All posts

· 3 min read

How far ahead can you book the Kinmen ferry?

The timetable is published to a month boundary, not a fixed number of days ahead. What that means if you are planning a trip several weeks out.

Ferry operators usually open sales a set number of days ahead. This one does not. The timetable runs to the end of a calendar month, which means the booking window shrinks through the month and jumps open again on the first.

What we found

Xiamen to Kinmen
Published to the end of the current month
Quanzhou to Kinmen
Published to the end of the following month
Beyond that
Nothing at all, not even an empty timetable

We checked this by walking the published timetable day by day rather than guessing, and the published block is contiguous: there are no holes inside it, and nothing after the boundary. On the first of the month a fresh month appears at once.

Planning around it

  • A trip inside the next few weeks is nearly always bookable now.
  • A trip in the following month may only be bookable on the Quanzhou route until the calendar turns.
  • If your date shows nothing at all, that is usually the horizon rather than a sold-out day. The date picker greys out days past the horizon for that route.

Sailing soon?

Live seat counts for every crossing, in English, with no mainland phone number.

See today's sailings

Read next

Sat 12 Sep · 4 min read

Waitlists, explained: why sold out usually is not

Almost every full sailing on the Xiamen to Kinmen route keeps a waitlist open. What that means, and what to do when the boat you wanted says zero seats.

Read the post
Tue 8 Sep · 5 min read

Getting to Wutong ferry terminal in Xiamen

Where the Xiamen ferry to Kinmen leaves from, how early to be there, and the map links to show a taxi driver. Wutong is on the northeast shore of Xiamen island.

Read the post