DISGRUNTLED passengers have hit out after they say they were not contacted after trip on the Waverley steamer were cancelled.
Waverley Excursions, the charity behind the iconic Clydebuilt vessel, confirmed it had not been running due to an intermittent fault with her air pump.
A spokeswoman confirmed it had been taken out of service for eleven days from July 20 until July 30, though it was back running at the beginning of this week.
Janet Cunningham, from Stirling, said she had bought tickets earlier in the month after booking over the phone.
However, when she turned up at the quayside on Sunday July 30 for the trip, nobody was there to tell her it had been cancelled nor was there any signs notifying of the cancellation.
She said: "I had got the tickets for a gift for friends, but we were astounded that nobody had told us it wasn't running."
She said that the response when she phoned the next day was very vague, though she was eventually offered a refund after declining the option to book for another day.
She said: “It was very disappointing and a bit of a mess. I'm concerned about all the people that didn't get told and I'm just worried about the reputation as well.
"I just feel that sailing on the Waverley on the Clyde has become a Scottish tradition and I'm concerned for people coming from abroad to deal with something like this.”
The Waverley, the last ocean-going paddle steamer, recently celebrated its 70th anniversary in June this year and still runs excursions down the Clyde during the summer months.
Ms Cunningham had brought her friend Gerry McGladrigan, and his wife from, who had travelled from Cumbernauld.
He said: "Our friend Janet wanted to take us on the Waverley was a gift.
"When we turned up there was nobody there.
"I rolled down the window and asked two people from the Science Centre where I could park for the Waverley and they told us it hadn't been running for about 10 days.
"There was nobody there at the quayside.
“It was a shame, we were really looking forward to it.”
Mr McGladrigan said he thought there were around 16 people who had congregated and had not been informed either.
"There was quite a group of people there, including a large group of cyclists.
"But there was nothing on the notice board.
A spokeswoman for Waverley Excursions said: “We have spoken with many of our disappointed passengers and are grateful for their ongoing support of our charitable operation.
“It is not our intention to inconvenience them and our engineers and contractors worked flat out to resolve the issue.
She added: “We put daily updates on our website as engineers were working tirelessly to fix the issue and we were hopeful each day that the problems could be resolved.
“Customers who had booked were contacted by either text or email.
“Any pre-booked passengers who were not contacted should make contact with our office so that we can find out the cause and deal with them appropriately.”
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