Washington State Ferries Brings First Stable Schedule to Region in 20 Years

For two decades, ferry riders on the Port Townsend-Coupeville crossing lived with a schedule that shifted every spring. That ended Sunday, March 22, when Washington State Ferries launched its spring sailing season with a new timetable built to hold.

Vehicle reservations are currently available for the spring 2026 sailing season, running March 22 through June 13, 2026. The spring season is already underway, and the structural change behind it reaches beyond a single crossing. Vehicle reservations allow travelers to save a spot on the ferry, and are available on both the Port Townsend/Coupeville and Anacortes/San Juan Islands routes.

The headline change for Coupeville riders: a second vessel on the water every weekend. Reservations are bookable through June 13, covering a spring window that now includes expanded Friday-through-Monday service on the Port Townsend/Coupeville crossing with a second vessel operating on those days.

For the Anacortes/San Juan Islands route, the shift is even more historically significant. Washington State Ferries described it as "the first spring in more than 20 years" that the Anacortes/San Juan Islands timetables stay the same as fall and winter. That route now operates on a two-season model: one schedule for the busy summer months, and a second that runs for nine months straight from fall through spring, eliminating the seasonal whipsaw that riders on that route had navigated since the early 2000s.

The season opened with one temporary complication. Washington State Ferries announced the season would begin with a modified schedule for a couple of weeks while the ferry Salish fills in for Chimacum. That substitution does not alter the broader spring schedule but affects sailing times during the transition period.

Two other routes also saw changes at the season start. At Fauntleroy/Vashon/Southworth, three-boat service returned on weekends and will run through fall. The Seattle/Bremerton route switched back to its normal daily schedule, ending the temporary timetable that had been in place during winter terminal construction work at Bremerton.

On Tuesday, March 24, the 12:30 p.m. sailing from Port Townsend and the 1:15 p.m. sailing from Coupeville were cancelled due to tidal conditions. Washington State Ferries directed affected travelers to the Edmonds/Kingston and Mukilteo/Clinton routes as alternates. The disruption was a reminder that even under a more stable seasonal framework, day-to-day operations on the short Admiralty Inlet crossing remain subject to the water's own schedule.

Current reservation availability and sailing times can be confirmed at the Washington State Ferries reservations page on the WSDOT website.