BC Ferries concludes busy long weekend with more full sailings and long waits

BC Ferries frustration High demand for long weekend travel was compounded by a vessel being out of commission on a major route over the Canada Day long weekend.

As the Canada Day long weekend winds down, traffic on BC Ferries from Vancouver Island to Metro Vancouver ramped up Monday.

While the crunch wasn't as significant as that seen going from the Lower Mainland to the island ahead of the long weekend, passengers still saw limited capacity and multiple-sailing waits on some routes.

Every passenger vehicle deck on every sailing from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen was full by mid-morning Monday, but capacity remained on most sailings on over-height decks, which can accommodate both standard passenger vehicles and commercial trucks.

Shortly before 3 p.m., BC Ferries was ticketing for the 5 p.m. sailing, with limited capacity on the day's remaining voyages after that.

Availability was similarly limited going the opposite direction, and sailings from Nanaimo-area terminals to Metro Vancouver were also filling up.

BC Ferries says the July long weekend is typically its second-busiest of the year, after the August long weekend.

"The traffic that we're experiencing is pretty typical to what we expect to see over a long weekend," said B.C. Ferries spokesperson Karen Johnston.

"People tend to stretch their departures for the holiday for a couple of days. We saw that last week," she continued.

Exacerbating the already-high traffic this year has been the removal of the Coastal Celebration from its usual place on the Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen route. 

Last week, BC Ferries announced that it would be cancelling eight sailings per day on its busiest route because of an "unplanned, extended refit" of the Coastal Celebration.

At the time, the company said the vessel was expected to remain out of service through the long weekend. Sea trials began at 10 a.m. Monday, according to an update from BC Ferries.

The company rebooked more than 6,600 reservations in the lead-up to the long weekend, and has been experiencing issues with its website as a large number of people attempt to book travel and check conditions.

"We have staff monitoring the website performance and our booking system to ensure issues are caught and resolved as quickly as possible," BC Ferries said in an update Monday.

"Error messages will occur from time to time while using our schedule pages or when making a booking."