If you are looking to travel this long weekend BC Ferries says you will need a reservation, or risk waiting at terminals for a sailing.
According to senior communications advisor Kaley Marlow, this is the third busiest time of the year for BC Ferries after BC Day and Canada Day with expectations of over half a million passengers traveling on all the routes.
“We are right at the end of a record-breaking summer, so we certainly anticipate this weekend to be very busy,” she says. “We’re expecting over 500,000 passengers across all our routes and vessels and over 270,000 on our major routes.”
Marlow says after careful observation, evaluation and planning BC Ferries has been able to adjust several key areas to ensure travelers have a smooth experience during the last official summer holiday.
“We really took a look at our resource schedule to make sure all of our vessels are ready and in service for the summer season,” she says. “We hired almost 600 new employees and added an additional volume of sailings across all the major routes.
“We’ve also added saver fares at off-peak times and dropped the four per cent fuel surcharge.”
On top of these additions, Marlow says tracking ferries to know if there are delays is another way riders can plan travel.
“We’ve added a number of new amenities across all of our ferries, such as live webcams, vessel trackers, and updated service schedules,” she says.
According to BC Ferries website, many reservations across their major routes are all sold out, so riders could experience wait times if they don’t have a pre-booked sailing.
