CalMac Omdömen 

Your male staff need some training in customer service. I say that as a retired professional woman who has helped senior leaders develop their own skill sets. Recently travelling to Tiree and back… there was a huge difference in the treatment and the way staff spoke to women and men in the restaurant. Men were addressed as “sir” no one addressed women as “ma’am”. They were courteous and helpful to men as they chose their full Scottish… barely patient with women. I found it altogether offensive and quite honestly given such changes in society, behaviour from a world way in the past. I expect to be given equal respect. That is my right.

I was the 10th car in line at the Tobermoray port. Despite there only being 8 spaces in the first line the staff on the ferry boarded cars cars from line one, which included two cars chancing their luck. They then would not remove the cars from the ferry leading to me having to spend two hours waiting with an 18 month old infant for the next ferry. Clear lack of a suitable process to fairly manage boarding. It’s put me off using their services to go to any other islands while on holiday due to risk of getting stranded or heavily delayed. How hard is it really to count up to 8 and then take cars from the second queue, or put a member of staff monitoring the queuing process.

I'd booked tickets to the Isle of Mull and needed to make some changes. Called customer service and spoke to Grant. What a really helpful person. He sorted out most things but couldn't get into one of the sailings so asked me to call back the following day. When I called back he again was most helpful and sorted everything out for me. A great credit to the company.

Arran ferry
Booking cancelled at short notice and was then rescheduled for TWO days later.
Reason given was bad weather. It wasn't and I have the photos to prove it.
Real reason is that their ferry fleet has been decimated by lack of maintenance.
To avoid claims the weather is given as the reason which makes it much more difficult to claim. Cynical, very cynical.
As you will see from other reviews this is their normal operating procedure.
What is really sad is that the CalMac staff have to deal with this and it's a thankless task. What also became apparent is the the islanders are totally demoralised because it is adversely affecting their lives.
Visitors numbers are suffering because the service is so unreliable.
Nobody in a position of authority is prepared to admit how bad this or to commuting to fix it.
We like the Scottish Islands but will not go if Calmac are involved.

You cancelled 2 of our planned ferry journeys at less than 24 hrs notice, the second one depositing us back on the mainland over 50 miles from where are accommodation was booked. What a shambles. This does nothing to encourage tourists to visit the islands, let alone what it must do for the lives of locals

I recently interacted with Jude, and had a fantastic experience. Jude was professional, knowledgeable, and incredibly helpful. He listened attentively to my concerns, provided clear answers, and simplified complex information.

His friendly demeanor and genuine empathy made me feel valued as a customer. Jude went above and beyond to resolve my issue promptly and followed up to ensure everything was satisfactory. His dedication and excellent service have greatly improved my perception for CalMac. I highly recommend Jude for his outstanding customer service skills.

Thank you, Jude, for making my experience exceptional.

Our return ferry from Port Askaig to Kennacraig was cancelled without notification, we weren’t informed until we arrived at the port. The CalMac port crew gave us a card with a QR code to claim for hotel and meals etc but that was it. We were moved into a standby queue for the next ferry the following morning with no guarantee there would be space for us. To keep the place in the queue we couldn’t move the car to drive to a hotel so looked like we would need to spend the night in the car. Luckily we got two rooms at the hotel at the port, confident that CalMac would cover the costs. When I submitted the claim for the hotel rooms, it was declined as apparently the ferry had been cancelled due to poor weather! There was no poor weather and CalMac are unable to provide evidence to prove the actual weather conditions but will still not honour the claim. I suspect they are lying to get out of paying for a valid claim and using weather as an excuse. A note for other CalMac users, when they cancel your ferry crossing (high probability) your ticket is null and void and you have to rebook but are given no priority - in our case the next bookable crossing was not for another 2 days so we would have been on the hook for £400 of hotel accommodation plus unplanned time off work. You also do not get any priority on the next ferry crossing, the travellers with a booking on the crossing are loaded first and the standby lane is only loaded if there is space left. You really are left high and dry. Islay really is a lovely place and great to visit but I will never go to any of the Scottish islands again until this shambles of a company loses the monopoly on these routes and a competent company takes over.

Prioritise those who have not booked in standby over those whose bookings they have cancelled. Sadly will not book island trips for some years as not worth the stress.

They don't have a clue what they are doing.. when l booked online. They took all my details and blue badge number and l paid. When l turned up l was told the car wasn't booked in. But l could park it and go as a foot passenger even tho l am disabled..l managed to get to passenger entrance just in time and joined the prepaid ticket queue and was lucky to get on that as we were the last ones on and they turned down passengers who had also had prepaid tickets..it's a poor way to treat your customers and l would not recommend you use them

CalMac are now a national disgrace. Saturday 4th May was an utterable shambles. You must arrange to transfer this Arran service to some party like Western Ferries immediately like by July 2024.

Total joke of a company. Friday boat canceled to Brodick moved to Saturday morning sailing which is also canceled this morning. Good old SNP investing in Scotlands infrastructure

No surprise, awful. Arran ferry rerouted to Troon despite minimal wind, suspect they are trying to make a point with Peel Ports at Ardrossan.

Revised Troon timetable not linked up to Stagecoach buses, so you need to spend 1-2 hours hanging around Brodick terminal.

I feel so sorry for tourists and local businesses impacted by this &hitshow :-(

Website is trash. It is impossible to register an account (it simply doesn't work) and the time table look ups and ticket booking pages are bewildering and simply do not work. I guess it's a lack of competition that leads to such dreadful service.

Trying to make amendments to a booking online but no portal available to do so. My booking is not registered in My Account.
Useless website.

We were visiting friends last week, this involved a ferry trip. Storm Kathleen made this very difficult our ferry was cancelled 2 days running due to the weather. CalMac comms team did a great job keeping everything up to date. Quick, timely and efficient there are multiple ways to keep up to date.

Good job, thank you

I tried to book for three foot passengers and a dog on a day trip to Mull from Oban. Website would not allow me to book an outbound ferry earlier than 11.25am regardless of which day of the week I tried to book for. Then 24 hours after booking the sailing was put back to 12.15pm giving us less than half a day on Mull. When I phoned customer services a helpful lady advised that there was plenty of space on earlier sailings and changed my booking. - The online ticketing service is utter rubbish. My heart goes out to local folk who have to rely on this company. I almost cancelled the booking which would have resulted in a loss of trade to the businesses on Mull. I wonder how many people 'give up' in frustration?

Totally shocking and not fit for purpose.
The captain of the lord of the isles has decided to cancel tomorrows sailing due to weather when the forecast is ok I live on the island and we are all fed up with calmac and there copout so called captains that keep cancelling sailings when the forecast is fine yes breezy but under 35mph really is ok. We have important hospital visits and funerals & family emergencys that are all missed because of senior management & poorly trained and skilled captain's put in charge of important life line ferry's.

We fully understand when the weather is bad to cancel the service but not when there's nothing wrong. The Barra ferry is going the north uist ferry is going but not the lochboisdale ferry as it's not fit for purpose!
Get a private company in to run it who will have the ability to run a proper ferry service.

Re-routed from Androssan to Troon on 7 April due to wind. Sat in queue for 3 hours, then all sailings suddenly cancelled without warning. Offered nothing before Tuesday afternoon. Lost 2 of our 4 nights in Arran (assuming ferry gets us there today..) I get the weather, but a 2-day delay just isn’t acceptable. Zero effort made to put more services on or help at all. Luckily we had local friends for 2 unplanned nights in Glasgow. Ruined our holiday. The result is that we will never plan to stay on a Scottish island again as CalMac just can’t be trusted to get us there and back. Can’t be good for the local island economy.

Not even sure why Ive bothered writing this either, as CalMac doesn’t even bother responding to its reviews. Go on, I challenge you to respond and justify your performance this weekend. Bet you don’t.

Second year in a row our ferry from Oban to Mull has been cancelled! At least this time they didn’t leave it until the night before! Just wish I could give no stars as they don’t deserve any, guess they don’t care as they haven’t any competition

We needed to change our booking to allow our dog to travel with us. Nothing could have been easier! Cheerful and efficient help over the phone from Lynne. Thanks Calmac.