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Alaska Vancouver Sailings


VickyBee
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I’ve been looking at itineraries and I like the route that leaves from Vancouver because they sail along the east side of Vancouver. I imagine the scenery there would be awesome. But there are fewer sailings from Vancouver. Is this aspect that big a deal? Am I limiting myself by insisting that we sail from Vancouver?

 

 

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I’ve been looking at itineraries and I like the route that leaves from Vancouver because they sail along the east side of Vancouver. I imagine the scenery there would be awesome. But there are fewer sailings from Vancouver. Is this aspect that big a deal? Am I limiting myself by insisting that we sail from Vancouver?

 

 

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What itinerary are you looking at, in particular?

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Actually, there are far more cruises from Vancouver than from Seattle. Just go to www.cruisetimetables.com and choose Seattle and then Vancouver as departure port. You can do one way or r/t cruises from Vancouver, but only round trip from Seattle. Are you limiting yourself to one particular cruise line? EM

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There do seem to be more round-trip Seattle cruises than you would think there is demand for. They exist mainly because locals looking for a quick getaway prefer round trip to end-to-end disembarking in Alaska. And of course a US citizen does not need a passport for a closed loop cruise from Seattle--I remain totally befuddled as to the high percentage of Americans lacking them.

 

But yes you are limiting yourself if you are looking for a round trip Vancouver cruise. True they will sail between the BC mainland and Vancouver Island unlike Seattle cruises that just hit the open ocean. But my personal opinion as someone who must travel 4000 miles to get to Alaska it that it is unthinkable to sail other than an open-jaw Vancouver to Seward/Whittier cruise.

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^ Yes it is beautiful to sail out of Vancouver, but we would much rather sail out of Seattle. Vancouver is a nightmare, in my opinion. There can be several ships in that day and embarkation can take a very long time, as you clear port security and U.S. Customs at the pier in Vancouver. It just makes for a very long process.

 

Sailing out of Seattle (for us) was an absolute breeze. There were two ships in, yet each ship had its own terminal and building, plus there is no U.S. pre-clearance to go through and the whole embarkation was incredibly smooth.

 

I know there are some who will disagree with me on this, and that's OK. I am giving my opinion and observations after several cruises out of these cities.

 

OP, enjoy your cruise, whichever itinerary you select. Alaska is beautiful. :)

.

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Cruises out of Seattle must be R/T to comply with the US PVSA. To embark in Seattle and disembark in Seaward/Whittier requires calling at a distant foreign port. Therefore all Seattle cruises must return to Seattle and visit any foreign port - normally Victoria.

 

All cruises out of Seattle head up open water to Dixon Entrance, so no scenery and tendency for rough waters.

 

From Vancouver you have a spectacular departure from the inner harbour then through the inside passage. Much more scenic and sheltered waters than departure Seattle. However, the cruise terminal in Vancouver can be rather busy, but in our experience both boarding as a passenger and a visitor, it was no worse than many other embarkations.

 

Since the US Act is not applicable, Vancouver provides more options to Alaska - R/T and N'bd to Prince William Sound. We live in Metro Vancouver, so always did B2B N'bd and S'bd.

 

If you want to see more of Alaska, my suggestion is a N'bd out of Vancouver with a shore extension to Denali. Not all cruise lines visit Glacier Bay, so I would select a line that has Glacier Bay permits.

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Everything above is valid - a lot depends on whether you want a round trip (when Seattle does have more than Vancouver) or a one-way (no option but to use Vancouver as one terminus). If you're planning to combine sightseeing on land, Vancouver is nicer than Seattle (and with relatively weak Canadian dollar, your cash goes further - Seattle ain't cheap as US cities go for hotels & restos). Yes, the views are also better - but if you check your cruise timing, especially if you go late in the season, you may be passing through the best bits in the dark!

 

Multiple-ship days in port here can definitely be brutal for boarding - but weekday departures make it much more likely to be a one or 2 ship day, when boarding is much more comparable to Seattle in length. Both ports suffer from seasonal staff, so service quality generally starts off bad and improves as the season moves on and folks get trained up/back into practise - the big problems here are that when you have the combination of new staff and 3 or 4 ships in port, which happens EVERY single May on weekends as of course all the ships being repositioned for AK cruising have to come into Vancouver first if they sailed from any US west coast port... take away weekends in May and Vancouver would have much less of a bad rep for boarding;-)

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I’ve been looking at itineraries and I like the route that leaves from Vancouver because they sail along the east side of Vancouver. I imagine the scenery there would be awesome. But there are fewer sailings from Vancouver. Is this aspect that big a deal? Am I limiting myself by insisting that we sail from Vancouver?

 

 

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Hi! Good and the bad (we just did this in June)

Bad - yucky port, long line to security and long line to taxi’s getting out

From the US, you have to deal with CA customs - not very friendly (surprised me really), but not horrible. Still, a real pain having to deal with it going in and out of the country.

Hotels the night before will be pricier since it’s downtown in a major city.

 

Good!

Cheaper cruises because you have to deal with the cons (often well worth it!)

Exchange rate for those in the US is very nice right now (in June it meant about a 25% discount on everything) - using something like a chase sapphire card for no fee for that exchange and it’s s major bargain.

Vancouver and BC are great to see on their own merits - Bowen Island, Granville Island, Stanley Park. GORGEOUS. So much to see and do - we stayed an extra 5 days for a 2 week land and sea adventure of our own making :)

 

Oh, and the scenery is awesome! The entire cruise almost you have a view (we sailed the Jewel, NCL).

 

Enjoy!

Lynn

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If you choose a R/T, sail out of Vancouver. Nicer views and you aren't out in the open ocean like you are if you leave from Seattle. Also the forced stop @Victoria usually gets you there really late in day.

 

Going through customs is a bit of a pain and hotels may be about the same as Seattle when you factor in a good exchange rate. If you choose a mid-week departure like we did, we got through customs and check-in in about an hour total if that. Never had to sit down in the check-in room.

 

You can look and see how many ships are in port. We only had 2.

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