Ferry experience

No way to buy tickets online. 

Walked past the ferry and tried to find out where to buy tickets. Assumed you buy tickets on the boat, happened to spot the ferry building from far away. Sign says please buy tickets from the building.

Went in to buy a ten trip and asked if all 4 of us could use it. The man said only two of us can use it at a time, so Clare and I had to buy our own one

Had to wait 45 minutes for next ferry. Worried about losing the ten trip.

Observations while waiting: 

The sign says Metlink, but their website isn’t on metlink and I can’t use snapper. Why is that?

Can I take my bike/scooter on the ferry if I’m a commuter?

Why can’t they use snapper?!

Do they have a toilet on board?

No student discount for a standard ticket. Only for the ten trip.

This sign is a total wtf. For someone who doesn’t know what Eastbourne/seatoun/days bay is this is utterly confusing. Also why does the PM wrap to another line? Visual communications wise it a so bad.

Also I know from personal experience that sometimes there’s an express ferry, but it is so hard to tell from the sign which times are the express ferry

Prices are around the back. I wouldn’t have even known that.

What is the other side like?

If someone just bought a one way ticket then how do they get back? Is there a way to get tickets to the other side?

Do you get a refund if the weather is bad?

The website says that for real time updates about cancellations you have to go to metlink website. Why is that?

We were late!! A girl just came outside and asked “are you guys waiting for the ferry? Yup. It’s about to leave you better run!” 

<Had a video of us running to the ferry but it's a bit embarrassing frankly>

To be fair, probs our fault. Nice that we got reminded. 

Voiceover starts playing very quietly about safety. Could hardly hear what they said.

Very annoying vibrating on the seats. Started speeding up and the vibrations went away. 

Monthly craft beer is pretty cool. Nice they sell drinks.

Asked the skipper guy about if we didn’t have tickets what we would do? He said you can buy them on the ferry. 

Also asked about why we couldn’t put more than 2 people on a ten trip. “Because it would mean we would get more groups of people” “it’s meant for commuters” – basically they want people to pay the proper price. 

Hard to get a pram or bike through since there’s lip on the door/raised doorway.

If there was heaps of people in here there’s hardly anywhere to hold on to when standing.

Guy in the back using his laptop on his lap. Would be nice if there were food up tray tables like in lecture theatres. 

Asked the ferry guy, he said dogs are allowed on board. Nice one.

On tourist loaded trips it would be cool if you could get a voice tour where someone talks for one minute and then doesn’t talk for another ten. Or only on the top deck or something 

We stopped off at seatoun before continuing.

The girls were gonna get off in seatoun but since the way people came on they couldn’t walk up the path, by the time they got up to the top they hard already removed the walkway thing. There was never any message to get off in seatoun or never any chance from the crew to get off. The girls ultimately missed their point to get off in seatoun and had to take the whole ride back to town

Interestingly there’s no indication of where we’re going. I didn’t even know we were going to seatoun and as we leave seatoun I’m not sure if we’re going to somes island. Trains usually say next stop, but you have no indication with the ferry

No indication of restaurants on somes island (Awa mentioned there is sometimes someone that says on the radio “there’s no food on the island so this is your last chance to get something”)

I didn’t know Eastbourne shops and days bay were a different thing.  Neither did the tourists.

Talked to some tourists about how they found the ferry. They were just walking past and decided to take it. They had no idea where it was going to take them but decided to just do it. They told me they wished there was someone explaining the history of Wellington harbour or where they were going next, but otherwise was a nice experience.

The girls asked the guy hey we wanted to get off in seatoun, he said can I ask why you wanted to get off in seatoun? The girls said because we live in Kilbirnie, and he said oh we assumed you were doing a round trip. The next ride back to seatoun is in an hour. She said oh that’s a shame, I guess we’ll just go back into town then. He said yeah sorry about that I can give you your ride back to town for free.

General theme: a lot of assumptions.

When leaving Eastbourne a couple tried to get on at 4:25. The ferry was set to leave at 4:30 but they put the walkway up as soon as people finished walking, so they were really confused how to get on and if they missed the boat or not. They looked plain sad and confused. The ferry guy heard me asking if they were waiting for the ferry and came up and put the bridge back on. Not sure if he would have noticed otherwise.

No wifi on board for commuters.

My takeaways on what they could pretty easily improve:

– Just waiting longer and making sure people who wanted to get on were on and people who wanted to get off could.

– A guided tour of the history of the area, or at least someone explaining where the next destination was going to be.

– Tray tables & wifi for commuters to use their laptops.