CalMac Omdömen 

Shocking customer services lodged a complaint on the 30 August and they haven't replied

Booked ferry for Mull Rally on 22-08-23 to make sure I got ferries I required for 12-10-23 and 17-10-23 - CalMac cancelled both outbound and inbound ferries on 11-09-23 despite only inbound ferry being unavailable - rebooked ferries on 11-09-23 for different ferries on same dates - CalMac cancelled again on 11-10-23 - tried to rebook but no ferries available - CalMac / SNP combination must be the most incompetent combination available and I'm sorry for the people who live on islands served by CalMac / SNP

Ferries between Ardrossan and Arran are shockingly bad. Regular cancellations, staff at Ardrossan in particular completely unconcerned for their customers, and a booking system that allows you to book onto a ferry that has already been cancelled.
No help at all for stranded customers, people sleeping in their cars overnight stuck on an island because there's only one ferry working this very busy route, and not even a toilet or access to water after you're unceremoniously booted off the premises.
If you are privileged enough to be able to afford a hotel stay you may be able to claim some of that cost back - but what if you don't have that spare cash lying around?
The standby system is unworkable unless you do sleep in your car at the barrier, or get up at 6am to join an already significant queue.
Calmac clearly don't really care about their customers.
What is possibly even more worrying is that they appear to not care about their staff either, who are on the front line dealing with upset and angry people.
This service needs urgent transformation work, starting with a culture change from the top down.

Website is generally poor - the online info when we were planning our trip was 'all tickets are open tickets' - what it didn't say was that capacity for cars is limited and you might not be able to travel on the day you want unless you book well in advance.

Breaking a trip into car and foot passengers - because Iona doesn't take cars - simply ain't possible.

We took 3 years planning a trip which was meant to involve 7 ferry trips. CalMac cancelled the third “leg” on the day of travel meaning that we have had to cancel the rest of the trip as CalMac could not get us to the following ferry connections in time. Heart breaking as we had put so much into the research and organisation of it all, just to be let down by a shambles of a Company.

Fantastic experience with CalMac travelling to Mull from Oban return. We did the journey twice and it was such an easy, stress free journey both times. The staff were very friendly and helpful which made a nervous first timer feel totally at ease. Everything was exactly on time for all four journeys with no hanging about. Beats sitting about in airports any day! Can't wait to go back and explore more of the Hebrides. Thank you for being part of a fantastic holiday CalMac.

Web booking site experience
Major issue is inability to save progress, make a mistake and have to go back to start the whole thing over again
The saved vehicles do not include the various weight / size details so have to entered separately every time during booking process
It is not clear how the saved vehicles are imported into booking process
No way to remove an incorrectly imported saved vehicle during the booking process, have to start over again
No way to check if any sailing is fully booked without going through the whole process of inputting all the vehicle details first.
No simple way of changing route if a required sailing day is full without starting all over again. eg if Ullapool - Stornoway fully booked, so try Uig-Tarbert route
Saved personnel gender female was imported as male when imported into booking process

I seriously wonder if this clunky web site has ever been properly stress tested based on bookings with multiple sailings and multiple vehicles then hitting fully booked sailing times, using people who are less conversant with such technology and are new to the web site.

It took me over 2 hours to finally achieve a booking and I'm fully conversant with booking web sites.

The issues noted above need to be urgently addressed and It badly needs a step by step guide(NOT an FAQ list).

We booked two ferry’s online for travel from Kintyre to Arran then on to Ardrossan. Both arrived and left on time, something which our local bus operator cannot seem to do!
Staff were helpful at all times.
Well done CalMac 🤗

thank us so much to the crew on m.v loch shira for getting my car restarted thanks again

The website is just awful. In this day in age there is no excuse for such an amateurish and hopeless travel website. The fact that it has taken 10 years and the sum of £18million is just mind boggling. I have an account and it doesn't now recognise the email address and password. It did this when it first came on line. Re-appeared again 20/8/2023. Doesn't let you delete vehicles that have been stored. How first time tourists get on with the icon led initial page is anyone's guess. There is difficulty going back and forward between pages, you often have to go back to the initial start page. Utterly hopeless experience. Anyone who thought this was a suitable replacement is out of their depth.

Largs to cumbrae trip on Sat 19th August 2023 0645hrs.the male on the ticket desk needs some training. His attitude is appalling, rude and unprofessional. His customer service is disgraceful.

Ferry journeys between Malaig - Lochboisdale and then Lochmaddy - Uig with an additional trip between Eriskay - Barra.
Ferries were on time and staff polite.

I had to cancel our trip today for medical reasons and received excellent customer service. Yes, I had to wait a while for the call to be answered but that's really irrelevant when I consider how kind and helpful the agent was who handled my call. I only wish I'd written down her name so I could share it on this platform.
More importantly I got a full refund-amazing and Thank You.

Appalling customer service!!
Our ferry was cancelled 2 weeks prior to travel with no communication only a refund (minus booking fee) for the ferry fares, so we turned up to catch the ferry to Campbeltown only to be told it’d been cancelled and there were no ferries until 30th June. We were unable to be refunded for our accommodation for that night as it was too late and had to book short notice on Arran. We are unable to get compensation for the accommodation fees from CalMac because we weren’t waiting for a ferry - beating in mind the next one wasn’t for another 3 weeks! Dreadful communication at all points, other than the staff at Ardrossan who were very helpful and who had also been given no information. Will be avoiding this company in the future. Absolute shambles.

A huge thank you to the staff of the Isle of Lewis ferry from Oban to Castlebay. We had mechanical issues with our van leaving us unable to leave Fort William until the van got out of garage at 11.40 for a 12.25 check in. On calling Oban they said as long as we weren't too late it would be fine. Unfortunately we were very late as in only minutes before the ramp was going up. From the amazing guy at signal box, pier guys n down to the crew on board we thank you so much for still letting us board, chatting away and even having a laugh with us. The staff on board in bar\canteen etc were as always so lovely too. So grateful to you all that we still got our holiday home to Barra ❤️

CalMac website is a joke - not a single page works flawlessly and the software seems totally unable to recall accounts. It’s quicker and easier to phone

Our ferry route was cancelled for the whole month of June with very little notice. Cutting a long story short we had to book further accommodation on Lewis for the first night when we should have been in Eriskay. Although we have been made a compensation offer we are £75 out of pocket. Terrible customer service, company don’t care about the inconvenience they cause just the same jobsworth mantra.

Denice

Just spent over an hour on the cal Mac website trying to book a ferry. The website is shocking. Failed to load pages, changed destination and arrival ports from the ones I picked, wouldn’t go back so has to exit and reload. Still no joy booking a ticket. Worst website I’ve used for years and that includes bobs website, by bobsbasementwebbusiness at draganddropwebsites

I am a blue badge holder and I recently had to change the dates for our Ferry to Coll, and add in some additional dates for other ferries.
I spoke to a chap named Grant Telford, who was honestly the most helpful person!
Instead of keeping me on hold, he called me back, and when my phone battery died, he was extremely patient and went through the entire process again to book everything I needed.
He went out of his way to ensure I didn't pay a cancellation fee, and that we had all the crossings we needed, when we needed them.
He was polite, professional and extremely personable.
Massive thanks for going over and above Grant!

Although I booked online, I had to cancel my booking due to unforeseen circumstances, but their website suggests that you just go through the contact number or on your account online but my order never showed up on my account & when I rang up to cancel and get my refund, they told me that it would go through in 2 halves - well then I got 2 emails through with one saying I have part of my refund and yet the other email is telling me that my order has been amended with another eticket attached for a journey which I asked to be cancelled and refunded, then when I ring them back to tell them about it they just say that it's still cancelled yet where is my RELEVANT email to tell me this & where is my actual refund???