How to travel with Wightlink in your vehicle

When you buy your ticket, you’ll get a QR code in your confirmation email – make sure you have this ready when you arrive. You can either print it or access it on your smartphone with the Wightlink app.

Some of our ports have Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to speed up the checking in process, so please make sure you’ve entered the right number plate in your booking.

You’ll need to arrive between an hour and 30 minutes before your scheduled sailing time. Show your QR code to staff at the entrance to the port and they’ll direct you to a numbered car lane. The lane you’re sent to relates to your sailing time – at busy periods there can be up to three sailings’ worth of vehicles waiting at once – and cars are grouped by height and size ready to board, so the right vehicles end up on the right deck.

Pull up, switch off your engine and, if you fancy it, pick up a hot drink and a bite to eat from one of our port cafés.

If you arrive too early for your sailing, we may need to direct you out of the port and ask you to return when check-in opens for your booked sailing. This is because we may not have space to hold early traffic on-site.

We support anti-idling campaigns in our local areas such as Portsmouth City Council’s ‘Cough Cough, Engine Off’ campaign, so please keep your engine switched off until it’s time to board. A member of port staff will let you know when it’s your turn to board and you’ll be directed onto the ferry.

Boarding order isn’t first come, first served – it’s worked out to keep the ship’s weight evenly balanced across all the decks, so don’t worry if cars that arrived after you board first. Every sailing is loaded slightly differently depending on the number and size of vehicles booked, working from a ‘manifest’ – a list of every vehicle and its size – so our Deck Officer can decide the safest, most balanced way to load that particular sailing.

You’ll drive from the port onto the ship via the ‘linkspan’, a bridge from the shore that attaches to the vessel.

When you drive on, the crew will direct you to a parking space on deck using hand signals – please follow these closely – you may be asked to park on the lower or upper deck, or on a ‘mezzanine’ deck. A mezzanine deck boards from the lower deck as normal and then gets raised so more cars can then fit underneath.

Depending on which deck you are on, the crew may ask you to stay in your vehicle until it’s safe to get out. When it’s safe, head upstairs to the passenger lounges and get comfortable. Once you’re in the passenger lounge, you won’t be able to return to the car deck until we ask everyone back before arrival – this is for your safety.

On occasion, we may be able to offer you an earlier sailing than the one you’ve booked – for example, if fewer vehicles turn up than expected, or the vehicles booked are smaller than the space allocated to them, creating spare room. This isn’t guaranteed, though: in poor weather, if we’re running behind schedule, or for other operational reasons, we’ll usually only load booked traffic. This helps us keep to the timetable and get away from the port safely and on time.

Our port staff will do their best to keep you up to date with changes to our service while you are waiting to travel. The best way to keep up to date is to download our app. Alternatively, you can follow our dedicated twitter feed, @wightlinktravel.

When making your booking, please ensure you give us the right contact details so we can get in touch with you if we need to.