...Screw you, BC Ferries!

I am planning a post about our epic hiking/camping trip to the tip of Vancouver Island a little later, but for now, I just want to get this off my chest.

Screw you, BC Ferries!

We left our home at 1:50pm on Thursday afternoon, hoping (wildly, we knew) to catch the special long weekend 2:30 sailing from Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay in Nanaimo. The line up was incredible! We arrived at 2:10 and knew that there was no way to get that boat. Its okay, we thought, we'll get the next 3:10 ship. But that time came and went and we hadn't moved. Hmmmm....oh well, the next sailing was 4:40. But lo and behold, we didn't even get to the ticket kiosk by that time. Finally things started to move at around 5pm. We arrived at the kiosk and the guy asked us for $48.50!!! Grrrrrr!!! Then we waited some more. Good thing Frank had his laptop with him. We watched a whole movie and a downloaded tv episode and still I had time to read a bit before we started to load. At 5:30 we were on the ferry. If you're keeping track, like I was, that's over three hours of waiting. On the ferry, other customers were saying that they had heard that the previous 2 sailing had been cancelled (mechanical? medical? reasons) and that was why we had to wait so long and why we were now behind schedule. Of course, noone at BC Ferries said anything to the thousands of paying customers. No explanation.

On another note, did you know that for an extra small, non-refundable fee of only $17.50 you can reserve your spot on a ferry? Double screw you, BC Ferries! I already pay taxes to maintain the highways, and you keep telling me that the ferries are an extension of the highways, now your telling me that I have to pay extra or I will have to wait to use my transportation route? Wait! Does that mean, if I pay a small, non-refundable fee that I can also skip the rush hour traffic on Hwy 1? That's what I call a cash grab. Oh yeah, to all those guys who did pay that small non-refundable fee, if something happened to the ferry that you planned to get on, you don't get a refund, that's the non-refundable part. You are supposed to get on the next available ferry, but tough nuts if you had an appointment or schedule or anything. The BC Ferry Executives must have a really hard job running a monopoly, subsidized organization. I think they just recently gave themselves a raise because it was so hard to count the money they gouged out of people. Riding the ferry now is a rich person's pleasure. Oh...get this. Apparently, the BC Ferry Corp. loses money on each ferry trip. It's not because of fuel prices or low ridership...nope...its because they have too many middle-managers. Great!

Anyways, we made it across to Vancouver Island, did our hiking/camping trip (more on that in a later post) and hurried back to Nanaimo to catch the last ferry crossing for the night. We didn't want to have to get a hotel in Nanaimo....I like my bed! Especially after roughing it for 3 nights. I pulled up to the ticket kiosk and begrudging handed over a crisp red $50 bill.

The lady said, " Ummm....that will be $73.50 please," holding her hand out for more money. "Huh?!?" we said.
"I will need $23.50 more, please."
"Wha??? There's only two of us. It was only $48.50 on Thursday!"
"Oh...that was a special promotion, its over now," she trilled, all happy-like.
"Are you kidding? $73.50? For two people?"
"I'm sorry, that's the price."
"Hmmmmpppfffttt! That's crazy, that's the last time we will ever come here. What would happen if we didn't have the money?" we asked.
"You'd have to leave the terminal."

We paid...we didn't have a choice. Either $73.50 now or $73.50 tomorrow plus that cost of a hotel room and dinner and breakfast.

But we didn't like it!

I tried to get Tuck to take a crap on their little prissy lawn. I thought, "they can darn well pay someone to come and clean up my dog's crap for $73.50." Tuck didn't oblige. I briefly thought of taking one myself instead. I didn't.

$73.50! That definitely will be the last trip to Vancouver Island for the Konig family.

"Screw you, BC Ferries!"