“Booked myself mum and wife onto p&o Cairnryan to Belfast for 11th till 13th with car cost £384 return but Monday night there my mother-in-law got rushed into hospital and caught an infection and passed away as her organs shut down so had to cancel trip with hotel ect but this company direct ferry's never gave me my refund said because it's not the person's on the ticket that died should still be ok to go !!! One horrible horrible company will never book again with them money grabbing b......s”
“They ruined the First week of my holiday. Had to argue with them (their automatic robot answering machine) for three weeks to get my money back. Three different staff agreed to do it, but nothing happened before I threatened them with the police. I will never ever deal with them again.
You can't phone them and talk to a real person. Their tickets are twice as expensive as buying them at the ferry company.
Stay AWAY from them !!”
“I booked ferry tickets for 3 adults and 2 children. While the outbound journey was booked for everyone, the inbound only allowed booking for the adults. Despite this issue being solely with the inbound trip, we were not permitted to board the outbound ferry because the QR code showed an error due to the mismatch in passenger count between the inbound and outbound tickets. There was no contact number available to resolve the issue, and communicating via chat was extremely frustrating, with a response time of 10 to 15 minutes for each query. It took two hours to sort everything out, causing a great deal of stress with little kids waiting for that long just before our holiday. We will never book with Direct Ferries again.”
“The communication. I had an insurence to change the tickets, when I tried to change, i felt I had a computer only helpong me, finally I had to buy an extra ticket and got no clearing answers on my questions. I got a lot of worries to and back from my holidays. Do not use this”
“We booked three crossings in total. Twenty-four hours later, we received an email advising there were no cabins available, and then hours later, there was no room for our car. Direct Ferries do not offer live operators via phone or webpage chat. Turnaround time for any communication exceeds 24 hours. We went directly to two ferry companies who took out telephone calls and helped us get to where we wanted stress-free. Use Direct Ferries to find out which ferry company to deal with direct.”
“Book directly with the ferry company. Their cancel anytime insurance is little more than a scam. £35 for absolutely no service.
I was offered a £40 refund on a £200 crossing which they reduced to £25 blaming the ferry operator.”
“Don't use them , appalling service.
It is basically a scam.
My advice is go directly with the ferry company.
I will be lodging a complaint with trading standards in the UK as they claim to be based in Ipswich”
“Book directly with the Ferry company.
Told nothing available on the date I wanted, then told my the new dates available was in seven days time.
Checked with ferry company, lots of sailings with availability ?”
“Actually zero. Does anyone have a telephone number that I can actually speak to a human being ????
My ticket expires the ...30th June. It can be re sold...I even don't mind taking a loss....but...without proper discussion with those that can make a decision!!! What else can I do ? Visit them personally...???”
“Still arguing with you 29 emails and 11 staff, no management level and still not getting anywhere..... they used to be good !!! All I wanted urgently was a transfer, it was within their powers and every email I have had has said no no no.... I wanted to transfer from Rotterdam to Hull passage change to Santander to Portsmouth...my tickets are at this moment still valid 30 06 24. They are agents for Brittany Ferries so it's duable...but "no". And I would be adding a further 400.00 to the value !!! Outrageous they say no.....make shown them proof it can
be done and still they say "no".
Can't call them, no number... very clever !!!!”
“Beware hidden fees that suddenly pop into your total at the very last minute. Poor customer service. Plenty of other service providers who do business in a more transparent way. Better to book direct with the ferry company who are cheaper AND have better business practices.”
“We booked an expensive ticket to the UK for almost 600 euros. Then it was deducted from our account and we received an error message on the Direct Ferries website. This terrible company has no telephone contact options. After filling out the contact form, we first received an email confirming the booking, then a new message that it was canceled, and subsequently, we still haven't received our money back weeks later. We can't get any further contact... this is lawless and outrageous.”
“could not give zero stars
My booking was made as a child being an infant and when I tried to change it they said the charge would be £37
I tried online and it shows as no charge but didnt change the booking
customer service just wants the money.
Avoid at all costs
never use direct ferries , they are out to scam you”
“Same as everyone else. Lost money because of incompetence of Direct Ferries stuff and terrible website. Wrong dates, impossible to amend. Stupid answers from customer support..”
“Absolutely appalling customer service, requested an amendment to a booking, but was informed ( via anonymous email - AI generated?) that our requested departure time not available, but a later one was available - at an extra surcharge! There was an option to cancel which we took, only to find we’d been charged for an amendment that couldn’t be implemented - plus they now wanted an extra charge to change the departure from a departure they couldn’t offer to a time we didn’t want, hence we cancelled. They’re no-one human to engage with. Basically by offering customers a ‘chat’ option is not the way to go. They have lost us as an irregular regular customer.
AVOID AVOID AVOID 🫣”
“We decided to use Direct Ferries instead of a plane for a short 90 min cruise from Santorini to Naxos. The most regrettable thing was that the price to sail was almost equal to the cost to fly. There was no seating presented on the purchased online ticket. On the day of the trip we arrived more than one hour early and checked into the ticket office to show them our online purchase. A very surly Greek man printed out 2 tickets (charging an additional 2 euros). Once the vessel arrived we were hearded in like cattle on the bottom ramp to chaotic direction by the attendants to stow our bags under the appropriate island that we were traveling. At least 500 people stood in a long narrow queue on the ramp without A/C until we finally climbed the stairs to have our tickets scanned to enter the main cabin. The cabin was large and clean with impressive wide leather seats for most. We sat down near the panoramic window and were quite happy until a group of people showed up and declared that these were their booked seats. Bewildered, we got up and made our way to another attendant who pointed us in a direction on the other side of the cabin. Not understanding where to go I insisted that he show us where are seats would be. He walked over and pointed to a narrow row of seats of three, stating that we were assigned to sit one in back of the other. Really?? When I stated that I paid a price almost comparable to flying for these tickets, he just stood there sheepishly and said nothing. Honestly, we just wanted an experience to travel by ferry, but this will not be our method of travel in the future, unless someone shows us how to guarantee seats and moreover, sitting together! The group of people that claimed our original seats we Greek. Maybe they had a better way to communicate what they wanted? So, to anyone reading this: make sure you reserve your tickets with seat assignments (if it’s possible, I did not readily see this on their website) so you don’t get the same outcome that we had. Other than that, we’re happy to be on Naxos!”
