Ferry Ride To Newfoundland

The day has come. The day we’ve been looking forward to. The big unknown. The mystery will be solved. How do they fit all these cars, motor homes, semi’s, trailers and such all into one ship?

Our ship was not to leave until 10:45 at night. Yup, you heard me right, nighttime. It’s a 16 hour ferry ride from North Sydney to the Port of Argentia in Newfoundland.

We bought a cabin on board to sleep, as you are not allowed on the deck where your vehicle is, let alone stay in it. More on that later though.

First, how to load the ship with all these vehicles.

The port authority people line you up according to size. Cars to the left, Motor homes and trailers in the middle and tractor trailers to the right. At least that’s what I noticed.

Then you wait.

We were parked right behind this really cool, vintage sheriff’s car that said on the window it was from the Andy Griffiths show.

David cooked dinner, in the parking lot, while waiting to board the ferry.  We wandered around the ferry terminal.  Not much there.  We just hung out in the motor home mostly.  Watched some tv.  Did some email.

Then we saw a ferry arrive.  The nose just opened up and all these cars came out.  Pretty interesting.  But it was not our ferry.  We still had to wait.

Then our ferry arrived.  Yeah!  The wait was over.  They off-loaded the vehicles.  Then we waited.

….And waited…

…The darkness came and we waited some more.

Then it was finally time.  Time for us to board.  How in the world were they going to fit all these vehicles in that ship?

We started loading into the belly.  We would soon find out how all these vehicles fit.  The cars go up a ramp and onto the top part of the garage.

The semi’s, trailers and motor homes go straight into the belly of the ship, so to speak.  There’s more room in here than you would expect. There’s a center support and the handlers direct you either left or right, to keep the ship in balance so to speak.

The rows they have you drive down are very narrow to say the least.

We lucked out that we had motorcycles in front and next to us on one side. So we had no issue getting in and out of our rig. Others did.

We had to leave the cats on the motor home for the entire voyage. Not that they leave the motor home ever anyway. It was still difficult leaving them that long with strange noises and a rocking ship. We were not allowed down to the garage deck until we were safely docked in Newfoundland 16 hours later. So we shut the blinds, opened a couple vents, cracked a window and said our good nights.

I worried about them and David tried to keep my spirits up.

When we explored the ship we were having major de’ja’ vue.  We felt like we were on an old cruise ship.  The rooms, hallways, lounge, everything screamed old cruise ship.  All the way down to the guy playing guitar and singing slightly off key.  The cabin itself was a bare bones, no frills, thin mattress, scratchy towels kinda room.  But it worked for one night.

We said our good byes to Nova Scotia and went to bed.

When we awoke we still had a few hours before we landed in Newfoundland.

Our first look, approaching Newfoundland, outside our window in our cabin.

And then we saw the land getting closer and closer.  Finally we saw the dock.  We made it to Newfoundland!

Time to get back to the cats and the motor coach. Not sure why I worried so much about the cats. When we got back to the motor home around 3 in the afternoon, the cats were all sound asleep, not caring where we were. Just if it was dinner time or not. Why did I ever worry?

Unloading the ferry was just as easy as getting on. Just drive on and drive off. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Here is a video David put together of getting on and off the ferry with the coach. It’s about 7 and a half minutes. Hey, but at least their is music by the Blue Man Group. You can also hear our “Star Trek” horn 2 times as we exit. :)

Onward to our next campground in St. John’s, Newfoundland.