The Oban Ferry

I admit that I was worried about the ferry. I thought I'd get motion sick. I was worried I'd miss the ferry. Both worries were unfounded.

The reality is that the ferry is huge. Gargantuan. Massive. You get the picture. You don't feel the movement of the boat at all. Motion-sickness is really not an option, unless you get car-sick in your own living room!

Okay, the important details.
You can see the ferry from the train. as you get off the train, you have to walk a little bit of a maze to find the place where you buy the tickets for the ferry, but really, you can't lose sight of the ferry's location because it's just so big. We raced over there from the train, only to discover that the ferry waiting at the dock was not headed to Craignure. In fact, despite information to the contrary from both Iona Community AND the website, the ferry we expected at noonish wasn't running. It apparently didn't run on Wednesdays prior to Easter. Here's the company's web-site with information about the schedules and fares: http://www.calmac.co.uk/. We purchased our round-trip tickets for both the Oban ferry and the Fionnphort ferry at the ferry-station. We booked the final ferry of the day to Iona. One must actually get a reservation for this ferry, apparently, as it doesn't run if guests aren't reserved. The ticket-agent at Oban called in this reservation for us.

We ended up with about a 4 hour wait for our ferry. This wasn't really a hardship at all. The ferry station has luggage lockers, but due to national security concerns they were not in use. The train station's luggage lockers WERE in use, and are well worth the pound to lock up your stuff and go about your business.

The little town of Oban is very walk-able. We entertained ourselves by wandering about in the shops and checking out the small boats in the harbor.There are Scottish tourist shops everywhere, and we were able to pick up some good maps of Iona, as well a some post-cards and stamps. For some odd reason, there were also quite a few "charity shops" (i.e. thrift stores) which made for some fun browsing, as well. On the return trip, I did some quick souvenir shopping at a large store right next to the train station. They had a good selection of short-bread and post-cards and what-not.

There are lots of restaurants of all types and expense levels in Oban. There is a charming sandwich stand right next to the ferry station where we got prawn sandwiches. Mine ended up being stolen by pigeons, but actually sharing one was quite sufficient. (The sandwiches were so good that we made a point of grabbing some to go on the return trip. Beat the train food, hands-down!) Eventually we went into the ferry-station, which is large, safe, well-lit. There are bathrooms and vending machines there.

You should be in the ferry station by about 20 minutes before departure. They load up cars first, and then people. Once they start loading people, they really hurry you along. If you walk slowly or are corralling children, I'd get there even earlier to be at the front of the line. You enter the ferry at car-level, and then have to walk up a flight of stairs (or more) to get to where you want to go. There is a small elevator as well. On the way to Iona, I went up in the elevator with all my stuff. On the return trip, we barely made the ferry (as we'd had to call a cab instead of the bus), and they didn't want to take the time to operate the elevator for us. Instead, they just let us store our luggage on the car-level, which was apparently not normal but rather handy!

The ferry has several levels, and you should follow signs to the luggage-room to store your bags. You'll really want to be able to wander about, and the bags will really slow you down. There will be some sort of food on the ferry. There was a large cafeteria and a bar on our ferry out-bound. The return ferry was smaller, with no bar, and a smaller cafeteria. There will be restrooms, and a smoking area (outside). (Note that when you are Iona bound, this is your last chance for food or bathrooms.) There are inside seating areas with big windows to see outside. I liked just going outdoors to see it all go by. The scenery is gorgeous!