Tod Maffin walks Americans through BC Ferries for the Nanaimo Invasion event. Ferries run every two hours from Tsawwassen to Departure Bay; book online for $20, pay the rest at the terminal. A family with a car costs about $60, an RV about $100.
Chapters
I invited Americans to come up to my hometown of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island in Canada. 2,000 of them have registered. I am getting a lot of these questions, which is about the ferry. If you don't know how to get to Nanaimo, we are on an island. It's a huge island. It's the size of Belgium. You can't drive there. You have to either fly there or take a ferry. People are asking about how the ferry works. I will help you. First of all, these are big ferries. They go about every 2 hours between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. But even though they're big, we have a lot of traffic between those two areas, so they fill up a lot. So very strong. Now you can just drive to one of the terminals and take your chances. It is first come, first serve in that case. But you really should go to the BC Ferries website and get a reservation. The reservation costs $20. You pay the reservation, the $20 fee online, and then when you arrive at the terminal, your spot is guaranteed and you pay the balance. Then I will talk about what the other prices are in a second. Also, once you bought your ticket, download the BC Ferries apps because it'll hold your ticket in there and you'll have a QR code you can, you can show the person. Although I think they can look it up by your phone number too. How soon should you get to the ferry terminal? About an hour before. Once you're there, you're gonna park. They're gonna tell you what lane to go into. You're gonna park. There's like a mini mall at Tsawwassen where you can go. There's like coffee stores and snack stores and stuff like that and so on. And then you'll hear on the big loudspeaker, they'll say, "If you're going to Nanaimo, get your ass in your cars 'cause we're about to board ya." At that point, some very friendly helpers will guide you and your car up this ramp. It's really narrow, but you'll be fine. And they'll park you somewhere on the ship. I think there's 3 levels of car decks. Like, these are big, big, big ships. Also, don't worry, by the way, when you drive in, you're gonna face that direction and then you just drive out the other side. So you don't have to worry about making any turnarounds or anything. You're gonna park on the car deck and you are going to turn your car alarm off for the love of God. Okay, so then you're gonna go upstairs and upstairs there's a whole bunch of stuff. It's like a mini cruise ship. So there's a restaurant where you can get hot food. There's a snack bar. There's like a gift store. There's a younger kids' play area. Oh, also, if you're bringing a pet, there's also a little room, a little heated room on the car deck for your dog to, you know, do what they're gonna do. There's water there, there's bags there, and so on. Fun fact, you used to be able to rent little rooms. There were like little cabins that you could rent, but they discontinued that because people were booking the rooms with the beds and they were not taking naps on them, if you know what I mean. All right, let's talk, oh shit, talk about costs. A couple of things before we talk about costs though. It varies based on like how big your car is, how many people are coming, and so on. Also, I'm gonna give you these numbers in Freedom Dollars. You will be billed in Canadian dollars, all right? Because, and the reason for that is because we're another country. I'm gonna give you what it will cost you in Freedom Dollars, America. Foot passengers, by yourself, no car, each person about $10 to $11 Freedom Dollars. Kids, about $5. 2 adults, 2 kids, and a car is gonna run you about $60 Freedom Dollars. 2 kids, 2 adults in an RV, now this depends on like how big your RV is and everything like that, but around $100 or so. Also, you don't have to worry about will my RV fit. Your RV will fit. We have massive freight trucks that go through there. Remember, that ferry is like how we get most of our goods. So furniture, gasoline, like all that stuff comes on the ferry. So your dinky little RV, no matter how big it is, will be just fine. There are discounts if you are over 65. Um, there's discounts if you are a student under 18. And they do have group discounts as well. To get that, you have to reserve at least 10 Canadian days in advance. That's about 7 American days with the exchange rate. Now, if you stuck with me, here's the best part. The scenery is incredible. You might see pods of orcas. You are certainly gonna see mountains and beautiful, clean Canadian water. It is a magnificent journey. Okay, so that's it. This is happening late April. I have not confirmed the date with the city yet, but it's probably April 25th to 27th. Do not book anything yet until I confirm it for you. Make sure you're on the email list and you're registered if you think you're gonna come up to Nanaimo for this invasion thing. Tap the link in my bio to get there or just go to b.link/invasion. We also have a Discord where people are answering questions. We have hosts in the how to move to Canada site, in the accessibility site. Oh, sorry, accessibility. The ship is fully accessible. There are elevators, big wide, the bathrooms are fully accessible. You will have no problem. So yeah, if you wanna register, tap the link in the bio or just go to b.link/invasion. Invasion, um, and we have a frequently asked questions, uh, link which you'll find on that forum as well. All right, I hope this was helpful.
