B.C. Ferries passengers taking vehicles to or from Vancouver Island without reservations on Friday arrived at terminals prepared to wait — or possibly not sail at all.
Traffic to Vancouver Island, in particular, is heavy, with several-sailing waits on routes and sailing delays due to the volume of traffic.
By early evening, vehicle traffic from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver to Departure Bay in Nanaimo was sold out for the rest of the day.
The 5 p.m. sailing out of Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen had 23 per cent vehicle space available.
Only nine per cent of deck space was available for the 9 p.m. sailing from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay.
For the Tsawwassen to Duke Point (Nanaimo) route, B.C. Ferries was ticketing for the 10:45 p.m. sailing with 16 per cent of deck space available; otherwise reserved traffic was moving slowly.
Going in the opposite direction, deck space was still available through the evening on Duke Point to Tsawwassen sailings.
Non-reserved vehicles are unlikely to get on a sailing Friday unless they had already passed through the ticket booth. There was still walk-on space. Reserved traffic has been moving normally, the company said.
On the Departure Bay-Horseshoe Bay route, standby deck space was at capacity.
Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver to Nanaimo’s Departure Bay was listed as full on B.C. Ferries website Friday.
Motorists without reservations will be turned away once the staging areas filled up, BC Ferries said. But for those willing to leave their vehicle behind, there was still room for foot passengers.
Travellers going from Tsawwassen to Duke Point also faced lengthy waits, with space available only on the 8:15 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. trips.
Several sailings on the main and minor routes were delayed because of the time taken to load and unload vessels due to the heavy volume of traffic.
On top of it all, BC Ferries’ website was temporarily up and down throughout the day due to what the corporation called a “technical issue.” It was restored shortly after 2:30 p.m. Up-to-date information is always available through BC Ferries on Twitter.
The reservation system has been experiencing outages for the past three days for a total of six outages in all, the company said in a statement. Most were between 30 and 90 minutes long.
BC Ferries is down one vessel this weekend and cancelled eight sailings between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen when work on the Coastal Celebration took longer than expected.
On Thursday, the ferry corporation reported that it carried about 5,300 vehicles and 20,000 passengers between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen.
More than 6,000 bookings were transferred to the Spirit of Vancouver Island and the Spirit of British Columbia — the largest vessels in the fleet — and the Queen of New Westminster to accommodate those with reservations.
The Coastal Celebration was expected back in service by June 15 but that has been pushed back to July 4. Its return date depends on repairs being completed smoothly and successful ship trials, scheduled for Sunday.
The July long weekend is usually the second busiest for BC Ferries, the busiest being the August long weekend.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiemh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRpbWVzY29sb25pc3QuY29tL2xvY2FsLW5ld3MvdHJhdmVsbGVycy1mYWNlLXNldmVyYWwtc2FpbGluZy1mZXJyeS13YWl0cy10by12YW5jb3V2ZXItaXNsYW5kLW9uLWZyaWRheS03MjIxODM10gEA?oc=5
2023-06-30 19:00:00Z
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