
Robbie

[Harry D]

"Roberts" wrote in message news:9g2fdu...@mid.individual.net...

He's a 'born and bred' islander from native island stock so no it doesn't
help I'm afraid!:-)

[Mike]

"Harry D" <harry....@garden.com> wrote in message
news:j-idnfbrk7d0zAHT...@bt.com...

No you are right there. However, 'knowing the system' and talking to the
right person 'in the right way' means a lot. And that is with both Wightlink
and Red Funnel

Use both on an irregular basis and NEVER had trouble.

However if you are one of the "I pay your wages" brigade, I suggest you run
your own ferry services!

Mike


--

...................................

Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

...................................

[Goldenwight]

I'm just guessing here, but did he have some sort of discounted
crossing? You know the sort of thing, book 3 months in advance and
stay no longer than 8 hours, only drive clockwise around the Island,
that sort of thing?

If that was the case, then what he was actually quoted was actually
the standard price for reneging on the terms of the deal.

I don't work for Wightlink any more, but certainly we never charged
extra for changes to bookings- we might have refused to take somebody
depending on availability but we never charged simply because they
wanted to travel on a different boat.

[Qwight]

It doesn't matter whether you want to go earlier or later than your
booking. All you need to do at any of the terminals is turn up and say
nicely to the guy at the entrance, "I'm booked on the XXX, but could
you put me on the next sailing please?"
They will always let you on unless it is fully booked - then they will
put you on the following one.
There's really no need to phone up and change the booking.

[Harry D]

"It doesn't matter whether you want to go earlier or later than your
booking. All you need to do at any of the terminals is turn up and say
nicely to the guy at the entrance, "I'm booked on the XXX, but could
you put me on the next sailing please?"
They will always let you on unless it is fully booked - then they will
put you on the following one.
There's really no need to phone up and change the booking.

Yes I know that it's usually okay to turn up and they will get you on the
next available sailing but my son decided it might be safer to confirm there
would be a space, we were just gobsmacked about the extra charge. I know
Wightlink run a brilliant service and usually charge very reasonable and
affordable fares and always re invest any profits in upgrading their fleet
after their shareholders take a meagre amount of course.

[Qwight]

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:49:13 +0100, "Harry D"
<harry....@garden.com> wrote:

> I know
>Wightlink run a brilliant service and usually charge very reasonable and
>affordable fares and always re invest any profits in upgrading their fleet
>after their shareholders take a meagre amount of course.
>

I heard they are going to build petrol stations at the terminals and
give everyone a free tankful while they are waiting.

[Roger]

In June I called the Wightlink ticket office from Surrey and explained that
I was at my father's funeral and I was going to be a little later than I
thought when I had booked the ferry, by an hour.

They were fine, changed the ferry time for me - and charged me £5 for doing
so.

Last week we went to Spain for six days, and it worked out cheaper to buy
two day returns than one return ticket for Fishbourne to Portsmouth.

Roger

"Qwight" <qwi...@not-qwight.invalid> wrote in message

news:t1vo975b58utr3hnb...@4ax.com...

[Roger]

"mark" <notarea...@fooledyou.com> wrote in message
news:JdidnYMyv6zZrj3T...@bt.com...
> X-No-Archive:Yes
>
>
> "Roger" <tribu...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:XJednbt6jexBAwHT...@bt.com...

>
>> In June I called the Wightlink ticket office from Surrey and explained
>> that I was at my father's funeral and I was going to be a little later
>> than I thought when I had booked the ferry, by an hour.
>>
>> They were fine, changed the ferry time for me - and charged me £5 for
>> doing so.
>>
>> Last week we went to Spain for six days, and it worked out cheaper to buy
>> two day returns than one return ticket for Fishbourne to Portsmouth.
>>
>> Roger
>

> It's incredible isn't it?
>
> It might give you an insight into the (general?) mentality of the company
> since the sale of the business...
>
> P & O also got themselves into a complete and utter farce some years ago
> (maybe still do...) with the cheap day returns on the
> Dover/Calais/Boulogne routes of about £5 (mostly during the winter, I
> accept) whilst still charging normal (read quite expensive..) rates for 5
> day, week and week plus return trips. They tried to enforce the condition
> of contract that one HAD to use the return part of the ticket in order to
> purchase the return ticket in the first place. You can imagine how that
> worked! and how succesful they were at enforcing the condition. [BA also
> tried it with return flights where you did not use the outgoing part of
> the ticket - for whatever reason - they tried to refuse the return part
> being used because the outgoing flight hadn't been taken! ...... what
> nonsense]
>
> I havn't met many folk from the Island who havn't had an issue or other
> with Wightlink at some time or other but, I accept, there is likely to be
> some who havn't. It *might* be directly proportional to the amount of
> crossings one does..?
>
> I cross a lot. I have started using Red Funnel wherever possible these
> days (but not to the extreme of cutting off my nose to spite my face..)
> it is, generally, less expensive than Wightlink but factoring in the book
> of tickets does even it out a lot. For the occasional crossing FROM the
> mainland To the Island I've found Red Funnel to be less expensive on more
> occasions than vice versa.
> As people here say, *knowing* how the system works is a great help and
> largely, the staff at both Fishbourne & Yarmouth are great. Get across to
> Portsmouth however and I find, quite often actually, a whole different
> attitude and approach to the customer.
> I won't bore you with the myriad of *issues* I've been treated to in
> Portsmouth (never, but never, in Lymington) but they range from being put
> off the boat (initially) late at night because I refused to take an
> oversized 4x4 up the ramp. Refused valid ticket for crossing because van
> was deemed to be 4.7M long and the limit for vans is 4.6M long (another
> scam, by the way - Red funnel don't distinguish between vans & cars in
> this respect, it's up to 5.5M long - from memory - and there are a whole
> swathe of particular vans, about 5 manufacturers such as Renault,
> Vauxhall, etc who use exactly the same body for their vans and they are,
> arguably, 4.7M making them 2 1/2 inches too long for Wightlink prices and
> books of tickets..)
> Missing ferries in height of summer because staff directed wrong vehicle
> lane onto ferry leaving a number of cars, fully booked and reserved on
> said crossing, on the terminal.
> Strangely, or not (?) the issues have always been in Portsmouth. The
> issue with the van did not arise, for example, when leaving the Island.
> No concern or question about the van being 2 1/2 inches (arguably...) too
> long on the outward journey....
>
> Back to your comment.... it makes no sense for a business to get itself
> into a pickle where charging for a crossing works out cheaper by buying
> two tickets instead of one. No sense at all.
> Not my favourite business on this Island I have to say - though you
> probably worked that out by my comments!
>
>
> mark
>
I agree that Red Funnel seems to be a better run operation than Wightlink
Mark - with Red Funnel you can print off your ticket at the time of booking,
something Wightlink haven't caught on to yet.

I prefer Red Funnel but end up using Wightlink more despite living in East
Cowes as I normally use the A3 to get to Guildford and Esher, and with the
Hindhead Tunnel now open it's a far better journey once on the mainland than
the M3 / M25.

I like the Malta / Gozo ferry. You only pay from Malta to Gozo, and on the
return journey there's no tickets to collect and no booking system so it's
done on a turn up and go basis, based on the theory that if you're going one
way you're almost certainly going to be coming back the other way. I think
they had to abandon that system a few years ago when Malta joined the EU and
one of the rules was that you had to know how many cars, registration
numbers, etc. in case the ferry sank.

Roger

[Roger]

"mark" <notarea...@fooledyou.com> wrote in message

news:Z5OdnfN4-6xdkDzT...@bt.com...
>
> How's East Cowes coming along these days? I ventured down into the
> Purple Mango on Wednesday night and everywhere looked deserted apart from
> the four other people at one table in the restaurant - this was about
> 8.00pm. Waitrose is nice...I shop there more frequently than I would like!
> Generally it seems the town centre has no soul though I know lots of
> people live there. Perhaps it's the cold, damp weather after the summer
> and early autumn warm that keeps people in earlier on in the season...?

East Cowes is pretty much the same now as before Waitrose opened - it was
meant to spark new life into the town but as you observed nothing seems to
have changed. But it's good to have a Waitrose within walking distance. And
even better news that ASDA is to open as it will keep the riff-raff out of
Waitrose.

East Cowes gets a bad press at times but I quite like it. I've lived on the
island for nearly six years, and once I moved from a road where half the
people were unemployed / medically unfit, etc. with the 5 year olds spitting
in each others faces, etc. to a better road have found it to be ok. But to
give those who have been written off work for medical reasons some credit,
during the heavy snow last year they were all having family fun pulling
their children up and down the road on their sledges for an hour or two at a
time.

But my time on the island is limited. With a two year old we're looking
seriously at the schools and it would kill me to think he had to attend one
of the local ones. I saw in the County Press last week the warning that some
of them will be judged 'failing' in the next couple of years - and loved the
response that it was because of Ofsted, nothing todo with the schools.

But I see the Priory independent school is moving from Shanklin to
Whippingham next year, so there's some hope. Otherwise it's moving to Ryde
or Bembridge for the independent school there, or back to Surrey where I
used to live to give him some chance in life at least.

Roger

[Qwight]

On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:10:18 +0100, "Roger" <tribu...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

You are a cynic Roger.
But you are also realistic. I cannot fault what you say.