We rode the Badger from Michigan to Wisconsin on a Saturday. Boat was pretty full. Highly recommend booking your reservations 2 weeks or more in advance. It is pet friendly, But they have to crated with the cars. It was four trip. Plenty of entertainment for the ride.

After checking in to Snyders Shoreline Inn, I thought that I'd see what the shoreline had to offer. Water and sand. There were also a lot of nice people doing the same as I, cruising the coast and having conversations. Fog was rolling in, and the scene took on an eerie sort of feeling. As if it wasn't getting strange enough, in the distance I could hear a faint fog horn. As the fog got more dense, the horn got louder. Something was heading my way, and it was coming on fast. I strained my eyes to see what was bearing down on me. Then I saw it, a dark shadow breaking through a fog bank. It was a ship! A huge ship! As it passed, I was able to make out the name. It was the Badger. The SS Badger, car ferry extraordinaire. Making its way to its homeport from Manitowoc Wisconsin. Since I was heading to Wisconsin anyway, I figured that I'd take the short cut. So I booked passage for the Subaru and myself. $137 (shoulder season price). Dirt cheap when taking into consideration that it saved me a day of driving, meals, gas, and hotel. So in a sense it was almost free! And as I always say, "If it's free, it's for me". Ok, so I saved a few bucks. But what about the ship itself? What's there to do on board? Can anyone say BINGO? And if that doesn't float your boat, (pun intended) you can play in the trivia contest, eat, drink, and be ferried. The bummer about the trip, is that you can't tour the bowels of the ship. I'd have loved to see the engine room. I understand safety and all, but the darn ship is powered by steam!! Coal burning engines! Cool beyond cool. Book passage and make some memories. It's literally a trip. Quick Tip: It may be hot when you start the trip, but believe you me, when you get past the breakwater, it cools off fast. If you're planning on lounging on the deck, and there's no lounge chairs available when you shove off, wait 5 minutes and you'll have your pick.

Many years ago, my parents moved to Michigan (I had little to say about it besides "Not the Mama" or "Gotta love me!") and all the relatives were still back in the Land of Cheese. Every summer, at least once and sometimes twice, The Old Man would pack us up into his old Buick and we would head for Ludington, for a trip across the lake on the C&O Car Ferry. It was big fun for a little kid, to watch railroad cars get loaded aboard the big ships, then strain to see if it was possible to see Michigan and Wisconsin while cruising. Our cruises were aboard one of four car ferries, the Pere Marquette 21, Pere Marquette 22, the City of Flint 32, or the City of Midland 41. I remember listening in wide-eyed wonder to my Uncle Bob, who lived in Manitowoc, as he told us about the ship we had just sailed on, how it had been built in Manitowoc. He explained how the Pere Marquette 21 and the PM 22 had been brought into Manitowoc and cut in half so enough length could be added to have it carry more railroad cars. Now, Uncle Bob was a captivating story teller, and sometimes it was tough to decide where the truth stopped and the baloney started, like when he told us there were alligators in the little lake near Grandma's (where we went fishing and swimming) so we had to be alert for them. Naturally, we didn't believe alligators in the lake or that car ferries were built in Manitowoc, and we really rolled our eyes when he told us they built submarines in Manitowoc, too. Imagine growing older and learning all of it was true! Well, not the part about the alligators but the rest was true, the car ferries and how the Pere Marquettes got cut in half, and how 28 WWII submarines were built right there in Manitowoc! Imagine my surprise when I learned the high school mascot was the Manitowoc Shipbuilders. (Nowadays, they're just the Ships.) That was the golden age of the car ferries plying Lake Michigan, and "cars" had nothing to do with automobiles but everything to do with railroad cars. Oh, yes, they took passengers and their autos, but their main purpose was railroad freight. By 1970, railroading was beginning to change and by the end of the decade, the era of the car ferry was pretty much done. My beloved Pere Marquette 21 and 22 got cut down to barges, the City of Flint 32 was sold to the Norfolk and Western Railway Company and cut down to a river ferry barge and renamed Roanoke. The City of Midland was sold to another company and last I heard, it sank in the Carribean. Two ferries survived for some reason, the SS Badger and SS Spartan. In 1953, the C&O contracted with Christy in Sturgeon Bay to build the two ferries that would become the queens of the fleet. They sailed between Milwaukee and Ludington. We were disappointed we couldn't sail aboard the Queens of Lake Michigan. At the end, the two ships were purchased by a man who envisioned returning the two ferries to the old routes for the pleasure cruisers and to carry heavy trucks, especially oversize loads, so the trucks could avoid the mess that surrounds the southern end of Lake Michigan. (You can read about him in the museum on board and he is memorialized as a cartoon caricature that appears here and there aboard the Badger.) Last week, I was able to cruise Lake Michigan aboard the Badger so the Badger and I became reacquainted. This was my third voyage on the Badger (two west and one east) since it began sailing as the Lake Michigan Ferry. It's like old times, well, sort of. The Badger is very modern compared to her old sister ships. Modern? Built in 1953? Okay, a newer antique I suppose, the last coal-fired ferry on the Great Lakes, in fact, maybe the last coal fired ship on the Great Lakes. (The coal industry was a major customer of the C&O Railroad, so what other fuel would they have used?) The Pere Marquette ships had been built in the 1920s and were loaded with Art Deco decor and fixtures. They were absolute queens, and it broke my heart to hear they were all but scrapped. The Badger has all kinds of features that scream "1950s!" but she has been modernized with flat screen televisions in the lounge areas (with satellite programming) food service, and there's a bar. The kids can do a scavenger hunt around the ship and there's even a Bingo game in one of the lounges. Me? I'd rather sleep. Easy enough to do until the kid in the row behind me begins kicking the seat. So, I went to take more photos. Well, why not? We were in that part of Lake Michigan where neither Michigan nor Wisconsin can be seen. Oh sure, you can see both shores at 35,000 feet in the airplane, but you can't have your car along. My car is about 50' below me and will be waiting for me when I get ashore. Take the Badger - relax instead of getting tensed up at the bottom end of Lake Michigan. Just do it. You'll thank me later!

The staff on SS Badger were really nice and friendly. The trip itself was fairly smooth with no complaints - it was really nice to not have to drive as far as we would've. However there was some noticeable scratches on the driver side door. By the time we noticed, it was 48 hours after we got home from the ship. When we reached out to be report the incident, we told them that we had a great time on the ship, but unforatuntely there was some damage we didn't notice at the dock. Their response was that the damage was "inconsistent with damage typically reported on the ship." When we escalated to a supervisor, we were told: "Since your claim was made after the vehicle left our property we have no means of determining the cause or accountability for the damage and must decline to accept responsibility for it." When you get your car from the ferry, it's extremely chaotic as everyone is racing to get their cars out from the parking lot. We felt rushed to get out of there and didn't think we'd need to check for damage. In addition, they are claiming that they know all possible damage that could have happened on the ship and that what we reported couldn't have happened because it's inconsistent with other damage. This makes little to no sense to me. We were not looking for thousands of dollars, just a few hundred to help cover the repair to the paint. The whole situation isn't the end of the world, but it's certainly frustrating and a waste of time on both our side and SS Badger. I wouldn't recommend this service moving forward as there as other ferries providing service across Lake Michigan.

Fun. Neat to go on an older ship like this. Positives: Unique experience. Loading and unloading of vehicles was speedy. Nice outdoor deck breeze while in transit. Remarkable ship piloting during docking, given no azipods on the Badger. Negatives: Wifi was down the day of our trip. Food was mediocre at best. Credit card machine was down at the bar window, resulting in me buying two other passengers ahead of me in line drinks just to speed things along (who doesn't take at least a little cash on a trip like this??). A/C was middling in common areas and nonexistent in the staterooms. Poor instructions on how to retrieve your stateroom key prior to boarding. None of these are a big deal, and kind of come with the territory on an old ship, so only one star deducted.

Hands down the best route to avoid driving through Chicago into Michigan or Wisconsin. If you're planning a road trip, I'd definitely recommend routing yourself to take this steamboat! My family took the S.S. Badger back in the late '90s/early 2000's as part of a family vacation. I remember loving it then. Just taking it recently, I still love it now as a young professional. There's plenty to do for everyone. They have a game room for kids, a movie room, and two TV rooms. They even have Bingo with prizes! And there's even a gift shop if you can't win anything. If you're going late night, you can also get state rooms to sleep, but the top deck has plenty of pool chairs to sleep or watch the stars! Great, great, great alternative to driving through Chicago! I booked online, and had no issues in boarding at all!

We had a great time! Traveled across during the pandemic and the staff was friendly, cleaning like crazy, and working hard. The lake was beautiful and calm both across and back.

My hubby and I were visiting family in Michigan and we didn't want to drive the long hours back to Wisconsin so we just booked a ferry on the SS Badger. With the car, 2 adults, and a child it was about 200$. It is pricy, but it was worth every penny. They had a breakfast buffet, a full bar service(including a Bloody Mary bar where you can mix your own!) and activities such as bingo, a live band, a movie lounge - they showed Lego Batman and then Passengers; they also had a gaming lounge so kids could play video games, and a room for toddlers where they can doodle and play. There were lots of lounge chairs on the front of the ship where people were sunbathing and relaxing. Lots of other chairs along the rest of the ship where you can sit with your drink or snacks and enjoy the views. My hubby had 3 firearms, and all they ask is that you declare it with the lot attendant and they ask you for your make and model of each gun. There is also a K9 that goes around and sniffs for other explosives. They did not search our car, nor did he have to fill out any sort of paperwork. It was hassle free, they parked our car for us and made sure our dog was safe in the car in a cool spot with air flow so he didn't over heat. When we arrived in Manitowok, our car was ready in about 2 minutes. They really made this trip very relaxed and stress free. I highly recommend it if you want to go across Lake Michigan for travels or just r&r.