BC Ferries: Multiple sailing waits for trips from Vancouver to Victoria, Nanaimo ahead of long weekend

Vancouver -

After sailings filled for stand-by travellers hoping to head from the mainland to Vancouver Island Thursday, sailing waits began piling up early Friday.

According to BC Ferries' current conditions page, as of noon Friday, all sailings from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay until 6 p.m. were already full.

From Tsawwassen to Duke Point in Nanaimo, travellers without reservations will need to wait until Saturday. On that route, all Friday sailings were full.

Only passengers with reservations on full sailings are being given boarding passes.

Making matters worse, a staffing issue led to a significant delay on one sailing from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay. The Queen of New Westminster, which was scheduled to leave the Vancouver side at 6 a.m., has resumed service but is now operating 95 minutes behind schedule.

The company suggested island-bound travellers who don't have a booking head to Horseshoe Bay and try to board a ferry to Departure Bay. That route, however, is also full until the 6:15 p.m. sailing.

“We've told people in advance this is the busiest long weekend of the year, we would ask people to pack your patience,” spokesperson Deborah Marshall told CTV News, adding they have increased reservation capacities for the long weekend.

“We generally reserved between 45 and 75 per cent of the deck space for reservations,” she said. “For peak weekends, there's a lot of demand for reservations, customers want those reservations. So we would be around the 75 per cent allocation this weekend.”

When asked is BC Ferries would consider an "all reservation" model for busy weekends, Marshall responded: “​​Not at this time. Some customers tell us they prefer to drive up.”

Marshall also noted that BC Ferries had been warning travellers for days that they should consider travelling outside of peak periods this long weekend.

The company said Thursday afternoon, Friday afternoon and Saturday morning are generally the busiest travel times of the B.C. Day weekend.

The rush of visitors to Vancouver Island is a sharp injection to the tourism industry. Bill Lewis is chair of the Greater Victoria Hotel Association and says hotels in the city are either “fully booked, or extremely close to” for the long weekend.

“There really has been a strong, strong upswing (in bookings) in Victoria and Vancouver Island as a whole in the last ten days,” Lewis said. “Unfortunately we assume that is because of the challenges the Okanagan is facing with wildfires, not as much people specifically changing their plans but we see it in the numbers.”