New Bedford’s Seastreak Service for Thanksgiving Canceled Due to Paperwork Issue

NEW BEDFORD (WBSM) — Seastreak’s Thanskgiving week ferry service from New Bedford to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard has been canceled due to a licensing issue with the Steamship Authority.

The Seastreak website has the following message on its Service Alerts page:

“All service between Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and New Bedford is cancelled for Nov. 27th- Dec. 1st. If you have any questions, please call 1-800-BOATRIDE (262-8743), or email contactnb@seastreak.com. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

WBSM spoke with James Barker, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Seastreak, who explained to us that the cancellation is due to a paperwork issue on Seastreak’s end.

“We had planned to do limited service running for just Thanksgiving week Thursday through Sunday,” Barker said, noting that Seastreak ran a similar service last year. “That we are canceling this year is due to, really, a miscommunication in paperwork on Seastreak’s side.”

Barker explained that every ferry operator needs to have an active license with the Steamship Authority, and Seastreak’s expired at the end of October.

“We thought we would be able to get this week added for 2024,” he said. “We thought we had enough time to get it on the most recent agenda with the Steamship Authority, but that was an error on our part, unfortunately, and we apologize to our customers for that.”

Barker said Seastreak still plans to run its service to Nantucket for the Holiday Stroll event in December and that the license will be renewed in time, but he said if anything changes, Seastreak will communicate with its riders as more information becomes available.