Washington State Ferries | Student tour, Spring schedule vehicle reservations open soon

||| FROM PATTY RUBSTELLO for WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES |||

North Kitsap High School students tour Spokane, Kingston terminal

Students from North Kitsap High School got a behind-the-scenes look last week at how we operate our system. Kingston Terminal Supervisor Maria Crisafi spoke about working with us and took questions from the group before boarding Spokane. Once aboard, the highschoolers visited the pilothouse and engine room during a roundtrip sailing between Kingston and Edmonds. The tour focused on potential career opportunities within our system. In addition to Maria, Deputy Assistant Secretary Nicole McIntosh, Capt. Scott Freiboth, Quartermaster Rydel Brooks, Chief Mate Tim Martin and Assistant Engineer Erik Fretwell all shared their experiences and fielded questions on working in the maritime industry. We are actively working with high schools around the region to get students interested in lifelong careers with us as we look to bring long-term stability to our workforce.

Capt. Scott Freiboth and Quartermaster Rydel Brooks lead the students on a tour of the Spokane wheelhouse.

Vehicle reservations for spring season available 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 14

Vehicle reservations for our spring season (March 24 to June 15) on our Anacortes/San Juan Islands and Port Townsend/Coupeville routes will be available at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 14. As a reminder, this will be just the second time that our two-month season release is three hours later than previously. This change helps separate the high traffic demand (online and in our call center) of the two-month release from those looking to make a reservation during the daily two-week and two-day releases, which will remain at 7 a.m. daily.

For our Port Townsend/Coupeville route, all reservations (80% of available space) will be released at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 14.

Due to crewing and vessel availability constraints, we will continue with the reduction of vehicle reservations space on our Anacortes/San Juan Islands run from 90% to 75%, leaving 25% for standby. This added standby space will help ensure reservation holders make sailings during service disruptions. Of that 75%, 25% will be released on Feb.14, another 25% two weeks before each specific sailing and the final 25% two days before. Because of the reduced reservation space, standby space is available on many sailings and customers can often travel without a reservation. Everyone is encouraged to check terminal conditions and cameras before heading to the terminal.

Results of last year’s passenger demographic survey

We recently published a report on the passenger demographic survey (PDF 2.02MB) we conducted last year. Under the direction of the Legislature, we developed the study to better understand the needs and travel patterns of our customers and people living in ferry-served communities. The survey was done through two rounds of in-person outreach aboard our ferries and online in August and October. We analyze changing trends in customer travel patterns about every 10 years, with the last being our 2013 Origin-Destination Survey (PDF 12.2MB).

We also recently published two other reports. One is on our search for a foreign or domestic ferry (PDF 3.87MB) to operate our Anacortes/Sidney, British Columbia route as we have no vessels available to serve this route until 2030. The other is a study aimed to engage with stakeholders to identify and recommend cost-effective strategies and public funding sources to maximize walk-on passenger ridership on our Anacortes/San Juan Islands route (PDF 1.61MB).

Customer kudos

“On November 12th I traveled to the Seahawks game via Bremerton/Seattle ferry. I am so impressed with the Seattle ferry terminal upgrades! Job well done!”  -Seattle/Bremerton customer