Poor customer service from Stena

[Grumpy Git]

I was supposed to be on the 22:00 Liverpool - Belfast sailing tonight (26.01.2026). At about 4:30 p.m. I tried to upgrade my cabin, only to be met with a 'no sailings on this date' message!

Further investigation on the Stena website confirmed that the sailing was cancelled due to the poor weather forecast, but I had received no prior message from Stena regarding this cancellation, (by any means, email and/or SMS message).

I called the customer service number and a very polite representative confirmed the cancellation, (which had happened some time earlier this afternoon - he wouldn't say exactly when, even when pushed), but he could not explain why I had not received an SMS to inform me.

In the end, I cancelled the entire booking.

Very poor show from Stena, (who I've never had anything but praise for previously)............. and to rub it in, within 30 seconds of me ending the call, I received a new SMS from Stena, advising me that check-in closes 60 minutes before the (non-existent) 22:00 departure tonight!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jan 2026 ==

Edit: just had an SMS advising of the cancellation, which arrived 10 minutes after the latest possible check-in time.

It's a good job I live very close to the port.

 

[Cloud Strife]

I think it's possible that they didn't want to formally cancel the sailing until it was clear that it was a no-go. The weather conditions have been quite erratic yesterday, and the final decision on cancelling the departure may only have come at the time you received the SMS.

Still, very odd for Stena to behave like that, their customer service is normally very good. I wonder if people weren't diverted to Holyhead or Cairnryan?

 

[Lewisham2221]

Is it possible that they sent the SMS out to inform passengers, but some sort of tech/network problem meant not everybody received it until later? Hence why the customer service agent wasn't able to explain why you hadn't received the message?

 

[Grumpy Git]

I think it's possible that they didn't want to formally cancel the sailing until it was clear that it was a no-go.

My call to them at ~16:50 confirmed it was a no-go at this time. There were no options from Holyhead as all those after approximately 17:00 were cancelled too. This mornings sailing from Liverpool was not scheduled to arrive in Belfast until 19:00 tonight!

Opted for Ryanair Liverpool to Dublin this morning and a hire car instead. The weather in Dublin when we landed was atrocious (heavy rain and gales) but the sun was shining out in the west by 10:00 a.m.