Nightie-night

From Hansard in 1998, this gem from the late Bob French:

If only now the minister could talk to her federal counterparts in Ottawa to see what we could do with the ferry service coming across the gulf. Maybe the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture never travelled that way, but I have. I travelled that way this past summer, and to say that the conditions on The Joseph and Clara Smallwood were deplorable would be putting it mildly, particularly when you see families of four, five and six people with sleeping bags and blankets crawling under stairs on the Gulf ferry to try and find a place to sleep for the night because all the cabins have been booked.

This is Ryan Cleary, writing about Marine Atlantic, in the September 11, 1999 edition of the Telegram:

The ferries ran at maximum capacity for most of the tourist season and there were complaints, with night crossings in particular. The ferries aren't designed to accommodate hundreds of sleepers. So travellers end up sleeping wherever — on a couch, a counter, the floor.

From one of his 1999 press releases as Tourism Minister, here's Chuckles J. again:

"Is the federal government going to opt for a second-rate solution to Marine Atlantic's Gulf ferry service under capacity? If it is, not only will Newfoundlanders and Labradorians be short changed by federal penny pinching, but so will all of Canada and foreign travellers who visit our province. It is no longer tolerable to have substandard conditions for travellers on Marine Atlantic's ferries. We can't afford the negative impact visitors to our province will have when they recount to their friends and relatives their experience of sleeping on the floor of these vessels along with hundreds of others.

From Chuck Furey's exercise in ranting and roaring (about Canada) like true Newfoundlanders, back in 1999, choice excerpts from On Deck and Below:

In addition to inadequate vehicle capacity, there is a pressing need for adequate sleeping accommodations.

On night crossings cabin berths will sell out well before the vehicle capacity is reached. The ferries were never properly equipped with cabins. The alternatives of dormitory sleepers and sleeper/recliners are useful, but still inadequate to meet the demands of consumers. Complaints included such items as the dormitory sleeping area, the uncomfortable sleeper/recliners, the inability to reserve a recliner, the crowded general seating areas where people are asleep, and the crowded floors where people have staked out their overnight sleeping spaces. These and other degrading experiences all provide evidence that a better solution is needed.

...

The service operator must be completely committed to customer satisfaction and comfort.

Regrettably, there are too many stories of low satisfaction and traveller discomfort. The presenters during the forum were nearly universal in identifying service quality as a problem that urgently needs to be addressed.

Service issues include, but are not limited to, the following:

...people sleeping on floors and throughout the general seating area

And this is what Norm Doyle, MP, told the Telegram's Jamie Baker back in March:

"I believe the province of Newfoundland and Labrador cannot become the tourist mecca that it is capable of becoming if we do not have a top-notch Marine Atlantic ferry service," Doyle said. "It must not be messy. It must not be crowded. Sleeping accommodations have to be excellent.

And with that, here's a glimpse of what the provincially-run Sir Robert Bond service is like these days in high season.

These hardy tourists, with their heavy-duty sleeping bags, were smart. Sleeping al fresco, under the stars, even as the chill set in as the boat took to the open sea, it was, for the cabin- or dormitory-less passenger, far and away the lesser of two evils:

Notwithstanding the notorious decibel levels of the Bond's massive funnels, this was the quiet option. More on that, later.

And here, in the summer of 2007, in the high tourist season, such as it is, is one of Bob French's, rest his soul, families of five or six. (The central portion of the image has been grayscaled and pixellated for the sake of privacy.):

Most of the people sleeping at the end of this hallway are children.

The lack of sleeping capacity — comfortable sleeping capacity being a pipe-dream; for now we can only dream of numerically sufficient bunks — could be remedied, in part, if the Goose Bay to Cartwright leg of the Bond's itinerary were a day ferry, at least some of the time.

But it isn't.

Every run of the Bond, every single 12-hour run of the Bond, from Goose Bay to Cartwright, or Cartwright to Goose Bay, is an overnight trip.* And with the Lewisporte run still on, there is no time or flexibility left in the schedule to put day trips into service within Labrador: the convenience and comfort of Goose Bay to Lewisporte passengers, and traffic originating on or bound to the Apollo on the Straits run, takes priority 100% of the time.

Every single passenger on that segment either has to book well in advance, or, if their trip is on short notice, say, for a family emergency, had better hope the wait-list pans out.

If not... there's the option of floor, deck, or lounge. (More on this last option anon.)

So, Hospitality Newfoundland and Newfoundland, where are your press releases about this?

Charles J. Furey, what about the "unconstitutional cattle boat" that Labrador has to tolerate?

Nationalist Newfoundlanders, PWG-waving Danny Fans, who can summon the anti-Canada Marine Atlantic Hates at will, Ryan Cleary, where is your outrage?

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* Not so much at this time of year, but into August, the overnight schedule for the Bond means that passengers, esp. of the tourist variety, sail past scenery like this, the future Mealy Mountains National Park (if Danny will let it), in the dark.