Peaks and Places | Travel and Adventure Blog

There are two main vehicle ferry systems in New Zealand: The InterIslander and BlueBridge. We have now had the opportunity to ride on each of the ferries. Our main decided for choosing which ferry to take comes down to the price. On the way from Wellington to Picton, the InterIslander was the cheaper option, and on the way back, BlueBridge was the cheaper option. We wanted to do an analysis of our experiences below, so you can see which ferry we prefer. That being said, even though technically not the fault of the ferry, the weather also played a huge role in our overall experience.

InterIslander

As this was our first ferry ride across the Cook Strait, we took the early ferry, 8:30am, so that we could wander around and see the sights. The check in process with the InterIslander was fairly painless, and it took awhile once we were in the lines for us to start being loaded onto the ferry. Once we were parked on the bottom deck of the ferry, we grabbed our stuff and headed up. We didn’t realize that we wouldn’t be able to go back to the van during the ride, so we were unprepared on the food front.

Since it was relatively nice weather, we spent a lot of time up on the observation deck, checking out the sights as we pulled out of Wellington and into the Cook Strait. We did a lot of exploring, as this was our first ferry ride, and got a good idea of the layout. Since we spent so much time wandering around, by the time we decided to find a place to sit and charge laptop, there were not too many options. There were several lounges spread out over a couple of floors, along with private rooms and spaces for people who wanted to pay a little extra. We ended up in a restaurant style booth, that was lined with outlets on the underside. While I was a little disappointed we weren’t in view of a window, at least we had found somewhere to sit.

As I mentioned earlier, we weren’t allowed to go to the van once it was parked, and we were getting pretty hungry. We ended up caving and buying some fish and chips from the little restaurant on board. They were pretty good, not the best we’ve ever had, but they were enough to satisfy us until we would be able to get to our food again. They had a little cart they walked around the boat with scones at what they called ‘Scone O’clock.’ After paying nearly $300 for a ticket, we were pretty hopeful they would be complimentary. Alas, they were $3 a scone, so we ended up passing on this little treat.

We arrived in Picton around 12:30pm, and getting off of the ferry was incredibly painless. They had pulled into port opposite of the way they had left Wellington, and all of the vehicles were able to simply drive right off the boat and into the harbor. We wouldn’t realize what a luxury this was until we headed back to Wellington.

I should mention, not even a few weeks after we landed in the South Island, a fun little news story came out. Apparently, one of the InterIslander ferries was not paying attention and essentially beached itself up onto some land near its docking site. It took 13 hours for the tow boat to come and free the poor passengers from the ferry. I hope they got some free scones…

BlueBridge

First, through no fault of BlueBridge, let’s talk about the weather. It was incredibly stormy and windy the two days leading up to our ferry trip. As a result, the ferry was delayed. While annoying, I don’t blame BlueBridge for this, because they were incredibly communicative via text the entire time, letting us know about the delays well in advance and being very apologetic. Our original departure time was supposed to be 2:00pm, but we didn’t end up departing until a little after 6:00pm that evening. From the get go, it seemed to take an incredibly long time to board, even with us being one of the first rows to be allowed on. Due to this, we ended up being on the top floor, which meant the van got to be parked outside in the rain.

Once we were on the ferry and parked, we wasted no time heading into the seating and lounge area. The seating, in our opinion, was not set up very well. There was an area that resembled the inside of an airplane, with lots of uncomfortable looking airplane seats jammed together in rows. We continued on to more of a lounge area, with tables and a few more comfortable looking spots. We found one of only two outlets in the entire room, and set up camp there. Unfortunately, in order to have an outlet, we had to opt for some of the least comfortable chairs on the boat. We wanted to spend the time of the ferry editing video and writing blog posts, as we felt this would be the best use of our time, and an outlet is an integral part of being productive.

Due to the high winds, the Cook Strait was anything but calm. I have been on many boats in my life, and I thought I could comfortably say that I do not get seasick. I was wrong. The entire ferry was being thrown over massive swells, and since it was dark and rainy, we were confined to the inside of the ship, and couldn’t see anything out of the windows. I don’t think that helped. Both Eric and I spent the majority of the ride with our heads down on the table. I could tell that it wasn’t just us either, there were a lot of barf bags being clutched in passenger hands, and a lot of people looking rather green and unhappy. Again, I can’t blame the ferry for this part of the experience, but it did make for an unpleasant trip.

Finally, we arrived in Wellington around 10:00pm, five hours later than planned, and it was time to unload. Now this is where BlueBridge really fell below the InterIslander. Getting off of the ferry was an absolute mess. Since we loaded towards the front, we expected to be on of the last rows to exit the boat. What we didn’t expect, however, was to have to wait for every single vehicle to turn around, in the dark and rain, on a rather narrow upper level, and navigate themselves down and out of the ferry. It took upwards of 45 minutes for us to get off the ferry, which after the ride we had had, was rather frustrating. It seemed incredibly slow and inefficient, and was probably our least favorite thing about the ferry ride.

Final Assessment

If it didn’t come down to price, I think we’re both in agreement that we would choose the Interislander over BlueBridge any day. They had more seating options, a lot more outlet options (which is very important when your laptop has a battery life that lasts about as long as a goldfish’s attention span), and a better overall system for getting the vehicles on and off the boat. They were able to load everyone up faster, and in a similar fashion, it took a lot less time to get off the ferry once we arrived at our destination. We won’t take the weather into account for the review, even though it greatly impacted our feelings on the trip, you can’t really blame the ferry itself for that. Let’s just hope that next time we take the Interislander, it doesn’t accidentally run itself onto land…