WSF expects 300,000 ferry riders over holiday weekend, on pace for numbers not seen since 2019
Nov 24, 2025, 6:40 AM
The MV Kittitas leaving Mukilteo, the ferry is part of Washington State Ferries. (Photo: @SounderBruce via Flickr Creative Commons)
(Photo: @SounderBruce via Flickr Creative Commons)
You’re going to have plenty of company on the state ferries this holiday weekend.
More than 300,000 passengers are expected to catch a ferry over the holiday weekend.
“That’s more than we saw last year,” Washington State Ferries (WSF) spokesperson Dana Warr said. “We saw about 290,000 riders last year, and we expect Thanksgiving to be the busiest day, with 60,000 to 70,000 riders just on that one day alone.”
The ferry service is also operating at full capacity for the first time in years. There are 17 boats in operation.
“We’ll increase our sailings by about 10% routes that weren’t in service or fully in service last year, fully in service this year,” Warr said.
There will be 440 sailings on Thanksgiving Day alone. Passengers should expect delays throughout the weekend, especially westbound on Wednesday and Thursday and eastbound on Saturday and Sunday.
“We suggest that, during the holidays, people change their routes if they see significant delays. Hour delays in some of the routes might be faster to go another route than sit in line for two or three hours,” Warr said. “I don’t think we’ll see four-hour delays, but you never know.”
And with the ferry service back at full capacity, passenger numbers are on pace to hit levels not seen since before the pandemic.
“We’re on track for 20 million passengers between this holiday of Thanksgiving and the remainder of the year,” Warr said. “We could see the first 20 million ridership for the year since 2019.”
WSF saw nearly 24 million passengers in 2019.
Chris Sullivan is a traffic reporter for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here. Follow KIRO Newsradio traffic on X.
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