CalMac Summer Timetables- Important Amendments

In particular the changes to the Craignure route will lead to issues with handling day excursion traffic (whether foot or car) to Iona, Staffa and other wildlife cruises from Tobermory.

Intending or booked passengers on such day excursions should check with their providers (West Coast Tours or the boat hire companies).

Note that some of the available capacity will be with held from sale to support Islanders lifeline travel needs.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post these updates Stuart. Really appreciate all you do to keep us informed with the most up to date information!

Stuart this is too kind of you to digest and package all this very important information.

That -- to take but one example -- some of the already-booked Mallaig-Armadale slots will not be able to be honored !! Wow !

Scotland travelers are very lucky to benefit from your expertise and time.

I really appreciate the warning that I need to keep checking the schedule for Arran. I'm heading there in early May.

Thank you for keeping us up to date on all things Scotland. I'll be ferrying in early May also.

Services to Craignure, Isle of Mull,- further amendment from 10 to 27 March - the MV Isle of Arran is now running this service to a single vessel timetable.

my goodness they go crock a lot

On 29 March the annual memorial service for HMS Dasher will take place during the 10:50 sailing from Troon to Brodick.

MV Glen Sannox will stop for a brief period over the site of the wreck to allow a short service to be conducted.

As a result, the arrival into Brodick may be slightly delayed which may have a knock-on effect to the 13:00 sailing departing Brodick.

More about the loss of HMS Dasher- https://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/ESCORT/DASHER.htm

(a memorial plaque can also be seen in Brodick Ferry Terminal)

So if I have a booking from Oban to Mull on May 28th will it be honored?

Thanks for the input

So if I have a booking from Oban to Mull on May 28th will it be honored?

The simple answer is that no-one knows. If it was booked when the Isle of Mull (capacity 70 cars, 962 pax) was meant to be on the service there is a potential problem, if booked now when the MV Coruisk (capacity 40 cars, 250 pax) is scheduled to be on it is probably OK. CalMac are working through bookings in date order and will bounce people to the Fishnish or Tobermory routes if needed a lot closer to the time. Hopefully they are now taking bookings on the Coruisk having already re-assigned Isle of Mull bookings, which would imply that you are OK.

But with less capacity if urgent freight, or ambulance, fire or police resources are needed for Mull then if the ships are full in theory you could be bounced with little notice. That has happened, to my personal knowledge to Lismore when extra fire engines had to be sent from Oban to Lismore for a big fire over there. Or it happened on the Stornoway route a few weeks ago when extra police were needed from Dingwall to cope with a fatal road accident on Lewis. No one was bounced off but the ship was very late sailing.

There are working to a matrix of priorities-
Freight is top priority (on and off the island), Islander Bookings (as a company CalMac's PSO obligations require that they service locals over tourists), retain some spare capacity on each sailing for lifeline needs (urgent medical including blue light needs, that kind of thing), on Monday morning Oban bound and Friday afternoon Mull bound for school pupils from south Mull and Iona who board at the state Secondary school in Oban during the week, then in 5th and last place tourists.

It is a bit of a mess.

We are currently booked for 2 passengers and a car from Craignure to Oban on the Loch Frisa at 10 on May 21. There are still spots available on the Coruisk at 11. I really would prefer not to be bumped to one of the other routes. Would we be safer switching to the Coruisk? Thank you so much for all your ferry expertise, Stuart!

If you have an existing booking I personally would stick with what you have. All I would note is that the Loch Frisa is an ex Norwegian sheltered waters ferry, and a bit smaller than the Coruisk.

But the decision is yours.

But for all anyone knows it could be like today where the single vessel went tech so there have been no sailings from Craignure today. Or everything could be cancelled due to weather. The network is extremely fragile until mid June, and every decision is a gamble to an extent.

If there is another breakdown elsewhere in the network they may have no option but to pull a ship off Mull to cover, given that Mull has three routes, The Coruisk is the 'go anywhere' vessel so my educated guess is that she would be redeployed if they were forced to do that.

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. We will cross our fingers!

The April 4 announcement for the Ardrossan-Brodick ferry "Impacted bookings – Our system is closed for new bookings and amendments between 27 April and 31 May. From Friday 4 April, we will be in touch with impacted customers in sailing date order. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Ferries will continue to sail from Troon, until the MV Caledonian Isles is operational. I have RT tickets to Brodick May 1 and from Brodick May 3, so I expect to be contacted.

Added: I was contacted April 5 for the May 1 ferry change and April 6 for the May 3 ferry change. Both are within 30 minutes of the original Ardrossan-Brodick-Ardrossan sailings that I purchased in early March.

Dates further amended for restoration of the Mallaig to Lochboisdale route and MV Isle of Mull being taken out of service for repairs.

Also note that on the Oban to Craignure route the MV Loch Frisa has engine problems today for the third time in a month.
This recurring issue is causing short notice cancellations on a route with existing significant capacity constraints.