Seastreak Ferry — Local services in Providence

I went on this boat as part of a church anniversary. We had gone from providence to Newport. They overbooked the boat and even though the church tickets were purchased in advance some members were kicked off. It’s important to mention the church is made up of all people of color. On the way back to providence we were told to let all people who were not part of the church board before us even though we were lined up. Afterwards we boarded. Then a group of 10ish white people felt they were entitled to seats on an already full boat. They cussed and yelled and then eventually pushed past the person in charge of boarding. They then started kicking people of the boat. This happened because they had overbooked the boat when tickets for the church trip were purchased well in advance. One important person to mention is a black mother with her infant and three toddlers who was in a leg brace. She was kicked off to make room for the white people. At some point drunk white women started getting violent and attacked some of the church members. Police were called and they said everyone would be getting off the boat but they only kicked off church members who are all black as well as black people who have no association with the church. They even arrested church members for defending themselves against the aggressive attacks of the white women. They then refused to service all members of the church which included over 130 men, women, children, disabled, and sick people for an issue we had not even caused forcing us to find our own way home when we PAID to be on the boat. As I’m writing people are trying to find their way home and this event happened 4 hours ago. This was highly disgusting of this company and I greatly encourage all people of color to disregard their service as they will gladly give away your seat so long as a white person is happy. It is very disheartening to see this kind of treatment directed towards black people in this day and age. I hope the owner sees this because it is a massive fail on your part for how the situation was handled. Those people should not have been able to get on the boat. The boat should not have been overbooked. Do your...

I made a reservation for 100 people for my church's 30th anniversary for July 20th, 2024. We had 2 departure times. The 1st departure was 5:30pm and 2nd departure time was scheduled for 9:20pm. When it was time for the first departure time, we checked in for 50 people but boat employee who checked us in miscounted us and more than 50 people got on the boat for Providence. The boat crew asked that we removed 20 additional people from the boat which we did and they asked us again to remove another 30 people from the boat and when we inquired why they wanted us removed another 30 people totaling 50 people altogether, they got angry and were very hostile to us using the 'F' word like get the 'F' out of the boat and threw a lot of profanities to us. They're failed to put the situation under control and as the result, one of the passengers on the boat assaulted one of our church members and inquired her face and cracked 3 of her front teeth which resulted in the police being called. The boat crew lied to the police that it was us causing the problems and asked the police to remove all the church members from the boat. We had the Elderly handicap, children and babies on the boat. The told the Police to removed only the church members from the boat and left us stranded in Newport. They also canceled our 9:20 pm return trip back to Providence as well. This caused us serious inconvenience as we were forced to book Uber and public transportation to get 100 people back to Providence. We didn't get home till 1 am. We felt very discriminated against and humiliated on the boat. I will not ride or recommend Seastreak to everyone least my friends or...

My experience with Seastreak on a recent boat trip organized for a church anniversary was nothing short of distressing and discriminatory. Despite our group's advance ticket purchases, which should have secured our seats, several members, all people of color, were unjustly removed due to overbooking. On the return journey, chaos ensued when non-church members were allowed to board ahead of us, leading to confrontations where white passengers forcibly displaced us from our seats, even resorting to physical violence against our members, including a black mother with young children.

The situation escalated further with the intervention of law enforcement, who unfairly targeted and removed only our black church members, despite their roles as victims of aggression. This entire episode exposed Seastreak's prioritization of others' comfort over our safety, leaving over 130 churchgoers stranded without proper assistance or alternative transportation. It serves as a stark reminder of ongoing racial biases and underscores the company's failure to uphold our community's dignity...