FUMING passengers have branded Condor ferries "a shambles" over its handling of the disruption to ferry services over the weekend.

Hundreds had their travel plans upended during the three days of chaos which ensued after the £50million flagship Conor Liberation ferry suffered problems with its exhaust system.

Sailings between Poole and the Channel Islands were cancelled on Friday morning and on Saturday. Services which did run took as long as eight hours, instead of the usual four and a half.

Problems continued on Sunday as more than 100 people were left behind at Poole after an overbooking error resulted in 70 people being unable to board. Frustrated passengers blockaded the port by laying own in the road, resulting in a further 69 cars - and their passengers - being unable to get on the ferry.

James Kirkwood, was stranded on Jersey following a holiday with his wife Sarah and their 13 month old son after Saturday's 8am crossing to Poole was cancelled. With Condor's phone lines "permanently engaged" they queued for two hours at the ferry terminal for information, only to be told "there's no sailings today, with no indication of when we would get home."

The company director from Abergavenny added: "They had absolutely no contingency plan at all - they didn't have a clue what was going on. It was entirely chaotic."

They eventually made it home 48 hours late via a flight to Southampton, while their car was freighted over to Portsmouth. The catalogue of errors they say included their flights being booked by Condor with their names in reverse order, and a text message to confirm their booking on a ferry on Monday - as they boarded their flight to Southampton.

"It was a shambles," was the view of another weekend traveller from Poole. She said police were called to the port at Guernsey on Friday after irate passengers disembarked from the ship with no idea how they were going to get to Jersey.

"There was poor communication," she said.

"I felt sorry for the staff having to take a lot of flack from a lot of irate passengers. No-one seemed to know what was going on. They were really apologetic."

Another boat was found to take them on to Jersey and they eventually arrived at the hotel at midnight. Her trip back to Poole took 6½ hours.

Michelle Gregory, a self-employed driving instructor from London, was stuck in Guernsey for two days, after her ferry was cancelled twice. She said: "It was the waiting and not knowing that was the problem - and a substantial loss in my income."

Today's (Tuesday's) sailings have been cancelled and passengers moved to Wednesday and Thursday’s sailings so the engineering team can check the repair work.

Alicia Andrews, Executive Director – Commercial, said: “Our teams have been working really hard to help all our passengers whose travel has been disrupted over the weekend. We’re running an extra sailing today to help our passengers and we’ve paid for hundreds of passengers to travel to France via Brittany Ferries and provided local hotel accommodation for those who have chosen to sail today. We’ve also adapted the timetable for another of our ships, Condor Rapide, to provide inter-island connections, that’s also involved running extra sailings.

“Due to the technical fault, Condor Liberation was operating on reduced power for her sailings between Poole and the Channel Islands on Friday and Sunday, therefore these sailings took longer than usual, with Condor providing an additional inter-island connection with Condor Rapide for passengers travelling on to Jersey. This morning, Condor Liberation arrived in Guernsey ahead of schedule and is making good time on her sailing to Jersey this afternoon.”