If there are any grey nomads who still aren’t aware that getting a spot aboard the Spirit of Tasmania can be tricky at this time of year, the state’s tourism chief has spelled it out: ‘Book ahead or miss out!
Wannabe traveller angst over ferry availability and cost appears to be a seasonal fact of life, and 2017 is going to be no different.
“Demand for the ships is greatest from around now until May, as visitors to Tasmania over summer start returning home at the same time as Tasmanian caravanners and motorhomers start making their sojourns north to warmer climates for the winter months,” said Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive officer Luke Martin. “The message is the same every year – book early and book often, or, in other words, secure your return sailings, and keep an eye out for the release of sailing schedules to secure the best fares.”
Some travellers have criticised TT-Line for supposedly prioritising freight over passengers but Mr Martin says this is unfair.
“A simple check of their annual report shows that while passenger numbers have grown over 20% over the past three or fours years, freight growth has remained steady,” he said. “Critical to this is the number of daytime sailings that have grown from just over 30 a year in 2012 to over 130 daytime sailings last financial year … this is the equivalent in additional capacity to a whole extra ship servicing the route that did not exist four years ago.”
TT-Line figures in May showed the number of caravan and motorhomes coming across Bass Strait was driving growth. The twin ferries carried 377,000 passengers in the year to the end of April, up almost 10% on the previous year.
With Spirit of Tasmania ferries struggling to keep up with demand, the Advocate newspaper is reporting that freight company, SeaRoad Holdings, is now actively promoting the shipping of private vehicles and trailers on its ships.
· Have you made it to Tassie this summer? Are you aware of just how hard it can be to get a crossing this time of the year, particularly with a caravan or motorhome? Comment below.
Well worth getting a pot on the ferry and if you book about 6 months before you go, which we did there is no problem at all. We booked in July to leave late December and returned early March. This still was not long enough for us to see all of Tasmania, what a fantastic place to visit.
We wont do Tassie because of the ferry and the cost. We would need to free camp there for a couple of years to cover it.
Is the main reason we havent been to Tassie due to costs… 30ft of van and Ford Ranger..
The same applies for Tasmanians wanting to head to the “Big Island”. The cost is horrific given that on the “Big Island” you can drive from one State to another for petrol costs. Its about time that there was equity in travel between Tasmania and the “Big Island” for all Australians.
We booked in August to travel over to tassie on the 22 of December ( day trip ) and returned on the over night return trip ( with cabin ) on 25 of January 2017. Cost ( $1850.00 ) and this included two small dogs . While a fair bit of money, it was well worth the cost.We were able to get the cheaper pension rate as well. This was our 4th time over to the ‘apple isle’. Love tassie, and one day hopefully will live over there. This time we were able to free camp for about 14 days in total, while traveling around, also we never had a problem for water or a dump point as a lot of even little towns had the infrastructure in place.
We were also made to feel welcome, spent money, and will plain another trip for the near future.
when the state liberals came to power they promised to make changes to the way the ferries operate, as usual nothing happened, Rene hiidding is responsible but he is a complete waste of space and should be sacked
We have had possibly 12 trips over the last 15 years usually for 10-12 weeks . The advantage for us is that a 7 metre motorhome is much cheaper than a car with caravan so with day sailing specials the cost is reasonable taking into account our fuel bill is much less than going to far north Qld from Victoria.Free or very low cost camps abound so that is another saving. A beautiful state with history . I still love visiting. Our costs are never over $800 or so for the return trip . It is also much easier driving a 7 metre motorhome around a state with narrow winding roads.