Bus from Vancouver to Seattle

We are very close to booking Carnival Legend from Honolulu to Vancouver April, 2019. Friends recently returned from Alaska on Princess and they were able to purchase (through the cruise line) a transfer from Canada Place to the Seattle airport. Does anyone know if Carnival would offer something like that. I will also post on Carnival and Hawaii boards.

We are very close to booking Carnival Legend from Honolulu to Vancouver April, 2019. Friends recently returned from Alaska on Princess and they were able to purchase (through the cruise line) a transfer from Canada Place to the Seattle airport. Does anyone know if Carnival would offer something like that. I will also post on Carnival and Hawaii boards.

You may want to give Quick Coach/Shuttle a call. They operate the service from Canada Place to Seattle including the SEATAC airport.

http://www.quickcoach.com/

There is also a train that runs from Vancouver to Seattle. It departs Vancouver at 5:45 p.m. and 6:35 a.m. daily, and takes 4.5 hours. You'd need to take a cab from the pier to the Amtrak station. Tickets are $42 USD.

Even Princess & HAL do not seem to ALWAYS offer that transfer. Best I can figure it's predicated on at least close to a busload of folks booking cruiseline air to SEA instead of YVR.

In short, nobody can confirm whether Carnival would offer the sale of seats on a bus to SEA except the cruiseline itself, and in relation to that specific date - Princess & HAL do share the buses, Carnival are also the same corporation so no reason why they might not also share the bus transfers if there's a Princess/HAL vessel same day...

We have done the train and it was fun very scenic.

Definitely a highlight of our cruise!

You may want to give Quick Coach/Shuttle a call. They operate the service from Canada Place to Seattle including the SEATAC airport.

 

http://www.quickcoach.com/

I've used Quick Shuttle 4-5 times, and here's what I see are the advantages:

• Picks you up right inside Canada Place
  

• No waiting around till late afternoon and figuring out what to do with your luggage
  

• No need to take taxi to train station
  

• Quick Shuttle will drop you off either near the Space Needle or at Seatac
  

Roz

We plan to book the cruise early next week and will ask about the transfer. I have been on the website for quick shuttle and found that their summer schedule (which includes pick up at Canada Place) starts on May 5 this year and we will arrive April 29, so I guess I will be calling them also. Thanks everyone for your responses.

We plan to book the cruise early next week and will ask about the transfer. I have been on the website for quick shuttle and found that their summer schedule (which includes pick up at Canada Place) starts on May 5 this year and we will arrive April 29, so I guess I will be calling them also. Thanks everyone for your responses.

Definitely call them. In the past when I've done spring Coastal cruises from San Diego, the Canada Place cruise transfers to Seattle weren't showing on the schedule, but if there was a ship in port that day, they would run buses.

Roz

Further to Roz' point - QS do run year-round, the key difference between their Winter and Summer sched is a lack of pier pickups and dropoffs (not quite as many departures either, but still way more than the train). However, since the pier in Vancouver has a hotel right on top, and they do offer pickups at that hotel... it means walking out to the street instead of boarding in the underground car park. So even if there's not enough interest to warrant running an extra pier service, you can still use QS.

That said - it's still cheaper (and faster since they have fewer stops) to take a Bolt bus. A solo traveler will find QS pricing just fine, but 2 folks who can split a cab will save money by cabbing from pier to bus station and bus station to Seatac on top of Bolt tickets. Not to mention Bolt also has the newest fleet, more legroom, WiFi on all buses, and pricing from $1 (though usually it's closer to $20pp).

Just curious if you have had much of a problem at border or much of a delay when crossing from US to Canada?

I have heard some stories of long delays at the border?

Is there such a thing as Priority on the Quick Shuttle?

I've had a couple of horrible delays (2+ hours) on buses at the border - but most of the delay is down to the volume of ALL traffic so everyone's day sucks. Until you get close enough to the border, the special bus lane cannot be accessed - so you're stuck with all the cars as soon as the general delays hits a certain level (depending which direction, something in the region of 45-60minutes general delay starts to impact buses). Once you are in that bus lane, then the volume of other buses ahead of you is the relevant factor - but there's limited space for maneuvering so even if they try to prioritize scheduled services over chartered buses there's not much much that can be done. One passenger on one bus getting secondary questioning means that entire bus sits there waiting until the individual is cleared or rejected!

I can assure you that QuickShuttle gets treated exactly the same as Bolt, Greyhound, Cantrail (the other scheduled bus services). NOBODY gets special treatment except individual NEXUS card holders (we get our own lane for cars - which again suffers from getting lumped in with general traffic if the queue gets longer than the point where our special lane begins!)

I've seen the same posts about horrendous delays at the border, but I've not experienced anything that took more than 20-30 minutes. The procedure varies (they want to keep you guessing :D). Sometimes you go inside, sometimes you don't. Sometimes the suitcases have to be pulled from under the bus, sometimes not. Again, nothing that's happened to me at the border has deterred me from using a shuttle or bus service.

Roz

We are very close to booking Carnival Legend from Honolulu to Vancouver April, 2019. Friends recently returned from Alaska on Princess and they were able to purchase (through the cruise line) a transfer from Canada Place to the Seattle airport. Does anyone know if Carnival would offer something like that. I will also post on Carnival and Hawaii boards.

Take the train