martincath

Not being privy to government decision making, it's all guesswork - but what makes sense to me is a twofold set of reasons: First, cruises have always been treated differently than other travel by Canada during the pandemic (witness the 'no cruising at all' approach for anything but the tiniest of ships until this season). Second, when else would there be a chance to sensibly verify that all pax are compliant except at embarkation? Reminding everyone they need to log on and do ArriveCAN within the 72 hour limit for flights, land crossings is not very practical compared to checking at embarkation, when every single pax is already having IDs, tickets etc. checked. And if you think about it, this is exactly the same as what happens boarding a plane to Canada - they still check you have ArriveCAN rceipts before letting you on, it's just days rather than hours or even minutes before your expected arrival time because cruise travel is slow in comparison!

This is what is meant to happen! Your cruise might start 27/8, but your ARRIVal back to CANada is... Sep 3rd. The clue is in the name;-)

It's on a very busy road for cars but the immediate surroundings are basically dead, no shops/restos/nightlife/reason to walk the intersection so foot traffic is minimal except for your other hotel guests - but head a block or two in any direction and there's a lot more life, with Granville St (official city party zone, lots of late-opening bars & clubs so good that you're not staying there for your tastes!) close by. Dining is mostly mediocre, very few standouts as the typical patrons are party animals lining stomachs pre-boozing or already liquored up and looking for a late-night meal before heading back to the 'burbs. Davie St has restos scattered all along it; head down Helmcken into Yaletown and there's a ton of restos packed onto Mainland and Hamilton, just 500 metres walk (although uphill coming home either full or carrying your takeout). Both of these will give you generally-better dining options than Granville - a couple of the swankiest restos in the city are right next to Helmcken in Yaletown, Elisa (a very modern steakhouse) and Blue Water Cafe (probably the best cooked seafood kitchen in town, and at least top ten for their raw bar too). If memory serves there have been a few reviews, some recent from this season, where folks used the HI for the pre/post and found it perfectly decent - and frankly I'd much rather stay in a fairly bland chain hotel with decent size rooms and reasonably thick walls a block or two away from the nearest bars than a really fancy hotel with a nightclub under it! Just check that traffic noise in your room doesn't annoy you and if it does, ask to change rooms as soon as you check in - the hotel is L shaped, so most of it is stepped back from Howe but one wing extends right to the sidewalk. The back of the main building, facing onto the alley behind, is a trade-off - least traffic noise but you risk an early wakeup from garbage trucks emptying the dumpsters along the alleyway...

Sorry, didn't notice this personal request! If you stick an @ at the front of a Username, just as if using a Twitter handle, it pops a message. If you test positive, then under the prevailing legislation you still have a legal duty to isolate - and failure on that side of things carries potentially severe penalties of both jail time and a fine of up to $750k. How long you need to isolate depends on where you are when you test - onboard a ship, whether outside or inside Canadian waters at the time? Federal rules, 10 days quarantine on arrival to Canada (minus any days already 'served' onboard). On dry land, for a pre-boarding test? That's BC jurisdiction, so only 5 days required, but the important stuff is the same - do everything to minimize your interaction with any other people for the duration, i.e. food should be delivered, masks should be worn any time you have to leave your room, Whether Federal or Provinical rules apply, in neither case is it acceptable to just hop on a plane to anywhere. Rent a car just for yourselves, and sure you can go home to quarantine rather than staying in a hotel here (and crossing the border means that the laws apply of the country/state(s) that you are in then), but you cannot use public transportation with a known covid case. Enforcement - if the ship knows, the Canadian government is informed, and you WILL be checked up on. Take any lab test anywhere local - again, government records will show that you tested positive. Take a home test, nobody else automatically knows - but you do and your legal duty is to isolate yourself. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but if you're not willing to obey the laws of the countries you travel to there's really only one correct option - stay home! Federal rules and guidelines about how to quarantine/isolate (there are differences between the two); Provincial info here - NB: that it specifically flags the case of a traveler returning to Canada, and says that you should actually obey the Federal rules...

I'd say that as you are considering a rental car - and it sounds like even for pootling around the Victoria area you might use it if hubby can't walk far - then why not take two different ferry routes and see more of the area instead of just repeating the same route twice? Airport to Tswassassen on the way over, btu consider driving up to Nanaimo (Departure Bay terminal) to get to Horseshoe Bay by ferry on the way back. If you come back to the mainland in the morning, that puts you on the Sea to Sky Highway with plenty of time to take a relaxing drive up to Squamish and a couple of sights before heading back to Vancouver. While DH might not want to go hiking, there are lots of scenic viewpoints right on the side of the road - and the Sea to Sky gondola ride is enjoyed by many as a 'no calories burned' way to get up into the mountains! There's also a railway museum a little north of Squamish, and the excellent Britannia Beach Mining museum. Personally, with ferries being cancelled recently not just for maintenance or weather but most recently at very short notice due to lack of staff, I would not risk a ferry ride on the day of embarking a cruise or the first day you fly in - I'd be inclined to split your Vancouver time in two, fly here then stay over, head to Victoria and return for at least one other night in Van before the cruise. This also helps insulate you from issues with flights - if you prebook a ferry and car rental but your flight is delayed you're now paying for hours, maybe even a day of not getting to use the car you paid for stuck and then joining everyone else without a booking on the ferry too. Splitting your Vancouver nights both sides also means you can look at renting cars downtown - without mandatory airport extra fees on every rental day! Last I checked those were over 20%, so for a simple 'rent it and return it to the same location, no travel outside BC' you will almost certainly find a cheaper rental rate from an office that isn't at YVR. Of course it's always worth comparing multiple office locations and multiple brands - especially these days with car availability still challenging. Costco is superb if you are a member, if not Kayak has an easy-to-use multiple location comparison feature.

I'm sure everyone can agree that convenience was not on the priority list when the testing policy was being planned!!!!! 😉

No - only the government contracted labs can be used for the random arrival tests. This link should, if it behaves, show you a map of downtown Vancouver with locations flagged for tests - and also give the address of the walk-in Lifelabs FlyClear location on Russ Baker Way near YVR (the shuttle to YVR South and the Floatplane terminal should drive right past it).

Since taxis are always a fixed price (most downtown hotels are in the $34 zone, ones right by the pier $38, a handful near City Hall only $31) it's easy to compare - without any Surge pricing Uber should be cheaper for longer rides like this, but even a modest Surge and you'll find them pricier. If poster above was quoting USD, i.e. ~CAD$32-33, that's about what I'd expect - saving you somewhere between $2 and $5 using Uber with regular rates. From hotel to pier, things get messier - Uber has additional surcharges which taxis do not have, so single-digit fares are often cheaper in a cab even without Surge. Combine that with the fact that cruise days tend to produce Surge conditions - lots of folks want cars whether going to or leaving from the pier - and cabs are probably cheaper most of the time to any downtown hotel on a cruise morning. But since no fixed prices apply, metered fares vary based on traffic conditions too - and actually getting inside the pier building is the slowest piece of tarmac in the region on a cruise day, '1 in, 1 out' applies so you can sometimes walk faster than traffic over the block or two nearest the pier... so if you can get an Uber without Surge pricing, probably will save a couple of bucks at least compared to a cab heading from hotel to pier.

Glad you made it safe and had a nice first evening. I think we laid on a pretty decent sunset for you - hope boarding goes smoothly tomorrow!

If you had scrolled down one more section on the same page you quote, you'd also have seen the specific circumstances which apply to your cruise (leaving Canada and not returning = No ArriveCAN needed). The page is laid out in sequence - obviously folks who fly here to board a cruise do need to know about the flying requirements before the boarding - but it feel it would be more helpful if the 'you must do a second ArriveCAN' was moved into the section below about boarding ships to avoid folks making exactly the same error you did ZB. I'm sure everyone can remember during prep for exams in school being told 'always read the whole paper before starting to answer' but how many of us still abide by that advice??? We see a thing that sounds like it applies to us, then don't read further so we miss the fact that there's an exemption to that requirement further on! It's easily done...

Since the first part of the cruise is in Canadian waters, Van then Vic next day, then leaves Canada without returning, no need for the second ArriveCAN (at least, not under official government rules! There have been enough reports of folks being asked for ArriveCAN entries for northbound AK trips that you might still get asked to show a QR code before boarding by the cruiseline, perhaps as a way fo verifying your Vaxx status, but if so you can try just displaying your flight entry code...)

You could try calling up the helpline about all matters travel testing - info here. Based on past experience my best guess is they will toe the party line, give the official timelines (should be notified with 15mins, must complete test by end of next day), warn you of the potential maximum penalties (I think not testing is a max fine of CAD$5,000 rather than the 6months jail time/CAD$750,000 for failing to Quarantine or forging documentation) but give zero indication about 'what if exemptions' and likelihoods of enforcement - but at least you'll be hearing it from the proverbial horses mouth rather than an internet rando!

Nobody can say how pedantic an individual Italian border control officer might be, so if you have enough room to bring original bottles that's always going to be the lowest risk option but in general it does seem like cruisers with a couple of weeks worth of pills is way down the priority list. The biggest issue that jumps out at me from your post is actually the fact you're considering bringing just enough pills for the cruise - THAT is a bad idea at any time, but especially these days with so many flight cancellations and potential for quarantine time extending your trip. Always take at least an extra weeks worth - these days I'd take 2 weeks extra as a badly-timed Covid case at the end of the cruise might add both a quarantine delay and then an extra few days to get a flight home!

Every terminal at FLL has free WiFi, and the data requirements for ArriveCAN are minimal so even if it's very busy you will easily get enough bandwidth to submit an entry. So if you are traveling with a phone/tablet/whatever, you should easily be able to find the two minutes to submit a Trip - and if you're entirely deviceless, the worst case 'have someone else do it for you' option is still in play.

You've made an incorrect entry on an official government data submission - so yes, get it changed! Maybe enough other folks have made similar errors that they assume you have made an entirely innocent mistake and ignore it (the ship report will contain a raft of Date X Embarkation pax, and possibly just you with Date X-1, so it will stand out like the provertbial sore thumb) - but maybe you get contacted just in case you did somehow join the ship a day early, and then mixed with everyone on the prior cruise as well as the one you are on now which complicates any Covid exposure analysis... if they call or email, that means taking time out of your cruise to respond (quickly - you will get repeated follow-up contacts if you don't respond promptly to the first!) A 'mea culpa' at that point, most likely no big whoop - but since it will take all of two minutes now to fix the problem that's definitely the better choice! How to fix? Easy - ArriveCAN only holds one live trip, as soon as you make a new entry it will replace the current one with the correct date version, so you don't even have to directly delete the erroneous trip.

Unfortunately not - the gov't tests must be completed by the specifcally-contracted labs (Lifelabs here in BC, plus a few Shoppers Drugmarts). But there are both downtown, so potentially a walkable/short cab ride. Like I said, the important thing is check your email for both sets of folks as soon and as frequently as possible after leaving YVR - if you need to board by 3pm to comply with gov't rules for a 5pm departure time, and they only email you after 2:30pm, it's totally justifiable to explain 'hey, your one set of federal rules clashed with the other so it was literally impossible to comply with both!' but if you get email timestamped noon, you could easily have called to try and have time to go test... so any repercussions for future Canadian travel would be a lot harder to explain away! Us too in terms of land border, although that was some time ago now so I suspect that land border randoms will also be 'go get tested at a lab near your home' once they have finished up giving out the supply of testkits! Airport tests since they restarted now have the random flagging done behind the scenes so you may not even know you have been chosen until after you are out of the airport, making it impossible to collect a take-home kit... the point of the changed process is to shift everything related to testing outside the limited number of international airports.

If it's someone who never had it before, so availability than than quibbling over who has the best/most authentic is the main factor, you'll find poutine on many pub menus. The map here on the annual charity poutine fundraising week website gives a good idea of locations conveniently within the james Bay and inner harbour areas, for easy visiting on a cruise stop. The exact poutine variants listed aren't necessarily available - but in my experience if the public really likes a quirky new version produced for the annual contest, the restos often keep them on the menu!

To the best of my knowledge, the testing location nearest Canada Place (technically also with that same name, but in the West building at 1050 rather than 999) remains available but ferociously overpriced at CAD$79+tax for antigen testing. To be fair, no more overpriced than 99% of the other labs in the province! Unfortunately here in BC we suffer from some insane vagaries of pricing when it comes to matters medical - compared to Ontario for example where Costco pharmacy with do tests for $17 - the cheapest discretionary testing you can do here at a lab is Shoppers Drugmart for $50pp. The West Pender location is easily walkable from your hotel - you'll can arrange to walk right past if you are visiting Stanley Park, English bay etc. without adding extra distance - and is one of three in Vancouver offering antigen tests for travel. Personally I always suggest bringing your own telemedicine Antigen tests since you can acquire them for less, do the tests in the comfort of your hotel room, at a time that is convenient for you, and avoid queuing up with randos at a pharmacy... it's a win on every front unless you don't travel with a smartphone, tablet, laptop etc. so cannot make use of a webcam.

While I've actually answered part of this on another thread, since you've given very explicit details fo your trip here I'll keep all the info in one place and give a similarly exact reply! 1) unless DS & family live as home with you, or are all Minors, you & Spouse need to do your own ArriveCAN for each stage, and DS & Spouse (& <18 kids) will need one entry for them. While you can load up to 8 travelers on a single Trip entry, the rules now confirm they must reside at the same address as you or be dependents (main FAQ text refers explicitly to kids <18, so even college-age kids residing outside your home definitely need their own ArriveCAN entries now) 2) you'll both need to complete ArriveCAN before flying into Vancouver - since you're risking a same-day fly-in use the local address of the pier (999 Canada Place) if you can't access the ship name on a non-cruise Trip. This you have plenty of time to do, so on a PC and printing out the code is fine and dandy. However, because of the tight timing I would suggest using the App on a smartphone or tablet, so that you are used to how to work it! It's a lot easier filling out the info on a smal handheld device than on a sunstantial laptop if you're standing around! 3) AFTER arriving in Canada and being processed - personally I'd do it while waiting for bags at YVR using their free WiFi - but BEFORE getting onboard the ship, you'll need a second ArriveCAN entry each for your cruise. You won't have time to print this, so a small device is much easier to display at check-in than dragging your laptop out to show the code! If bags come quickly and you're hustling to make the cruise in time, you can also try Canada Place or general Vancouver city (#VanWiFi) networks when you get downtown (of course, if you have free data on a smartphone - or don't mind paying - you could add the trip entry while cabbing to the pier too). What to enter on this trip? If Vancouver is the only Canadian stop, your Marine date of entry is your disembarkation day - but if it stops at Victoria, Nanaimo, Prince Rupert etc. then the first Canadian port after you visit at least one US port is the location to use for entry, on that scheduled date. As long as multiple Canadian ports are contiguous, with no return to a US port in-between, you only need the one cruise entry - I can't imagine any 7 day RT managing to do alternating Canadian and US ports easily, but just on the off-chance it's some super-whacky route that goes Vancouver > US > Victoria > Seattle > Vancouver, you would actually need a third ArriveCAN entry to reflect leaving Canada and returning yet again! Other Problem - Random Arrival Testing: I'd strongly advise that you have at least one smartphone or tablet, on which email can be checked by both households soon after landing - the random Covid tests are now arranged by email centrally rather than you being physcially handed an At Home test. They now require attending a physical lab for testing by no later than end of next day after arrival. Since you are cruising same day as flying in, that means if any one if you get chosen you MUST find the time to get to an accepted lab and test before you board the ship... there's already been one posting here from a fellow US cruiser who got selected, called up and explained they were cruising out, and was told 'tough cookies' to paraphrase. The email address used on your ArriveCAN is how you are notified if selected for testing - it might arrive as soon as a few minutes after entry while you're still at YVR, and it will contain contact info to call and arrange the required test(s). I have no idea what % of folks are being sampled these days, so even a big group might have a low chance of anyone being chosen, but with your same-day flight and cruise it's crucial you have your ducks in a row in case one or more of you get tapped! Most of the labs are out in Richmond, near YVR, but there are also some Shoppers Drugmarts and physical Lifelabs locations downtown - so if you get the email after leaving YVR you might just have to walk a few blocks to find a test location. If the email isn't sent until after you're on the ship, I have no idea what the expectation is from our federal government but at the very least you'll have to call and explain or they'll keep hassling you... Ironically, the folks who do get tapped for random testing receive a result that is totally compliant with cruise protocols - a PCR test by government authorised lab. Unfortunately there's no way results will arrive in time for a same-day cruiser, so it's only the folks who have a long precruise stay and would need to test locally who get the little silver lining of not needing to pay for another test... OK - I think that covers all of your specific Definite and Possible travel hassle requirements Ashland... unless you'e going to tell me DS married someone who is a citizen of a Visa-requiring country for Canadian visits and they haven't got their US green card yet!!!!!!

Ashland, you'll definitely need to complete it again since you are on an RT which comes back to Canada - the only question is whether it's a 'true RT' or a combo of B2B cruises, which informs WHEN you will need to complete it. If it's a cruise that is only sold as a loop, then you'll definitely need to do it before boarding (I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned the many free WiFi options around town, so that after you have successfully crossed the border you can then start the Cruise trip entry). If it's a combo of North- and South-bound one-way cruises though, the first post is correct - Canadian government does not require ArriveCAN checks because your vessel is not 'Arriving in Canada' on that first northbound leg! So all the folks who get off in AK have no need to complete it (well, for non-locals they will of course have had to complete a Flight/Drive/whatever entry for crossing the Canadian border to get to Vancouver from wherever they started their travels!) As to when you'll be asked to display a valid ArriveCAN code - if Royal are playing it ridiculously safe, they might be telling all check-in staff to verify ArriveCAN for all cruises out of Vancouver at all times, even if not needed, to avoid any risk of them being fined for not enforcing the rules... if they're willing to assume that they have hired sensible people and trained them well, then they'll flag folks who booked B2Bs as doing an RT and check YOU have done ArriveCAN but that folks on one-ways North don't need it. Personally I would guess that most likely is the in-between case, in which they have their staff up in AK checking all the Southbound cruisers at embarkation/turnaround rather than having an either/or choice down here in Vancouver... Since you'll have your apps loaded with Traveler profiles it's literally 2 minutes to add a Trip, so whether you want to play it safe and load the 14 day trip in advance (worst case they don't want it and you have to spend another two minutes before turnaround day redoing a 7 day trip) or assume Royal will obey the laws but nothing extra (worst case they do demand it, you have to spend 2 minutes adding the Trip while in the check-in queue at Canada Place) is up to you... but I'd do the former myself to avoid annoying all the other folks behind me in the queue!!!

Unless DS lives at your home, no single ArriveCAN any more - the multiple traveler rules were clarified, at some point in the past, to allow only spouse, dependents, and living-in-the-same-house-as-you adults. The horses mouth version is here, scroll down until you find the multiple traveler section but for your convenience I'll also Copy & Paste just the relevant bits below: Families As the primary traveller, you may provide travel information for yourself and for: your spouse or common law partner your children (or children for whom you have legal guardianship), aged 18 years or younger any other adult in your residence with the same travel destination in Canada You can provide information for up to 8 travellers, including yourself, in a single submission. Use this when: you'll all stay together at the same address for the entire quarantine or isolation period, if required, and you have their permission to collect and share this information It's always worth checking the above link before any trip - the wording is constantly being refined and simplified, and a lot of the questions asked here would be answered definitively on that site, with the benefit of Official Government Info rather than opinions & interpretations by us Not Government People! Yes, ironically I'm advising you not to trust my own advice;-)

More context! So it sounds like you are taking a one-way cruise, ending outside of Canada. Assuming that you have all of your required Traveler info already prepared, you'll need just long enough to add the specific Trip info about your flight home. I would suggest that you ensure before leaving home that you have practised used the web-based version to ensure you are familiar with it - and then you shouild be able to use a HAL onboard computer to 'pay by the minute' which should be very cheap as a Trip entry where you pull existing Traveler(s) from your profile takes less than two minutes. Remember also that you do not have to complete it 3 full days before flying home - that just sets the beginning of the timeframe (no more than 72hrs before your flight is supposed to arrive) - and that if you do possess a device which could access the internet but you are just choosing not to use it, you could make use of free WiFi in any Ports of Call within that timeframe, your Disembarkation port, or even the airport before you check-in to fly home. Worst case: there's a problem with HALs computers and you do not possess any device you can use and you cannot get to an internet cafe during the 72 hr period and you don't make any friends onboard who will lend you their laptop for a few minutes - you can also have someone else complete ArriveCAN for you back home. As long as they know your info, they can input the trip and generate your QR code (which ideally they would then email to you, but again if you have no device that can accept/display that email - NB: even an Amazon Kindle can be directly emailed a PDF, jpeg etc. and display it onscreen! - CBSA will be able to see it when your passport is scanned). Note also that depending where you live relative to the airport you re-enter Canada at, if you are traveling without a device that you can check email on you also have the problem of delayed reporting if a random Covid test is required - those pop within as little as 15mins, and the default screening locations are labs near the airport. There are other locations - I believe some Shoppers Drugmart stores can be used so that's a decent bet across Ontario - but if you only check email after you get home it might cause you a lot of extra mileage compared to having e.g. found out while waiting for bags at YYZ and being able to hit up a lab near there before heading home to Farawayfromlabsville... of course if you're in a city or good-sized town with a few pharmacies, odds are good you'll be able to test after getting home. Being Canadian is irrelevant - ArriveCAN is forced upon us in every circumstance it's forced upon other nationalities. But yes, anyone who had to fly or drive or whatever across the Canadian border in the first place in order to be able to board a cruise would have needed to complete ArriveCAN at that border-crossing. Context again was for Sue - identified as an Ontario resident - so my answers were assuming that she was coming from home... since proven to be incorrect of course, my bad!

Cruises which leave Canada without returning are exempt from ArriveCAN - I suppose I could have been clearer by specifying no Canadian ports of call after leaving Vancouver. Given we're on the Alaska board and poster I replied to referenced HAL, I assumed that specifying a one-way northbound would be sufficient to make it clear the ship would leave Vancouver on this end...

Yes - if HAL let you onboard, they're breaking the rules! If you're flying to Vancouver less than 3 days before embarkation, just do it at home and print it. If you're having a long local pre-cruise stay, then there are tons of public WiFi options - if you literally don't have a single device that can access the internet with you and need a computer, check with your hotel. And do double-check that your cruise actually needs ArriveCAN - if you are e.g. taking a one-way northbound with no Canadian ports you don't need to complete it.

I agree - check the currency! But even if they are the same when using the same units, the cruise line won't be offering a guarantee - whereas all the local firms give a lifetime 'free repeat trips until your boat sees whales' as standard. You might not plan to come back soon, but if you're on one of the unlucky 5-10% of trips that doesn't sight whales at least you'll get another trip whenever you do manage to make it back again...