I was supposed to be going on a booze cruise, or a mini cruise for the more genteel of phrase, to France this weekend. We arrived in the ferry port in Rosslare and checked in at 16:00 to be told the ship was delayed, and would not not arrive until 18:00 with a new departure time of 21:00.
We sat in our car in the car park waiting for the ferry to arrive.
Once it did arrive, we started waiting for the new boarding time. The bar/cafe in the port building was closed, leaving only a small shop downstairs to cater for everyone.
No announcements were made until 21:00, when a single tannoy call was made, to say the sailing to Roscoff was cancelled, and the ship was diverting to Cherbourg.
We went into the information desk to be told that this was the case, we would have about 1 or 2 hours ashore in Cherbourg and we would receive a free minicruise later in the season.
There was no point in us spending the weekend on a boat with a faulty door so we decided to cancel. We were told we would have to contact customer services Monday for a refund. As we checked out of the car park, we were told the boat was now going to Roscoff. Then we were told it was “half thinking of going to Roscoff”. We declined the further offer to board the boat to, well, wherever it was going.
This was without a doubt, some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced.
brian AT brianclayton.ie
Irish Ferries customer “service” eh? Sounds fecking brutal, sorry to hear.
Yeah, I can understand a technical error, and I know these things happen. All I wanted was someone to say that there was a problem isntead of leaving us sitting in our cars for 5 hours wondering what was happening.
there’s just no excuse for such poor customer service.
And they’ve been around for years. You’d think they’d have it sussed…
they should – all we wanted was some announcements so we could know what was happening.
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