{"id":596430,"date":"2026-04-11T06:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T06:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/596430\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T06:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T06:13:11","slug":"nobody-gets-free-pickles-on-bc-ferries-familys-white-spot-experience-goes-viral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/596430\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Nobody gets free pickles on BC Ferries\u2019: Family\u2019s White Spot experience goes viral"},"content":{"rendered":"

BC Ferries is finding itself in a bit of a public relations pickle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

William Fraser and his family like to visit Vancouver Island and the 12-year-old loves to get a traditional White Spot<\/a> burger on board.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegendary burger, no tomatoes, no cheese, extra pickle and fries with honey mustard for the fries,\u201d William said.<\/p>\n

The family was on the Queen of Cowichan on April 6. William ordered his usual, but the kitchen mixed up his order.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I opened the burger and I\u2019m just like, \u2018OK, well this has happened before. This is kind of annoying,’\u201d William said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike literally the last time I went on the ferry, this happened to me. And so I go back, I asked for some pickles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

He said the staff apologized and gave him some apology pickles on a plate that he could take back to his table.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019m walking past the cashier, the pay, I didn\u2019t think I had to pay, because it\u2019s just pickles. And they forgot to put pickles on my burger,\u201d William said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I go there, and the person\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m sorry, you need to pay for those. And I\u2019m so confused, because the last time this happened, I didn\u2019t have to pay for the pickles. You shouldn\u2019t have to pay for the pickles if they forgot the pickles on your burger.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said nobody gets free pickles on BC Ferries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:55
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBC Ferries faces long weekend issues\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Dad Greg Fraser said he came up to help his son and ended up paying $2.19 for the pickles.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cMistakes happen,\u201d Fraser said. \u201cNot a problem. And I expected, you know, the outcome would be we\u2019d get the pickle that he was looking for. He didn\u2019t even make a big deal about the tomatoes. He just picked it off the burger. But really, you know, making sure that that first bite tastes the way it needs to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n

Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.<\/p>\n

He said there was no discussion or debate and the cashier was really rigid in her stance.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe literally just kind of stared at me and repeated the fact that nobody gets free pickles,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to pay for these pickles. And I said, well, we don\u2019t even need the full plate of it. Can we just take a pickle? No, it\u2019s $2.19. And again, it would seem to be common sense, but nobody wants to argue over a pickle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fraser ended up posting about the incident on social media<\/a>, which exploded with thousands of views and hundreds of comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s more of a commentary on a greater focus to customer service that they need to do so that they can do better next time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fraser said he did send BC Ferries an email first, explaining the situation, but immediately received an auto response asking him to write a letter and mail it to their Victoria office.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

But now he said his inbox has been blowing up with people messaging him from across North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people seem to just want to share their experience as a commiseration or feeling like, \u2018Hey, I know what you\u2019re going through,’\u201d Fraser said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Canada
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really surprising. And you know, almost a validation that as a passenger on BC Ferries, people want to be heard about what their experience is and be recognized that it didn\u2019t go well and, you know, maybe they\u2019ll do better next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:26
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBC Ferries CEO apologizes\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Fraser said BC Ferries has now reached out about the situation.<\/p>\n

Jeff Groot, executive director of communications at BC Ferries, told Global News that it is unfortunate that the family had the situation they did.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cI think BC Ferries has a good place in the culture of British Columbia and White Spot is another one of those companies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe obviously place great value on being able to offer White Spot products on board and the pickles are a core part of the burger experience. And so I\u2019m not surprised that it elicited a reaction that people had some feelings about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Groot said they have reached out to the family to make it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever we have these kinds of questions come up about process and policy, we do follow-ups and make sure that the teams are all aware of standard process and policy and how they should be communicating there,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so that\u2019s not unusual for us to follow up in this case. And that\u2019s what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Groot said there are also many ways to contact BC Ferries, not just by physical mail, and that includes a callback or calling customer service directly.<\/p>\n

Fraser said that while this story may seem frivolous, it clearly struck a nerve with people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t about the pickle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, it\u2019s about a consistent experience that they\u2019re delivering or rather failing to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BC Ferries is finding itself in a bit of a public relations pickle. William Fraser and his family…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23588,45,49,48,226284],"class_list":{"0":"post-596430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-bc-ferries","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-white-spot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}