I am a tour guide and travel writer with more than 25 years of experience. I was guiding a trip to Charleston with a group of 42 senior citizens ranging in age from 60 to 80 years old. One of our tours was this Fort Sumter tour. We had a terrible experience with the ferry vendor. The actual Fort Sumter portion was great.
I was told by the ticket sales department to have my group at the dock 45 minutes before departure time. When I picked up the tickets at the on site ticket window, I was given one ticket for all 42 people. The ticket office told me to keep my group together and separate from the other ticketed customers because we would be boarding together as a group. We did as instructed and arrived 45 minutes early. We were the first people to arrive for the tour. When we walked down to the boarding area, there was no staff working. I saw a sign that said Board here. There were two line dividers like you would see in a theme park line. I got into the line with a few of my passengers while the other passengers went to use the restroom and visit the park store. Within a few minutes, other ticket holders who were not part of our group started lining up behind us. At that point, there was no way to keep my group of 42 all together in line without other ticket holders separating us. I simply moved my group over two feet and we stood in between the two moveable line divider. Within 20 minutes, I had my entire group together and separate from the other ticket holders as I was instructed, and around 200 other people had lined up where we were originally standing, 2 feet right beside us. The ferry arrived 20 minutes late, so we had been waiting in line for about 40 minutes when it arrived.
After the ferry unloaded, the ticket taker came over to where we were standing. This was the first time we had seen any staff at the boarding area. The ticket taker's name was Kevin. As he approached, I told him that we were the group of 42 and that I had the whole group together. I assumed we would be boarded first since we were the first to arrive. He very rudely told me that we were not standing in the correct place. He pointed to the sign that said "board here" and said to me, "can't you see the sign!" I explained that we were originally standing there, but I had been told to keep my group together since we were on one ticket. When the other ticket holders started to arrive and mix in with my group, I simply moved my group over two feet to keep them all together. He then said, "well, you aren't in the right place, take your group to the back of the line!". First of all, we were there ten minutes before anyone else had arrived. Second, my group was all elderly with several people having mobility issues (canes) and third, there were now around 200 people in line.
Kevin would not budge. He made our group go to the end of the line and we were the last people to board. By the time we boarded, there weren't any seats on the main level, so my elderly passengers had to climb stairs to get to the other level to find seats. The elevator on the ferry was broken, so they were not even ADA compliant. The upper level had seats, but they were not together, so my group was scattered all over the boat and not able to sit together.
The entire ferry experience was miserable. It was a terrible way to treat a group of senior citizens, several of who had mobility issues. As a result, I would not recommend this company for any group travel. I am saddened and shocked that the U.S. National Park Service would use them as a vendor for the ferry ride over to Fort Sumter.