July 8, 2004 — Standing on the main deck of The Breeze, the new ferry from Rochester, NY to Toronto, feels like standing in a hotel lobby. There’s the concierge desk, in front of you, and the brand-new staircases arcing up on both sides.
Of course, most hotel lobbies aren’t in the middle of Lake Ontario, on top of a 5-story high, double-hulled tower of steel capable of crossing the Pacific Ocean on a whim.
The Breeze, also (confusingly) known as the Spirit of Ontario, is the culmination of a 30-year dream on the part of the city of Rochester, otherwise best known as the home of Kodak and the gateway to the Finger Lakes wine country. It’s a high-speed ferry, though the trip isn’t really about the speed; you can get from Rochester to Toronto in the same amount of time if you drive like a screaming maniac, as two Toronto journalists proved last month.
(Regarding that time, the ferry ride takes two hours and 15 minutes — but passengers with cars must show up 45 minutes in advance, and there’s one heck of a delay at the end. I’ll get to that later.)
The trip is about budget luxury. For $32 one-way for an adult foot passenger or $104 for a car containing two adults and two kids, you sit in spacious seats and get to play coin-operated video games, watch free movies (on my ride, Starsky & Hutch for the grownups and Scooby-Doo 2 for the kids), play in a kids-only playroom or eat a hearty breakfast as the New York shoreline sweeps past. By the end of this month, the ferry will even have Wi-Fi Internet access, marketing manager Eugene Zakreski says. Check out www.thebreeze.com/ASP/Fares.asp for a full list of fares.
On the Rochester end, you start at a brand-new terminal a few miles north of downtown Rochester, accessible by public bus or car. Checking in is chaos, but Zakreski said they’re working on that. The ferry makes two daily round-trips between Rochester and Toronto.
Three ferry tips: When you get on board, take an immediate left and head straight for the Panorama Lounge. The ferry has many separate seating areas, and the front lounge, which seats 100, has by far the best view: a huge picture window showing Lake Ontario approaching.
If you’re on the breakfast run, wait an hour or so for the line at the hot-food counter to die down, or just grab a muffin from one of the several bars, which never seem to have a line. After an hour of riding, I tried the $5 eggs-and-potatoes breakfast — the eggs were rubbery, but the potatoes were edible, and there were more options than I could ever have gotten on a plane.
If you’re at all the impatient type, start heading for the exit (towards the front right-hand side of the boat, not where you came in) as soon as you see Toronto. Although my ferry got into Toronto just about on time, I wasn’t prepared for my 45-minute wait in line to get through Canadian immigration — and I wasn’t anywhere near the back of the line.
In contrast to Rochester, Toronto has been lukewarm, even a little hostile, about the ferry. Toronto newspapers mock the ship, calling it a “joke ferry” to a “joke destination.” And the Toronto terminal is a corrugated-iron trailer at the end of an industrial dock, where three overworked immigration agents try to process 774 passengers at a time, and a public bus rolls up every 20 minutes to take folks downtown.
CATS and Canadian Customs are working to improve the entry into Toronto, Zakreski says, but he didn’t promise any big changes soon.
The ferry’s profile in Toronto hasn’t been helped by a series of embarrassing operational problems. I was originally supposed to sail on the ship in May, but it didn’t launch until mid-June because it first bumped into a pier in New York City on its way to Rochester, then got tied up in debates with U.S. and Canadian officials over fees and permits. Once it got going, it had to stop again briefly at the end of June because of a hydraulics problem. And just this week, the ferry company’s two top officials stepped down. The ferry seems to be sailing smoothly now, though.
If you’re anywhere near Rochester, the ferry makes one of North America’s great cities a relaxing and affordable ride away. If you live near Toronto, it’s time to check out the charms of the Finger Lakes.
The ferry can even be part of an adventurous long weekend for New York City residents. Do what I did — fly up to Rochester on JetBlue (www.jetblue.com), take the ferry over to Toronto, and fly back straight to New York on JetsGo (www.jetsgo.ca).
Hey, it beats driving.
Book online and find out more at www.thebreeze.com.