Dear Commuter

Writing today it feels as if we really are having an Indian summer. Superb weather and everyone smiling!  Love it!

Now to housekeeping matters… We are a little late in letting you know but we’ve been waiting on the weather to make up its mind.  We’ve now scheduled  the City Cat to come out of the water tomorrow for its two yearly survey and maintenance.  Among other jobs and of course the survey  work, we’re going to be repainting the hull with coppercote antifoul which will be really helpful to keep our speed and efficiency up.

So tomorrow Thursday 2^nd May and Friday 3^rd May we will be operating on our restricted timetable for commuter sailings

Ie Sailings will be as follows:

Depart Days Bay                and in afternoon/evening  Depart Queens Wharf

6.50am                                                                                               4.30pm

7.45am                                                                                               5.30pm

8.35am                                                                                               6.30pm

Off peak sailings will be as normal between 10am and 3.00pm but please note there is no 3.40pm sailing from Queens Wharf and no sailings into Seatoun. Additonally this coming weekend we will not be operating the Harbour Explorer calling into Seatoun and Petone. City Cat will be back in the water late Sunday afternoon and back to full schedule Monday 6^th May.

We apologise for any inconvenience for this disruption to full service but trust you’ll appreciate the necessity  for this survey safety work.

Onto other matters congratulations go out to David  Apthorpe for winning our recent commuter draw for a double pass to Phantom of the Opera! Should be an excellent show and trust you’ll enjoy David!

If you have just joined our commuting club or are thinking of it, do sign up for our free mobile text service re cancellations due to weather or otherwise. Commuters find this invaluable to receive up to the minute notification direct to your phone of any disruptions to the service. Just inform the crew of your mobile number or email the office on info@eastbywest.co.nz. Also if you want to receive our newsletters and updates by email, again just email us your address.

Do also make sure you’ve put your used10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner. Congratulations to Theresa Van Rooyen who won last months draw!!  This months is drawn on board tonight so good luck to all who are in! Remember monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again be in to win!

Happy sailing

Jeremy Ward

Manager

They say “You can’t beat Wellington on a Good Day!” Well we say you can’t beat Wellington on a good month! What a cracker February has been and March looks more of the same! Did you know Wellingtonians are the happiest New Zealanders?  Yep I reckon there’s a new slogan in that somewhere for Wellington! Anyway hope you are enjoying the weather as much as we are.

In that vein I just have to share with you some photos and a video from the Dom Post today!

You probably heard about the dolphins in the harbour yesterday. I know commuters and tourists alike both had great views from the ferries. The skippers and crew certainly made sure you were up close to enjoy the spectacle. It seemed  there were more than a hundred of them frolicking in the sun! Check out the Stuff links for the article, photos and video! The video’s really clever with a great sound track (and good shots of the ferries to boot!)

http://vimeo.com/60724919

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8367225/Huge-dolphin-pod-in-Wellington-Harbour

Now at East By West, we’re all about making your commute enjoyable so here’s a great idea for you to think about. We’re looking at bringing in some pretty smart, sexy electric bicycles. We reckon they might really suit a lot of commuters in getting to Days Bay in the morning (or even bringing them over to the City). We’ve coined them the “Wellybike” and they are classed as ordinary bicycles so no rego or other costs and you can also ride them as ordinary bikes with 7 gears. They fold up and will do between 35 to 60 kilometres on one charge. They really are quite cool and I’ve been riding one to and from work (up hills!)  for the last month! If you want to see one just pop into the office on the wharf (one will be there most days) and take it for a test ride!

If that tickles your fancy, check out the special deal for initial buyers on the Wellybike website  www.wellybikes.co.nz. And for any of our commuters who do buy we’ll also throw into the deal a free 10 ferry trip ticket! So jump on board and join the Wellybike club and do please feel free to spread the word to anyone who may be interested!

And the good news continues… We’ve got a premium double pass to give away to the forthcoming “The Phantom of the Opera” show at the St James Theatre. The show premieres on Thursday 13^th June and our tickets are for the evening show on Friday 14^th June. That will be a show and a half so here’s the drill to be in to win:

All you have to do is drop us an email (to info@eastbywest.co.nz) with ‘”Phantom” in the title, with your contact name and mobile ph number and you’ll be in the draw. Otherwise you can fill out your contact details on the forms with the crew on board the ferries and we’ll make sure you’re in the draw.

We’ll make the lucky draw from all entries on the 7.45am Cobar Cat sailing from Days Bay on Wednesday 6^th March and immediately contact the lucky winner so make sure your mobile is on!!!  The odds for this raffle are as good as you’ll get so make sure you’re in to win!! The only condition is you must be a regular traveller with East By West! Good Luck!                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Contd overleaf……….

And now just a friendly reminder about the timeliness of ferries. We know the 8.35am sailing from Days Bay has been getting in late lately. We’ve just taken the Cobar Cat out of the water this morning and cleaned the hull so that will assist with speed. But we would ask all commuters and especially the 7.45am commuters to make sure you’re on board in good time because if this sailing is late its puts the later 8.35am sailing  out moreso! We don’t want to upset anyone and leave them behind running up the wharf so please do make an effort for your fellow travellers!

If you have just joined our commuting club or are thinking of it, do sign up for our free mobile text service re cancellations due to weather or otherwise. Commuters find this invaluable to receive up to the minute notification direct to your phone of any disruptions to the service. Just inform the crew of your mobile number or email the office on info@eastbywest.co.nz. Also if you want to receive our newsletters and updates by email, again just email us your address.

Do also make sure you’ve put your used10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner. Congratulations to Tony Hutchens who won February’s draw!! Our March one will be drawn tonight!  Monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again be in to win!

Happy sailing

Jeremy Ward

Manager

East By West Ferries

P.S. Nearly forgot to tell you, courtesy of the Dom Post, the Cobar Cat is getting an exterior signage makeover imminently! She’s going to look very sharp. I’ll post a snap shot of our new livery on our website shortly and let you see!

It’s another beautiful start to the week with fine weather so that’s got us all sufficiently primed for the festivities of the red carpet extravaganza and The Hobbit premiere on Wednesday. The forecast is for continuing fine weather through Wednesday so Peter Jackson must have more contacts that we thought  high up above!  I knew he could bend John Key’s ear but didn’t realise quite the extent of his powers and circle of influence!!

That aside, Wednesday is a great day for Wellingtonians to celebrate the success of the Hobbit and so we think everyone should take a half day off (except our hard working ferry crew of course!) and enjoy the carnival atmosphere down Courtenay Place and the waterfront. If you have family or friends coming over from Eastbourne on any of the afternoon sailings do get there early to secure a good vantage point.

Coming home we’ve scheduled an extra later night sailing at 8.00pm so you don’t have to feel rushed and can enjoy the evening!

Late night sailing Wednesday 28^th November Queens Wharf to Days Bay departs 8.00pm – Spread the word!

And this weekend we hit December and the Xmas season approaches.  We’ve now got our Xmas & New Year holiday timetable  finalised . The Metlink Ferry holiday pamphlets are now available on board and we’ll have it posted on our website very shortly.The holiday schedule runs from Xmas Eve through to Sunday 6^th January 2013 so do check it out if you’re working through!

Also tomorrow Tuesday 27^th November  we‘re updating our text message cancellation database (we meant to do it last month!) so you’ll receive a text  from  us in the morning. All you need to do is reply Yes or No as to whether you want to remain on the list or not. We think we have quite a few obsolete numbers so it’s a chance for us to clean it up!

As regulars you’ll also probably notice our Xmas evening cruises are well underway and combined with our increasingly busy off peak sailings for schools, seniors and corporate groups all celebrating the end of year, its lining up for our busiest month ever! We’re certainly not complaining but trust this won’t unduly affect the service we offer you, our valued commuters. Some off peak sailings can go to capacity at this time off year, especially 12 noon from Queens Wharf, so if you are sneaking home early any day, do just get down a few minutes earlier so we can make sure we get you priority on board!

And lastly as always, if you have just joined our unique commuting club or are thinking of it, do sign up for our free mobile text service re cancellations due to weather or otherwise.  Our regulars find this invaluable to receive up to the minute notification direct to your phone of any disruptions to the service. Just inform the crew of your mobile number, full name and whether you’re a Days Bay or Seatoun commuter, or alternatively email the office on info@eastbywest.co.nz. Also if you want to receive our newsletters and updates by email, again just email us your address.

Lastly do make sure you’ve put your used 10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner. Congratulations to Campbell McLachlan who won this month’s draw!  Campbell’s a long standing commuter with us and it’s nice to see what goes around comes around! Well deserved Campbell. Remember monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again make sure you are in to win!

Until next time…

Happy sailing

Jeremy Ward

Manager

East By West Ferries

Daylight Saving kicks in this weekend with a good forecast so it looks as though we might be blessed  with two cracker weekends of weather in a row!  Is this a sign of perhaps a superb summer to come? Absolutely I say, always being the optimist!  But seriously, good weather cheers us all up and that’s got to be good!

What cheered us up even more at East By West was recognition this week of the ferry service as a “must do” in the latest Lonely Planet edition just released!  Sometimes it’s just nice for our team to be acknowledged for the cool service and experience they provide in the “Coolest Little Capital in the World!”

Now to a couple of bits of housekeeping….

In the next week or so, on a fine day so no one thinks they are getting a cancelled sailing text, we’ll be sending out a text to clean up our text database. Over the years we believe we have quite a few redundant numbers and so we’ll be asking you to reply “yes” or “no” to staying on the text database.  So please do respond and we can then continue keeping you up to date with any delays, cancellations to your sailing schedule.

Also not so great news is that you may have heard all public transport fares in the Wellington region (bus, rail & ferry) are going up as from next Monday 1^st October. You will appreciate costs keep on escalating and fuel increases are a major factor in this. The better news is that it’s only a small increase for commuter concession fares and the new prices are set out at the end of this newsletter.  We do apologise for this small rise in fares but trust you’ll understand the rationale and necessity behind it!

But to counter with some good news our skipper John says it high time we had a sausage sizzle on the wharf for commuters to celebrate Daylight Saving so we are doing that (subject to weather Friday week on all pm sailings from 4.30pm  onwards – that’s Friday  5^th October.)

Now we’ve also got a super prize to give away to one of our valued commuters. The

prize is two A Reserve tickets on Friday 23^rd November  to the fabulous  Agatha  Christie’s “Mousetrap” performance. The Mousetrap is the longest running show of any kind in the world and continues to delight audiences to this day at London’s St. Martin’s Theatre. This classic ‘whodunit’ show first performed in 1952 and now Wellington is hosting NZ’s only shows in this 60^th year anniversary.

So don’t miss out on this opportunity. All you have to do to be in to win is drop us an email (to info@eastbywest.co.nz) with ‘Mousetrap” in the title, with your contact name and mobile ph number and you’ll be in the draw. Otherwise you can fill out your contact details on the forms with the crew on board the ferries and we’ll make sure you’re in the draw.

We’ll make the lucky draws from all entries on the 7.45am Cobar Cat sailing from Days Bay on Tuesday 2^nd October and immediately contact the lucky winner so make sure your mobile is on!!!

Another good bit of news, for us anyway, is that our forward bookings for our Xmas Cruises are twice what they were this time last year. That’s our East By West barometer if you like on the state of our local economy. If companies and clubs are booking Xmas functions early, we reckon the recession is on the wane. After all the economy is all about confidence and so we reckon its beer and skittles ahead!  Now if your company wants to enjoy a Xmas cruise with us (assuming we have a date left!!!) just drop Sarah an email (sarah@eastbywest.co.nz) with a contact email address. The recipient will then get a surprise email package outlining our cruises with a special offer. (We won’t even mention your name!). If they take up a cruise (and they’d be mad not to), we’ll then deliver to you a free monthly pass on the ferry.  Everyone wins and you can’t get a better result than that!!

And lastly as always, if you have just joined our unique commuting club or are thinking of it, do sign up for our free mobile text service re cancellations due to weather or otherwise.  Our regulars find this invaluable to receive up to the minute notification direct to your phone of any disruptions to the service. Just inform the crew of your mobile number or email the office on info@eastbywest.co.nz. Also if you want to receive our newsletters and updates by email, again just email us your address.

Lastly do make sure you’ve put your used 10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner. Congratulations to Mark Jacobs who won this month’s draw! Monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again be in to win!

Until next time…

Happy sailing

Jeremy Ward

Manager

East By West Ferries

NEW FERRY FARES AS FROM MONDAY 1^st OCTOBER 2012

Today’s the Winter Solstice and we all need a bit of cheering up especially in view of the weather lately. The Winter Solstice is the longest night and the shortest day. Now for you purists, the actual date and time for this year’s Solstice is today, June 21 at 18:46 (6:46pm); this is when the Sun is at its most Northerly point in the sky. At the middle of the day it reaches its lowest altitude, from the Northern horizon, for the year.

Now we figured some of you might prefer to celebrate with a tipple on Friday night so we are delaying our celebration till tomorrow (Friday) and we’ll have mulled wine for you on all the commuter sailings going home! Sarah’s recipe last year was a winner so we’re expecting another good brew this year so do enjoy!!

We also promised to give you a summary of our on board survey (see end of newsletter/overleaf) which we carried out earlier in the Year. The results blew us away really in that so many were “absolutely positive” about the service we provide. The comments were too many to list but I personally especially enjoyed this one which says it all…

“I have not had to commute before but recently tried the bus, ferry & train for a week each. The ferry blew the other two away for reliability, the times of sailing (work friendly) the on  timeliness and for being clean. I would recommend the ferry to anyone. _ Still taking me a while to get used to choppy sea though!”.

The other overriding themes from comments were reliability and the friendliness of the crew and the personal touch! We certainly do have a great team and it’s really nice to have that recognised so thank you all!  As I’ve alluded to in the past, our team’s mission is to provide you, our valued commuter, with the best public transport service in the region, (if not New Zealand)  with a concerted focus on our customer service. These results certainly demonstrate we’re heading in the right direction!

Now another little gem of info we’d like to pass on is for those who are into smart phone apps (that would be virtually everyone wouldn’t it??). With the AIS tracking (Automatic Identification System) we have now installed on both ferries you can now track where the ferries are in real time and see for yourselves how far away from the wharf a ferry might be! Very handy if it’s dark or bad weather and you’re standing on the wharf at Days Bay. Just download the free “app” “MarineTraffic” and you’ll be surprised at the info you can access, not only our ferries but other traffic such as the Interislander and any other big ships visiting. Just remember though with the free version it can lag 3 or so minutes behind real time and therefore a ferry might be at the wharf a little quicker than you think! It’s a very handy app though!

Also to keep you well informed on goings on around the harbour and ferry happenings, do check out and “like” us on our Facebook page as we have other interesting snippets and up to date items of interest we can’t always tell you immediately by newsletters. To like us, click on the link to our website homepage http://eastbywest.co.nz/, scroll down and click the Facebook “like” button.

And lastly, if you have just joined our commuting club or are thinking of it, do sign up for our free mobile text service re cancellations due to weather or otherwise. Commuters find this invaluable to receive up to the minute notification direct to your phone of any disruptions to the service. Just inform the crew of your mobile number or email the office on info@eastbywest.co.nz. Also if you want to receive our newsletters and updates by email, again just email us your address.

Do make sure you’ve put your used10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner. Congratulations to Beck, one of our Wellesley students who won this months draw! Monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again be in to win!

Until next time…

Happy sailing

Jeremy Ward

Manager

East By West Ferries

On Board Commuter Survey Summer 2012

175 respondents

Summary of Results

Reliability of Service

98% very good or good

Punctuality in Departure Times

96% very good or good

Customer Service

97% very good or good

Facilities offered on board

78% very good or good

Notification of service cancellation

83% very good or good

How likely to refer ferry services to someone else

Scale 1 -10, 92% 8 or more with 54% @10

We’re now firmly back into the swing of things after the New Year break. February’s traditionally a lovely month for weather and we certainly deserve it after a very mixed bag for January! We’re thrilled to have you commuting with us in 2012 and we look forward to being of service to you with our friendly crew! Also if you do have any suggestions for us to improve our service or attract  new commuters do please let us know as we are eager to please!

Also it’s our long standing custom in February to have a special raffle prize draw to give away to one of our valued commuters. And this year we have not one but two draws so hopefully there’s something for everyone. The two prizes up for grabs are

• This Friday 17^th Feb 4 tickets in reserved seating for the Twenty20 cricket match BlackCaps vs South Africa. Commencing 7.00pm. With a late night ferry to get you home it should be a perfect opportunity to entertain a few friends

• Friday 24^th Feb.  2 tickets to the Festival of the Arts show “The Wild Bride” at the Opera House 7.30pm start. It  has rave reviews from UK, described by the Guardian as a devilishly enjoyable evening!

All you have to do to be in to win is drop us an email (to info@eastbywest.co.nz) with ‘”Cricket / Festival Draw” in the title, with your contact name and mobile ph number and you’ll be in the draw. Otherwise you can fill out your contact details on the forms with the crew on board the ferries and we’ll make sure you’re in the draw.

We’ll make the lucky draws from all entries on the 7.45am Cobar Cat sailing from Days Bay  on Thursday 16^th Feb and immediately contact the lucky winners so make sure your mobile is on!!! First person drawn will have the option of either prize and second winner will receive the other.  The odds for this raffle will be as good as you’ll get so make sure you’re in to win!! The only condition is you must be a regular traveller with East By West! Good Luck!

And just a reminder about our late night sailing this Friday 17^th Feb. If you’re coming over from Days Bay for the Twenty 20 at the stadium we suggest you catch the 5.55pm ferry from Days Bay (game starts 7.00pm). After the game, the ferry departs from Queens Wharf to take you home at 10.30pm.  And if crickets not your cup of tea, why not take advantage of the late night sailing and catch a meal and a movie in town?? Hope to see you on board!

And we moving forward with technology so join us as a friend of East By West Ferries on Facebook as we’re now updating with news and events as they happen.

If you have just joined our commuting club or are thinking of it, do sign up for our free mobile text service re cancellations due to weather or otherwise. Commuters find this invaluable to receive up to the minute notification direct to your phone of any disruptions to the service. Just inform the crew of your mobile number or email the office on info@eastbywest.co.nz. Also if you want to receive our newsletters and updates by email, again just email us your address.

Do also make sure you’ve put your used10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner. Congratulations to Hamish Morrison  who won this months draw! A well deserved win at last Hamish! Are you in for the Quinella for the above draw? Monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again be in to win!

Happy sailing

Jeremy Ward

Manager

East By West Ferries

Dear Commuter

One week to Christmas! Wow at times it seems eons away and then all of a sudden it’s upon us!

The weather gods tell us it’s going to be a good summer with not much wind. With the weather over the last couple of weeks it feels they may well have forgotten that summer officially started on 1^st December!

Anyway on the water, we’ve just finished our last Christmas function on board over the weekend and I know our crew are looking forward to winding down to more normal hours.  If you are, yourself, working through the break or just taking a couple of days off, do check out our Christmas/New Year holiday timetable which will be operating from Boxing Day through to Sunday 8^th January. This year we’ve extended our weekend Harbour Explorer Tours to run right through the holiday period so it might make a small change to regular times if you are commuting. The full holiday timetable is posted on our website and we have them printed and available on both ferries so do pick up a copy.

If you’re running short of time or ideas for that Christmas gift, pop into our office and see Sarah and buy one of our ‘ferry vouchers’ for trips to Days Bay or Matiu Somes Island. You might use the ferry regularly but friends and family may not!  This is great idea for those that would enjoy a visit to the Island or maybe just come over on the ferry and visit you at home over the holidays.

One issue that has been raised that affects commuters is the carparking at Days Bay. Many of you will have heard Derek Wilshire’s comments, of the Eastbourne Community Board, when he talked to everyone on all of our peak commuter sailings last week. The Board has put forward a proposal to limit the number of 24 hour car parking spaces south of the pedestrian crossing on Marine Drive. This is to allow casual visitors and beach goers 240 minutes parking. All parks north of the crossing will still be 24 hour time limit. If you do have views on this contact Derek direct on derek.wilshere@xtra.co.nz.

It would appear this is a reasonable compromise as there will still be ample free parking for commuters north of the crossing albeit you may have to walk a tad further to the wharf. It’s all about balancing everyone’s interests.

Contd overleaf…

I don’t know whether you’ve been lucky enough to see them but there has been a lot of activity in the harbour recently with many sightings of Orca and dolphins which has delighted and entertained those on board. Also my favourite is the resident stingray which seems to patronise the shallow water rip rap area between Shed 5 and our office.  It is huge!

Congratulations also go to our lucky draw winner for last month John Seymour who won a ten-trip concession ticket. This could be you – simply make sure you put your used 10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner. Monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again, be in to win!

Lastly, wishing you the very best of Christmas’s from all the team here at East By West. It’s been our privilege to host you on board this year and we look forward to having you back on board with extra attention in 2012!

Happy sailing and wishing you and your families a prosperous 2012.

Jeremy Ward

Manager

East By West Ferries

Dear Commuter

We hope you have been enjoying the sunny days and calm sailings as much as we have!

CONGRATULATIONS to Nick Fahey, July’s winner of a complimentary 10-trip ticket and Tracy Withers, August’s winner! This could be you – simply make sure you put your used 10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner so good luck! Monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again, be in to win!

As the Rugby World Cup approaches, some of you may have tickets to games or are wanting to come into town to watch it on the big screen. You can do so without worry as we will have special sailings after EVERY match. The special sailing schedule is located in the Timetable tab on this website and on Facebook. Speaking of Facebook, we have started putting various updates on our page (East by West Ferries), not just in regards to special sailings but other things that may also be of interest so feel free to catch up more frequently that way!

Our Christmas Cruises season is fast approaching and boy do we have a deal for you! All you need to do is give us contact details for the “social activity” organiser in your company or a company that you know. We will contact them WITHOUT mentioning your name and if they book a cruise through us, you will receive a FREE MONTHLY PASS! So, if you know of somebody who may be interested, just email Sarah in the office: sarah@eastbywest.co.nz with the person’s details.

Now to some more administrative matters:

We have noticed a slight imperfection in our text notification system in regards to the cancellation of the 3.40pm sailing and alerting Days Bay commuters who sometimes take that sailing. As this is not specifically one of our main commuter sailings, we do not want to send a text out to all Days Bay commuters as it only affects a couple of you and we want to keep texts to a minimum. However, it is obviously frustrating for those who want to take it but only find out it is cancelled upon arriving at Queens Wharf. Therefore, we have set up a separate database for those wanting to receive notification about the 3.40pm sailing specifically, in addition to the normal Days Bay texts. We already have this in place for the 2.15pm sailing. So, if you would like to be added to the database for either of these two sailings, email Sarah or you will be able to do this in the survey, which is coming!

We have had a couple of complaints recently about the 0835 sailing from Days Bay running late. Upon talking to the skippers, they are aware that this is happening due to late-comers not only on the 0835 but also on the 0745 sailing. Obviously if the boat has to wait even a couple of minutes on the earlier sailings, it delays the rest of the morning sailings. We do have a very tight schedule to keep and we don’t want to have to leave people behind so in consideration of your fellow commuters, please aim to be at the wharf on time.

That is about all for now so until next time….Happy Sailing

Jeremy Ward

Manager

East By West Ferries

The winter solstice is fast approaching …. Tuesday 21^st June. This is our shortest day of the year when the sun will be at its most northerly point and at its lowest altitude.

So to cheer everyone up and celebrate heading to longer days we’re concocting a mulled wine recipe we think you’ll enjoy. We’ll be offering you a complimentary glass to celebrate and enjoy the auspicious day on your homeward sailing on all sailings from 4.30pm onwards.  Hope you’ll join us!

Now to other matters… Next week, week beginning Monday 13^th June, on a fine day to be chosen by Colin, our skipper in charge of safety & training, we’ll be holding a quick emergency preparedness & life jacket donning drill on all the morning commuter sailings. The crew will demonstrate the donning with the skipper giving a commentary over the PA. We’d ask for your full attention in this as it is important as was highlighted in the recent City Cat incident back in March. We propose that these demonstrations will now be scheduled every two months as part of our ongoing safety regime. We envisage it will take no longer than 5 minutes so as not to interrupt your sailing time too much. Thank you in advance for your cooperation!

Another upcoming happening will be our on board customer satisfaction survey. We hope to have this on board for you to complete in the first week of July. If you could assist us to take the time to complete it, this will really help us to give you the service and satisfaction you want to see.

One question we are also being asked a lot lately is will be running late night sailings for the upcoming Rugby World Cup matches. The answer is most definitely yes and we hope, barring any other charter commitments, that we will be offering late night sailings for all the matches. From a recent RWC briefing we attended for the waterfront businesses, we can confirm it’s going to be a truly exciting event with so much action and entertainment on the waterfront for the duration of the tournament. We’re expecting a big increase in out of town visitors enjoying the ferry and that should lead to a lot of extra business in the Eastern Bays as well!

Speaking of rugby, the Hurricanes are playing the Crusaders on Saturday June 18^th. We will be a running a special sailing after the match, departing Queens Wharf at 9.45pm.

Also congratulations to last month’s lucky draw winner of the 10 trip concession card, Dave Bamford. Dave’s another long standing commuter and one of our earliest “Friends of the Ferry!” (but that’s another story!) This could be you – simply make sure you put your used 10 trip tickets or monthly passes in the draw at the bar on board (either ferry) and you could be this month’s winner so good luck! Monthly tickets stay in the draw for 4 months so again, be in to win!

If you have just joined us onboard as a commuter or are thinking of it, do sign up for our free mobile text service re cancellations due to weather or otherwise. Commuters find this invaluable to receive up to the minute notification direct to your phone of any disruptions to the service. Just inform the crew of your mobile number or alternatively you are welcome to email Sarah in the office at info@eastbywest.co.nz. Also if you want to receive our newsletters and updates by email, again just email us your address or visit the website for subscription details.

Until next time….Happy Sailing

Jeremy Ward

Manager

East By West Ferries

We are absolutely thrilled to advise that as of this afternoon, Thursday 12th February, the City Cat is back to full service after its lengthy refit.
So this afternoon/evening all our sailings are running
ie from Queens Wharf to Days Bay:

• 3.40pm via Seatoun
• 4.30pm
• 5.00pm
• 5.30pm
• 5.50pm via Seatoun
• 6.30pm
• 7.00pm

So just to confirm from hereon in our weekday schedule will be the normal full schedule 6 sailings leaving Days Bay between 6.50am & 9.10am
and in the afternoon/evening as above 7 sailings between 3.40pm & 7.00pm. For full timetable info please visit our website www.eastbywest.co.nz.

Thank you once again for your patience during this refurbishment period and trust you are enjoying the new look City Cat.

We’ll have a more regular ‘newsy’ newsletter out to you in the next couple of weeks.

Hope to see you on board soon!

Until next time…

Happy Sailing

Jeremy Ward
Manager
East By West Ferries