"We are having a day out in town. It was fantastic - how can you fault it? You need to get the people out of the cars. It's terrible here."
Perigo, of Mount Maunganui, said she felt lucky the "very quick" service was running on her day off work.
"I was waiting for it to start - and thought, why not go and do it?"
She enjoyed seeing the Port of Tauranga close-up, which she says is "something you don't really see when you're crossing the bridge".
While she couldn't use it to commute to work, she said it would be a good way to show other visitors around the city if it continued after the six-week trial.
The pair planned to take the ferry over to Ōmōkoroa for the day next week.
The service has been created from a partnership between the Wednesday Challenge, Tauranga Water Transport and Tourism Bay of Plenty, and will run several services each Wednesday between 7am and 6.10pm.
Skipper Michael Proctor said about 50 passengers had boarded the ferry by about midday.
Proctor, who normally drove the barge from Ōmōkoroa to Matakana Island, said the passengers were enthusiastic and he was pleased with the turnout on the first day.
Deckhand Rachel Proctor said it had been "stunning" weather, and people using the service were loving it.
"It's nice to see all the happy faces."
Wednesday Challenge project director Heidi Hughes said more than 100 return tickets had sold.
Hughes said it felt "really great" to finally be on board when she took the ferry from Tauranga CBD to Mount Maunganui.
"Everyone seems to be loving it. It only took me 15 minutes to get to the Mount from the CBD - and it was a lovely smooth ride, and you got to see everything."
She said it was still too early to tell if the first-day success was an indicator of the service continuing.
"There is always a flurry when something new [launches], it will take a little while to understand whether people will repeat-book and use it as an ongoing service," she said.
"It's really hard to continue the momentum after something launches unless it becomes a habit for people. The proof will be at the end of the trial to see if people are making new habits from it."
Early-bird fares for adults travelling from Ōmokoroa to Tauranga are $20 return or $15 one-way, and for children $15 return or $10 one-way.
Between Tauranga and Mount Maunganui, Salisbury Wharf, the fare for an adult is $15 return or $10 one-way, and for children $7.50 return or $5 one-way.
The fares were not subsidised as the ferry was not yet an official public transport service.
• More information, and tickets, are available on the Wednesday Challenge website. Tauranga and Mount Maunganui i-Site visitor centres can also sell tickets.
