Have booked new V2V Ferry with BOGO

Hi folks, we are spending 2 days in Victoria and 2 days in Vancouver before our Eurodam cruise departing October 17th. Many options traveling from Victoria to Vancouver some seem easier for elderly with mobility issues than others. Searching for positive reviews or info on new V2V ferry Downtown Victoria to Downtown Vancouver went to their website and WOW they were offering Buy One Get One Free so for $120 we both go! Great same deal with Alaska Airlines on flight from Seattle to Victoria. So excited more money for stuff.:cool:

$60pp for their basic service is actually almost a fair price - their normal $120pp is just way too much (4 people and a car would be able to travel downtown to downtown cheaper than this and frankly just as fast!)

I thought that offer expired May 11th though... have they started offering it again?

Got me! we did book this 2 weeks ago, I was away and didnt get a chance to post . Sorry if I mislead anyone.

We dont have have a car and the main reason I posted is the convenience to us as older women staying downtown hotels in both locations. We are flying from Seattle to Victoria so will miss the ferry ride, this way we get a longer ferry ride without the bus ride. Checking the BC ferries fare to be picked up at hotel was around $100 each so this works out less

It certainly has a place at $60pp - but at the regular $120 you can FLY from harbour to harbour for the same or less if you just need transport for people rather than a vehicle... heir pricing I find way out of whack! And that's economy - they already abandoned their in-between priced seats but still have 'royal' for double the regular rate with nibbles and best view seats (that's higher than with peak chopper pricing). At least they've ditched their insane 'you must check in 45mins early' policy and go to a recommended 20mins before, so they are learning, just I fear far too late to actually remain in business much longer without changing price rather than fripperies...

Got me! we did book this 2 weeks ago, I was away and didnt get a chance to post . Sorry if I mislead anyone.

 

We dont have have a car and the main reason I posted is the convenience to us as older women staying downtown hotels in both locations. We are flying from Seattle to Victoria so will miss the ferry ride, this way we get a longer ferry ride without the bus ride. Checking the BC ferries fare to be picked up at hotel was around $100 each so this works out less

It is a good deal. The V2V is a good service and you will likely discover it has a light load. The reason locals generally avoid the service is the downtown to downtown service just takes to long. As a tourist it is a very pleasant trip with some great views along the way. The tourist market is the one that V2V is after.

Locals trying to some some money will likely do BC Ferries. Those willing to spend more that $100 for the crossing will like take Harbour Air (sea plane) or Helijet (helicopter service).

Thank you em-sk

That's the info we were looking for. Scenery, convenience and price for tourists.

I'm a local and took the V2V last weekend (Vic to Van), I was going to write a short review for CC anyway, as the "how to get to Victoria" question seems to come up from time to time – I’ll park it here as the question has been asked!

I took the regular BC Ferry to the Island and the V2V coming back, so have a direct comparison from all angles. I don't drive anyway so I have no reason to need to travel with a car - so the trip was purely from a foot passenger point of view.

Just the facts:

Cost: BC Ferry - one way CDN$17; V2V - one way CDN$120

Time door to door: BC Ferry - 5.5 hours; V2V - 4.25 hours

Quality of service: BC Ferry – equivalent to economy class on aplane; V2V – equivalent to business class on a plane

Stress level: BC Ferry – pretty high; V2V – relaxed and luxurious

Which one would I do again? V2V in a heartbeat (when I have the budget for it!)

[While the cost does seem high when you directly compare them – it’s about what a cruiser would pay for an average shore excursion so it may help to think of it that way! And ... convenience always comes at a price!]

In a bit more detail…

Getting there via BC Ferries - I travelled to the Island on a Friday at about the middle of the day. As I live in Richmond (at the "top" near the airport) and took combination of Skytrain (only 2 stops - condo to Bridgeport) and express bus to get to Tsawwassen. The express bus (Bridgeport to Tsawwassen Ferry) has a limited service which I presume is intended to join up with the specific time of the main ferries. The bus was absolutely packed and I ended upstanding for the approx. 45 minute ride to the Ferry. There is some limited luggage space designed into the bus layout and they use a"bendy" bus so in theory there is more space than a regular bus. This bus is an express with limited stops that travels for the mostpart along the highway with some detours into a couple of suburban stops.

Getting the tickets at the Ferry was easy, there are machines if you want to use debit or credit or cashiers if you wish to use cash. There is a waiting room (with a great view of the ferry traffic and the scenery) with a coffee shop and washrooms. However even on a Friday afternoon there were insufficient seats for the amount of people waiting.

The ferry left a little late -I think there were some delays in loading the car traffic due to stalled vehicle(s). Journey was fine, wonderful scenery and it was a beautiful sunny day! Went to the cafeteria and got a White Spot burger (along with most of the other passengers i.e., long lineups.) The ferry made up sometime on we arrived in Swartz Bay plenty of time for the scheduled bus to Victoria.

Here is where some problems started ... There is a bus directly from Swartz Bay to downtown Victoria, butit is a regular City bus (albeit a double decker bus) with no, and I mean zero,space for luggage. In fact the bus driver seemed really annoyed that the passengers needed to bring luggage onto the bus, and as most of the passengers were coming from the ferry and presumably staying in Victoria for a while, there was a lot of luggage! There was no option but to put luggage onto the seats, otherwise it would have (and did) block the aisle. Everyone managed to squeeze onto the bus, but it was packed to the gills. While the bus travels along the main road for the main part of the journey, there was some major traffic issues (due to an accident and a detour – not the bus company’s fault but it didn’t help), and being jammed on a crowded bus with no leg room became very uncomfortable very quickly. The journey is supposed to take just under an hour – it took about 1.5 hours – Swartz Bay to downtown Victoria. The last stop is just next to the Legislature by the Inner Harbour. All in all – about 5.5 hours (condo door to hotel door!)

Return via V2V: Taken on a Monday morning and couldn’t have been easier! V2V departs Victoria at 9:00 am from just next to the Inner Harbour (next door to where the Seattle Clipper sails from). They ask you to arrive around 8:30 am. (A couple of passengers cut it close and did not arrive until close to or just after 9:00 am and I think they were lucky that the ship waited for them!) [i have been told that V2V is averaging abou t30 passengers a trip and I would guess that this trip was around that number.]

It was a beautiful sunny morning and they have some seats outside in a cordoned off waiting area (I would presume they have a wet weather option somewhere too!) Embarked onto the ship about 8:40 am. You are allowed to “check”one bag (extra charge for more bags) – you just hand it over on the dock before you walk onto the gangplank – but some people just carried their own bags on and I’m not sure if they force you to hand bigger bags over.

Seats on board were lovely and comfortable – think your average business class airplane seat. The ones in the centre had pull down trays (like an airplane), and ones at the side were more like a train with 3 seats facing one way, 3 seats facing the other with a table in the middle (towards the front there were pairs of seats with pull down tables due to the shape of the forward of the ship). Due to the low number of passengers it seemed like everyone on this trip had been allocated a window seat of some description, but there was the option to move around if you wished. “Regular” class seats were the lower deck –where I was – with the extra charge seats on an upper deck (these came with a “meal”and a welcome aboard drink – don’t know what this entailed). Once the ship was underway, you could go outside and upstairs to a “sun deck”, but this was very windy while we were underway in any exposed area, but there were announcements encouraging you to go up while we were sheltered sailing between the smaller islands and while leaving and entering the respective harbours.

There was service to your seat with hosts coming around to provide a menu and to deliver snacks and drinks (tea, coffee, sodas and alcoholic drinks were available to order). There was the occasional bit of taped historical or geographical information given over the loudspeakers during the trip.

Journey was mostly smooth, just after leaving Victoria you knew you were on a ship for when we hit a few waves (but just for a few minutes). Weather was beautiful and it was a very enjoyable trip. We arrived on time (approx.3.5 hours on the water), and I walked from the dock in Vancouver (next to the float plane dock) to my downtown office in just a few minutes. All in all about 4.25 hours (hotel door to downtown office!)

Other information: The V2V did have a 2for1 deal going (which ended on May 27). I had not enquired about it before my trip as I travel solo so just thought that it would not apply to me. However when I went to book my seat (once I was already in Victoria), I was offered the option of buying a2for1 using an open return option (to be used within a year), so I now have the option to travel back to Victoria using V2V for another weekend later on this year using my “free” ticket!

I was told that apparently 80 passengers are required to “breakeven” and I would estimate that the ship would hold around 150 (but that’s a total guess at number of seats!). I was also told that the company running it is part of larger company that runs similar services in multiple countries and therefore has the ability to absorb any losses in the early years. Personally,I’m not sure they are marketing it either the right way or to the right people –as local I have seen very little marketing, and on speaking to my co-workers, a lot of people don’t even know it exists. From a cruiser’s perspective, Ithink it opens up an easy way to add a pre or post cruise trip over to Victoria onto an Alaskan cruise!

Over the years there have been attempts to run a downtown to downtown ferry service – I hope this one “sticks” as it was really enjoyable!

If you have any specific questions not covered, just let me know, I'll pop back and check from time to time!

Thank you Westcoachtech! We are two ladies in our mid 70's with mobility issues. When I saw the 2nd passenger free offer I booked without a second thought. We intended to book at the regular price of $120 each reason being the uncomfortable issue you stated traveling by public transportation. BC Ferries offers bus pickup downtown to downtown but the fare was the same as V2V.

I do hope V2V is still in business when we make our trip in October

Thank you again for posting this review.

I'm a local and took the V2V last weekend (Vic to Van), I was going to write a short review for CC anyway, as the "how to get to Victoria" question seems to come up from time to time – I’ll park it here as the question has been asked!

Appreciate the detailed review - but personally I think they're more fairly compared to Helijet/Harbour Air at the current pricing, which is really the sum total of my beef with the service. If another 2 for 1 offer comes up when there's something I want to go to Victoria for (and just Victoria - a car is basically required for all the good stuff elsewhere on the Island, so any multi-night stay and I'm definitely using BC Ferries to bring my own car over rather than renting one over there) AND my timing is flexible enough that their one trip per day schedule works, I'll definitely give them a go.

If time isn't a big factor, and traveling car-free like you did WTT, I'd say that comparing with the BCFConnector service is a much better equivalent than transit. Last time I checked that was about $65 incl taxes for downtown to downtown coach and ferry. V2V's service is definitely worth more than BCFC, given the added luxury and no-transfers convenience, but the real question is how much more is it worth? At say $90pp I think they could steal all of the BCFC business that worked with their limited schedule - so that would add something north of 30pax per trip based on how full those BCFC coaches are when I see them. Dropping the price even that much would surely also entice a few folks away from air travel since V2V would now actually be always cheaper than anything except a standby Student fare on HarbourAir.

V2V are changing some things up - it's interesting that now the morning departure is from Victoria rather than Vancouver like when they started last year, perhaps so folks heading from Victoria for a cruise will actually consider them a viable choice of getting to Vancouver? Heading back post-cruise for Islanders the timing is also quite sensible, early afternoon leaving Vancouver means home by dinner.

More fairly-priced, V2V could easily become THE go-to option for Islanders or folks doing a pre- or post-cruise stay in Victoria when cruising out of Vancouver, as well as an enticing choice for a quickie weekend away at some of the Victoria/Vancouver festivals for locals where cars aren't useful. Bringing in seasonal pricing to entice more locals in the quieter months would also be a good idea.

Given the last attempt to run a Vancouver-Victoria ferry was significantly cheaper ($30, approx $46 today), ran 4x more frequently (2 ships making 2 round trips each) and was also faster (2.5hrs), yet still failed, combined with V2V being a full year in and averaging only 30 pax while apparently needing 80 to break even... (and paying for 16 crew on the trip!) it really does seem like they're sinking just like Royal SeaLink did (who lasted IIRC a little under 2 years before giving up).

Of course there is also another current, viable-and-has-been-so-for-many-years service to compare V2V with - the Clippers, which run a pretty similar distance Seattle-Victoria (also downtown to downtown). Booking in advance, which is required on the V2V so a fair comparison, you can get a round trip for US$112-155pp (approx CAD$150-210) depending on the season. Not that much cheaper than current V2V rates in summer for regular seating - but for the upgraded class on Clipper it's just $20 per leg extra. Clipper also has to pay a crapton extra due to crossing a border, with CBP and CBSA staffing at the pier - and Clipper has much less competition, with the other ferry route involving tons more driving up to Port Angeles from Seattle and flights significantly pricier than up here (again, border crossing costs). Given these factors, it's bluntly ludicrous that V2V feel they can even charge as much as Clipper, let alone more.

I know Clipper were talking about adding a Vancouver-Victoria service around the same time as V2V appeared - they also had enough sense to hold off and see what happens with V2V, since there's absolutely no way that the route could survive with two providers dividing up the potential customers. Best case scenarios to me are either V2V sees sense, cuts rates permanently, gains in passenger numbers to a sustainable level all year round, and remains in business - or they fold, but now Clipper have solid data on ridership levels and come in to run the route with keener pricing. Either way, I'd love it if this route could actually be a permanent thing - but it's just not going to happen without cutting those fares.