Taking the Fast Ferry to Colonia del Sacramento

During a brief week-long stint in Buenos Aires, my dad and I decided to take a trip to Uruguay for a day via fast ferry to Colonia del Sacramento. We arranged our travel there with the help of the front-desk staff at Hotel de las Americas, during which they explicitly stated to plan to arrive at the ferry an hour before it boarded and that it would take approximately ten minutes by taxi to get there.

Fast forward to the next day when we’re having a leisurely breakfast in the hotel restaurant an hour before the ferry was scheduled to leave. I asked my dad if we would have enough time to catch the ferry. My dad said we’d be fine. After all, it would only take ten minutes to get there.

When we went outside to grab a taxi, it seemed as though the trip over to the dock would be simple enough… until five minutes turned into ten turned into fifteen at which point I helpfully reminded my dad, who was stressed about making it in time, that they had told us the previous day to get there an hour early. This was news to him, having missed that helpful tidbit of information… whoops.

We arrived ten minutes prior to the ferry departing and had what, I believe, was the quickest pass through Customs and Immigration I have ever and, most probably, will ever experience. Believe it or not, there’s not much of a line for Customs and Immigration ten minutes prior to departure time.

I passed through with ease. My dad took a bit longer to pass through. It wasn’t until we were on board the ferry or just about to board (yes, we miraculously made it somehow… no leaps across open water necessary) that I glanced at my ticket and noticed my dad’s name on it and asked if his name was supposed to be on all of the tickets to which he responded with surprise. When he took a look at the tickets he had, they had my name printed on them.

We had passed through Customs and Immigration with each other’s tickets, perhaps explaining the confusion of the officers. I mean, to be perfectly fair, my name is already a bit of an oddity in Spanish-speaking countries. In Peru, especially, I’m consistently made fun of for my name as one of Peru’s three main regions is la Sierra (the mountains). Thinking about it, I suppose my name is akin to having a name of, say, Apple or Ocean in English.

Anyway, combine the oddity of my name with the fact that it means mountain with a six-foot seven-inch tall man handing the ticket over and you’re bound to get at least a bit of a reaction, not to mention our desperate dash there and the overall timeline.

After that it was all smooth sailing and the business class experience on our BuqueBus ferry. My dad was a bit distraught to discover we would not receive our meal included in the ticket on the way over as we needed this information to be printed out, but this was easily resolved upon arrival in Uruguay.

The return journey, if you’re wondering, was significantly less stressful as we arrived to the dock well in advance and had our printed information to receive our meal, which was nothing huge yet appreciated nonetheless. Did not take advantage of the following opportunity, however, free glasses of champagne were offered in business class for our return. Not bad at all.

Takeaways from the experience? I would highly recommend checking out the fast ferries over to Uruguay and can, personally, recommend the ferry we took, BuqueBus. I know the service is offered to Colonia del Sacramento as well as to the capital, Montevideo. Just be sure to get there an hour before boarding time.