Thursday, April 12, 2007

Northern Adventure leaves a few wanting a much better travel experience


The folks at BC Ferries will need a bit more than polish for the shiny new ferry, to try and deflect one journalists account of a recent trip on the newly installed Northern Adventure.

Heather Ramsey, writing for the tyee website, was aboard a rather troubled journey from Skidegate to Rupert over the Easter Weekend. Her account of extensive travel delays, alarming ship alarms during the night, frustrated ferry workers and less than edible food from the galley, is not something we'll be finding in a travel brochure we are sure.

Having arrived on the north coast with a colourful history from her days as the Sonia X, spanning the seas from the Caribbean to Spain, the Northern Adventure may be preparing to add to her legacy by providing the locals to share tales of their own.

From self discharging fire extinguishers, to a giant sucking sound in the middle of the night, her journey sounds like possibly the worst travel experience that BC Ferries might wish to offer and something that local tourism operators might wish to keep an eye on.

After all, when you've spent millions of dollars to purchase, refit and re brand your newest addition, to have it become known as the VOMIT COMET, is probably not part of the company plan.
Every new venture will take time to work out the bugs we guess, but somehow we suspect that the Northern Adventure had best fast track the shakedown phase of operations, lest a few more
"Comet" stories make their way to the mainstream.

No comments: