Grimaldi Lines Reviews 6,457

1. On the night trip there was only one open toilet, where the water/pee was just standing. All the other toilets were broken or simply closed.
2. The telephone support was nice, but unfortunately only helped half the time.

I really don't know why everyone is slagging off Grim Old Lines. I just took the Barcelona to Civitavecchia ferry and it was excellent in many ways. the cabin was good, with shower and toilet, ample choice of restaurants (albeit overloaded at the start of meal times), disco, bar, swimming pool on top deck (not in use, but probably too early in the season. Very clean and tidy. My main complaint was the vast amount of rampaging teenagers, but something to live with. I did take the Civita to Sardinia ferry last year and that was a bit less, but it worked. I would really use this route again to cross the mediterranean, much better than driving it.

My wife and I are scheduled to leave Sardinia on May 6th. They texted us stating that they canceled our return trip with no explanation and refused to provide us with any compensation except that they would only move us to a later or earlier ferry ride back to Italy. Their customer service was unhelpful and unsympathetic, specially that I had to explain three things, 1- that I had to cut a night shorter from our hotel who would not refund us, 2- we would need to book an extra night in another hotel adding a cost that we did not budget for. Will never book with them and third is that if I return a day later I would have to miss a day of work in which they responded that this wasn’t their problem . There 100x better companies such as Tirrenia Lines.

Personnel is overall not so service minded, but that happens. On March 30th Europa Palace was serving route Cagliari to Palermo. This night is one hour shorter anyway due to cange to summer time. Arrival was one hour late but crew woke everybody up and out from cabines TWO hours before the ship was in harbour. Reason to be late may have been rough sea during the trip, so crew should have checked actual estimated arrival time and not force passengers up according to initial schedule. I feel thia kind of behaviour is unforgettable and indicates this bad service mind I referred before.

Most terrible ferry company ever. Filthy cabin, disgusting bathrooms, all corridors blocked by people sleeping on the floor creating safety hazard
Restaurant and bar transformed into a camping site.
Disgusting.

Livorno - Olbia 27 dicembre 2023
Grimaldi Lines Is a very bad company run by the Grimaldi family. Their boats are horrible! No safety matters, very very dirty and way too many passengers on board than they are allowed to.

This company should be avoided and prosecuted.

Ore e ore in banchina..non c'è speranza di imbarco..una vera tortura!! Siamo già Valle ore 24:00..la partenza era prevista alle 22:30..una vergogna Italiana

Cancelled two ferry crossings, leaving me stranded. Failed to give refund. Rude customer service. Joke company.

The most useless shipping company ever. This useless company has changed my container ETA four times, till now, I don’t know whether the container will eventually arrive on this fourth date given. My business is at risk of loosing money and customers. Will never recommend these unprofessionals for any reason

Worst experience ever: We booked a Junior Suite. However, they denied us access to our room with the explanation that there was no room available anymore and that they overbooked the ferry. We had to „sleep“ (sleep was not really possible…) in extremely uncomfortable chairs with snoring people around us. Furthermore, the staff was extremely unfriendly and did not even want to offer us blankets despite the fact that we booked a room. In addition, the ferry does not at all look like on the pictures and the food was disgusting. Even 1 star is too much for this worst-of-all company!

Grimaldi delayed the already 22 hour trip with more than three hours, on purpose, just to save some fuel. Instead of 1700, we arrived at 20.30 even though we had perfect weather. Its pathetic and unacceptable. No consideration at all for people traveling with kids or animals. Also they made us leave the cabin 4 hours before arrival. Avoid at all cost.

Update: claim has been handled professionally by Grimaldi

Absolutely horrendous experience! We booked this ferry as a part of our big trip by car from Greece to Portugal. The cabin was very dirty, the sheets and the pillowcases were full of stains and hair. We had to ask 3 times for them to be changed only to find out that they went into the cabin, turn the pillows upside down and left. There were insects in the bathroom and dirt on the floor. We visited the "fancy" restaurant on the first night and the tablecloths were dirty and the cutlery had hair on them. The food both on the fancy and the self service restaurant was tasteless and ridiculously overpriced. I had prepaid some cocktails with cold cuts board which was translated into cheap alcohol in plastic glasses without food. Nobody spoke English apart from the very helpful young man on the reception. All in all, it saved us some time and tolls compared to crossing 4 European countries but it was a traumatic experience!

Sicily to Sardinia Sept 23 with car. Efficient, clean and good food.  Was not crowded and the trip was subsequently enjoyable.  The deluxe internet package did not work for the middle 4 hours, and the rear pax seating area was affected badly by fumes.  The staff were excellent, tolerated the language barriers well, the car parking efficient and good coffee too! 
As mentioned elsewhere, this is a (efficient) transportation system, not a cruise liner.

Old and dirty cabins (booked a superior room for 150 euros a night, an absolute rip-off), terrible Wi-Fi (even the best plan at 15 euros for a night is incredibly slow). We were shocked when someone entered our room at 4:20 am, asking us to leave immediately with our 1-year-old baby, even though we could only access our car at 5:50 am and had to wait in the lobby with everybody else! This is completely unacceptable and not normal. I would rate this company 2 stars only because we managed to reach Sicily from Sardinia, which was our main goal. However, it's still an absolute rip-off with poor service. Please be cautious about where you park your car; ours was on the first floor, causing it to become very hot (due to the ship engine most likely) and ruining our perishable food and other fragile items we had in our car.

I will never set foot on a Grimaldi boat ever again as long as I live. Not only did they not turn off the harsh, bright lighting in the deck lounge during the night but we were rudely awakened at 6 am THREE HOURS before the arrival time, based on the logic that the deck lounge is actually ‘a bar’ and we must all immediately wake up and consume their overly priced overly packaged overly capitalistic crappy food products. We were shouted at for remaining on the floor and forced to sit at the tables instead. Whilst this seems to be an evil tactic to severely disincentivise people from paying for an average ticket in the deck lounge when they could rather pay for a cabin, those sleeping in cabins were then ALSO woken up and forced to join us in the lounge. Disgusting toilets, incredibly rude and aggressive staff, whole boat smells of WEE.

We have shipped our campervan using Roll on Roll off with Grimaldi Lines. Biggest mistake of my life, the horror stories about Grimaldi and stolen goods are true; After picking up our vehicle at the port, there had been broken in and over 3000€ worth of effects are stolen.
We know it happened on the ship, since we have cameras and sensors.
We were not the only ones where it happened, to 4 other camper vans as well.
Grimaldi doesn't care, since a ship is a sealed environment, they must work together to pull this off and the captain must be aware of these events. There is no other way, since a lot of goods were big like power tools, they cannot be hidden by employees and secretly taken off the ship. They have to work together and most likely they share the profits.
Well dear boat employees and Grimaldi, I hope you read this, know we have evidence and know that k@rma will always do its job if you are stealing, you will not get away with this. And if you do, have fun with the items you have stolen and I hope it makes your life better. If you want to live like this.

- That's what happens when a big profit orientated company buys another one, they destroy the quality. For your own sake avoid traveling with this ferry agency:
- the ferry they use now instead of the new one which is used in Italy, is as old as the titanic and unfortunately did not sink yet
- the first thing in the morning of departure: message from the ferry agency that the ship will be departing three hours late, we thought ok this can happen sometimes, but then waiting at the harbour of Igoumenitsa for another two hours delay, when we were finally able to go on board. Unfortunately the place looked like a mess, toilets were already dirty and it just got worse during the trip, no toilet paper, everything smelled like pee, at the deck, on the floors and the toilets. We avoided to go to the bathroom even, it was unbearable to use the toilets or sit on them. Hair from several voyages and passengers in every corner. All the people without cabin laid everywhere and blocked every place to sit so we had to stay outside for 15 hours until we decided to sit on the floor. There was no place at all to hang out during the 20 hour trip. We met a family with new born who had to leave the cabin around 7pm, 3 hours before arrival at the harbour of Ancona, Italy. As we felt we were on a refugee ship the staff was pretty happy laughing, chilling around and having a great time in chaos. Btw wearing dirty uniforms. The best thing was the prices, ironically for a ready packed sandwich 4,50 Euros. So two sandwiches and one coffee almost 15 euros. We will avoid this ferry agency forever because it was a mess.

Even if I've got to pay few euros more, I prefere this company. My frequent journey is Olbia Livorno. Workers are friendly, cabins clean. Overall, always a good experience. For a good price.
When I needed, the office gave me a prompt reply.
5 stars.

I'm travelling with Grimaldi every year at least once or 2 times Civittavecchia - Barcelona and back. All those scary reviews - guys do not take the life so seriously! It's an old, dirty ferry transporting mainly trucks and their drivers. Keep this in mind, this is not a luxurious cruise-ship, come on. So keep your expectations low and you should be fine. Actually, we always make fun of that bad food, which is truly bad, or how they want to charge for every piece you accidentally took extra. Once I forgot to take my "PREPAID APPLE" :D and took it only while leaving the restaurant, they almost got me arrested, as they thought I'm taking the 2nd one!! ))
Cabin was never dirty though. Bed linen was super clean, bathroom was okish (yes, it is super small).
Services onboard are overpriced and of a low quality - but we always had a good time. I use to travel with my 6y old son and he loves just hanging out on the deck, watching movies and reading books. Just don't buy the internet and enjoy a nice offline day with a beer here and there.

The worst shipping company I ever see my life unbelievable I never taught something like will happen in America 2023 they ship my car from Dallas to Senegal may 18 September 19 2023 whatta trash company so disappointed