Big Problems Nolfolkline Ferries Via Caravan Club

[Gareth_5040397]

Beware, anyone that has booked their Nolfolk Line Ferry via the Caravan Club. I booked our crossing in Oct 2005 on line and recieved confirmation that our sailing time was 1700 hrs on the 06/06/2006. We intended to arrive at Dover by 1600 hrs. I decided yesterday to have a look on Nolfolk Line's Web Site and to my suprise discovered that there was no 1700 sailing. I phoned Nolfolk Line and they told me that they could not help me as I had booked via the Caravan Club. Upon contacting the Caravan Club they told me to contact The Gateway Travel Company. After waiting over 30 mins with no answer I gave up and went back to the Caravan Club via Email.

Eventually they sent me a Email stating that there are serious problems with all Nolfolkline bookings as the crossing times have all been changed but the club are unaware of it until a member contacts them with the problem. To give you an example, our friends were booked onto the 1445 sailing and upon contacting Nolfolk Line were told that they were booked on the 0800 sailing. They have now been booked evenually onto the 1400 sailing. What would happen if all Ferries were full?

What a great start to the holiday "No Ferry". I hope the Caravan Club can sort this mess out by the peak season as you can imagine the chaos. I recommend that anyone that's booked their crossing via the club check with Nolfolk Line and the times given by the Club. The Gateway Travel used by the club are a complete waste of time. Best of Luck Gareth.

 

[Valerie_5078329]

Thanks Gareth. We are due to cross on Thursday 1 June and back 28th June so I have emailed the Caravan Club and will also contact Norfolkline now. We changed our car and the C.C. Agents wanted

 

[TrevorM]

Gareth, I agree with your assessment of The Travel Gateway. I tried to change a P&O Dover to Calais booking via the CC website, and was informed this had to be done by 'phoning The Travel Gateway Ltd (TGL)..

On my first attempt, TGL 'cut me off' after I had waited for an agent for around 20 minutes; on the second attempt I waited about 40 minutes before being dealt with (which worked fine once connected.) The agent could not refund the

 

[Valerie_5078329]

Further to my earlier post. Travel Gateway is closed at present for staff training!! I have emailed the caravan club and Norfolkline but Norfolkline are unable to deal with queries and bookings made through the caravan club, which is fair enough. Still waiting on Caravan Club to sort out my booking as we are booked on one of the non-existant crossings but Norfolklines web site shows that there is no availability around 14.00 hrs. So we could be faced with a totally unsuitable middle of the night crossing and we booked last December. And this is for travel in June

 

[Lutz]

I don't know what the legal situation in the UK is in such a case but over here you could make the travel agent liable for both any additional costs and inconvenience incurred. May be worth following up.

 

[CliveV]

Sadly Lutz that is probably another bit of sensible EU legislation our esteemed politicions thought we in the UK should not have.

 

[Jonathan_5071894]

We booked our Norfolkline crossing through the CC in Dec, for travel this July. This March i recieved an amended booking confirmatiomn from the CC with the new sailing times. I have to say that i always do my ferry bookings through the CC and they have always been excellent. Apparently, the new times are due to the arrival of their 3 new ferries this year.

 

[Guest]

Gareth,

I hope you manage to get your bookings sorted out in time, and enjoy your holiday.

We are booked on Norfolk Lines on the 8th June, but I did the bookings direct with them. The price quoted was 62 pounds the outfit, so I didn't think there would be much of a saving by using the CC, although I did use CC for Red Pennant etc.

As mentioned there are new boats on the run, but also the Scedule I used was dated 'effective March 2006'. Maybe the CC was using the old Schedule and didn't get informed of the changes.