Ferry_Watcher

No Amtrak trains until very late 2022 or early 2023 (well past cruise season). I think your best bet would be either flying up to Vancouver, or taking one of the two buses (Quick or the Amtrak bus). Another option might be taking the Victoria Clipper from Seattle's Pier 68/70 and visiting Victoria BC. I think you need to buy a round trip ticket, but the Clipper offers a Hotel package in Victoria. I believe that there is a connecting ferry to get you to Vancouver. https://www.clippervacations.com/seattle-victoria-ferry/

So sorry that you had to cancel your cruise, and all the related hassle that goes along with it (airlines, flight credit, dealing with the travel insurance folks, etc). And on top of that, the loss of someone in your life. It's a lot. While a bit outside of your parameters, there is a 9 night Celebrity Solstice cruise May 3, 2023 that starts in Vancouver, BC, but ends in Seattle. It visits Hubbard Glacier, Icy Strait Point, Skagway, Ketchikan, Juneau and Victoria. The port-of-call visits are longer than most, and there is already folks on the 'roll call chat, including a number of folks from the UK. You might give it a look.

Assuming that you are on Carnival, when you arrive at Pier 91 you will get in line with everyone. Once you enter the Pier 91 Terminal building (after showing your ArriveCan QR code), you will go thru a wellness screening at which point you will let the agent know that you need a Covid test. You will be escorted over to the testing area, checked in and you will wait for your turn to be given the test. I think the antigen test is $100, and the PCR test is $150. You will receive your test results, and I think you will be medically cleared for boarding at the testing area. You will then head up the escalator to security screening, then to check-in. Finally, depending on your boarding time, you will either go to the ship, or to the waiting area. It's important to know that even if you have a 10 AM test time, you will not be able to enter the building. You will still need to stand in line with everyone else. I think the testing staff uses the appointment system to have an idea of how many people to expect, plus walk-ups and the children too young for the vaccine.

Don't worry about it. When the check-in agent swipes your passport, your full name will be in the system, and on the check-in screen. This also happens to passengers from Central and South American countries. Often times they will have two legal last names and swiping the passport fills it all in.

Unless you are exempt from paying for your bags due to your Loyalty level with your airline, or because of a credit card perk that you are traveling with, a typical passenger would still be charged a bag fee from the airline. The airline would charge the credit card that is on file. What you are not charged for is if your bag is overweight (over 50 lbs).

For an overnight stay before your cruise I think this hotel will be just fine. If you did decide to take light rail from King Street Station, you would be getting off at Northgate which currently is the last stop (additional stations further north will be opening in the coming years). The Northgate light rail station is located on the east side of I-5 (Freeway), and your hotel is on the west side of I-5. it would be about .5 mile- .75 mile walk along very busy surface streets. I think I saw that the hotel has a shuttle van so you could see if they could pick you up from the light rail station. An Uber from King Street to the Northgate area (other than the late afternoon/dinner time commute) should be quite reasonable. I have had lunch at the Saffron Restaurant and enjoyed it. Back over by the Northgate mall area (closer than the light rail station), there is a restaurant called Stanford's https://stanfords.com/locations/northgate/ and their Happy Hour I think starts at 3PM. Something else to consider is rather than taking the Empire Builder all the way into Seattle, you could get off that the next to last stop which is Edmonds (if allowed). You could call for an Uber and get to the Nexus Northgate Hotel from Edmonds. Just a thought.

For Alaska bound cruises out of Seattle, check-in agents collect foreign passport from passengers from certain countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa (and many others) who must have a Canadian Visa. Canadian officials check these foreign passport in Victoria, BC, and then those passengers are able to go to Guest Services and retrieve them. Very common practice.

Please don't let others scare you. As in all cities, use your common sense and have situational awareness when you are out and about. Enjoy your visit.

Is it Amtrak's Empire Builder that you are planning to take to Seattle? Would you be reserving a sleeper room?

The five states that offer the Enhanced DL are all along the US/Canadian boarder. (MN; MI, NY, VT & WA). It's not surprising that folks in other parts of the country would not know. Same with other Trusted Traveler programs like NEXUS (US/Canada partnership and SENTRI US/Mexico partnership.

I also vote for having a passport (book) and the NY Enhanced Driver's License. It's the best of all worlds.

Did you have three people in the room if the sofa was already being used? Your cabin mates as well as you could have used masks inside the stateroom while you waited to be moved. Sorry you caught Covid.

All the cruise lines have their own very distinct luggage tags. Before Covid, passengers on HAL and Princess sailing on the same day at Pier 91, passengers could drop off their own luggage in the luggage hall. Standing at the front door, I could direct passengers to the correct side of the entrance just by eyeing the tags on their luggage. (The same could be said for Celebrity and Royal on same day sailings). All the luggage collected by the porters is brought to the security scanner (one for each ship and set up on either side of the secured luggage hall) and each bag is individually put through. If the longshore workers saw a HAL bag among all the Princess bags, they would walk it over to the HAL side and drop it off with the other HAL bags. Mistakes can be made, but once the bags are put on those luggage carts, there are additional people who look at the bags and can catch any mistakes. Generally speaking, I think the success rate is quite high for getting the right bags to the correct stateroom in a timely fashion.

Wear your KN95 mask at these events. Really!

But it still tastes amazing!

I think for me that the two waterfront hotels that I can think of are the Edgewater and the Seattle Marriott Waterfront. Other hotels in the DT Seattle area could be thought of as Pike Place Market hotels; Belltown; DT Seattle (retail core); Lake Union and Pioneer Square. Thoughts from my fellow Seattle CCer's?

The Ovation OTS and Celebrity's Solstice are both at Pier 91 on Fridays.

A group of 6 got missed their cruise in Seattle, arriving at 3:30 for a 4 PM departure due to their airline's flight schedule changes. If you find yourself in a situation that you will likely arrive very closes to departure time, please call the contact phone number listed in your cruise documents (found in the first few pages). If the shore-side staff knew that these passengers were arriving late, there could have been the possibility to work with the ship to get these passengers onboard. It must have been so disheartening to see the ship still at the dock, but not being able to board.

Union Longshore at Seattle's Pier 91

In addition to the Celebrity Air phone number, be sure to have the shore-side operations phone number. This phone number should be listed in the first few pages of the cruise document that will be emailed to you just prior to the cruise. If you potentially are arriving late, it is helpful for the pier operations manager to know. They may be able to delay having the gangway pulled for a short period of time. In the end though, the ship does have to leave on time. Hoping it all works out for you.

Not for the Ovation or Quantum sailing from Seattle.

OP, are you looking at results from a self administrated home test? Can you get a free test from a free community professional test center?

Pier staff was told to expect upwards of 700 kids on this sailing (June 10th).

Shore-side staff learns about Carnival's commitment to their autistic passengers and their partnership with KulturCity in the yearly training classes. Pier staff is informed if an autistic passenger is expected on the cruise, and that travel group has an expedited check-in process. Carnival provides special grab-n-go bags with coping items for passengers with sensory and invisible disabilities. Items include cards with faces showing a range of emotional feelings from happy to sad to angry - this enables a non-speaking individual to be able to express their emotional feelings without words. Also available are noise cancelling headphones. It is a very cool program. Wonderful job Carnival.

It's possible that the Canadian gov't may have decided to request that cruise passengers be tested before boarding (at the pier). People are still developing Covid while on cruises despite arriving at the pier with a negative Covid test result. Maybe they want a truer test indicator. OP, please let us know if you did have to test at the pier in Vancouver.