Orion Embark Time Change

[sabrefan]

Late yesterday afternoon received a email from Viking for our June 12th departure from Vancouver to Seward Alaska. Viking informed us that embarking time would be 4:00 to 4:30 pm instead of around 11:00am. They blamed this on the harbor master making this change due to ship traffic. Anyway, I previously had a covid antigen test scheduled at 1:00 pm on June 11th. Viking stated that immigration will start  around 3:30 . I asked if there is any flexibility on their part since my testing time and embarking time would be slightly over 24 hours. Typical standard answer as you expect no flexibility. Pathetic given the fact that they will test us again when we board. As a result I had to scramble and find another company that will test me at 4:00 pm on June 11th. All of this inflexibility and masks are not required in public spaces. One side of the equation certainly doesn’t equal the other.

[duquephart]

Welcome to Viking.

[Papadog]

5 hours ago, sabrefan said:

Late yesterday afternoon received a email from Viking for our June 12th departure from Vancouver to Seward Alaska. Viking informed us that embarking time would be 4:00 to 4:30 pm instead of around 11:00am. They blamed this on the harbor master making this change due to ship traffic. Anyway, I previously had a covid antigen test scheduled at 1:00 pm on June 11th. Viking stated that immigration will start  around 3:30 . I asked if there is any flexibility on their part since my testing time and embarking time would be slightly over 24 hours. Typical standard answer as you expect no flexibility. Pathetic given the fact that they will test us again when we board. As a result I had to scramble and find another company that will test me at 4:00 pm on June 11th. All of this inflexibility and masks are not required in public spaces. One side of the equation certainly doesn’t equal the other.

[Papadog]

Just now, Papadog said:

5 hours ago, sabrefan said:

Late yesterday afternoon received a email from Viking for our June 12th departure from Vancouver to Seward Alaska. Viking informed us that embarking time would be 4:00 to 4:30 pm instead of around 11:00am. They blamed this on the harbor master making this change due to ship traffic. Anyway, I previously had a covid antigen test scheduled at 1:00 pm on June 11th. Viking stated that immigration will start  around 3:30 . I asked if there is any flexibility on their part since my testing time and embarking time would be slightly over 24 hours. Typical standard answer as you expect no flexibility. Pathetic given the fact that they will test us again when we board. As a result I had to scramble and find another company that will test me at 4:00 pm on June 11th. All of this inflexibility and masks are not required in public spaces. One side of the equation certainly doesn’t equal the other.

We were never asked at the pier to verify either our PCR Test or Covid vaccination cards, when we boarded the Viking Orion on May 13th in Seward.... We wish you good luck.

[Heidi13]

6 hours ago, sabrefan said:

Late yesterday afternoon received a email from Viking for our June 12th departure from Vancouver to Seward Alaska. Viking informed us that embarking time would be 4:00 to 4:30 pm instead of around 11:00am. They blamed this on the harbor master making this change due to ship traffic. Anyway, I previously had a covid antigen test scheduled at 1:00 pm on June 11th. Viking stated that immigration will start  around 3:30 . I asked if there is any flexibility on their part since my testing time and embarking time would be slightly over 24 hours. Typical standard answer as you expect no flexibility. Pathetic given the fact that they will test us again when we board. As a result I had to scramble and find another company that will test me at 4:00 pm on June 11th. All of this inflexibility and masks are not required in public spaces. One side of the equation certainly doesn’t equal the other.

 

Most likely, the change is due to having 5 ships in Vancouver that day - Celebrity Eclipse, Serenade OTS, Noordam, NG Orion & Viking Orion.

 

Canada Place will be a sea of humanity with disembarking pax and those arriving early. Consider it a blessing in disguise that boarding is delayed until 16:00/16:30.

 

No way I would want to be in Canada Place any earlier. 

[sabrefan]

You would think that cruise lines have to schedule months in advance with the port authority in Vancouver and receive approval from that port authority. The port authority in Vancouver would have to know well in advance what their capacity is. In this case the same goes for the ports in Alaska. Should be interesting to see what happens on our way to Seward. What makes this worse is being notified by Viking only 18 days in advance of embarkation.

[Heidi13]

5 hours ago, sabrefan said:

You would think that cruise lines have to schedule months in advance with the port authority in Vancouver and receive approval from that port authority. The port authority in Vancouver would have to know well in advance what their capacity is. In this case the same goes for the ports in Alaska. Should be interesting to see what happens on our way to Seward. What makes this worse is being notified by Viking only 18 days in advance of embarkation.

 

Affirmative, berth space is booked many months (years) ahead, with the cruise lines providing arrival & departure times.

 

When it comes to managing the boarding process, it also involves the security contractors and Canada Border Services for disembarking pax and US Border Services for embarking pax. Who knows how many officers they can provide? I no longer know the Harbourmaster, or have any contacts at Metro Port Vancouver, so cannot find out the reasons for the delay.

 

Regardless, your embarkation will be significantly smoother at 16:00 than fighting with thousands of mega ship pax. Even getting into the facility can be a challenge on busy days between 11:00 and 15:00.

[Peregrina651]

On 5/27/2022 at 4:54 PM, sabrefan said:

Late yesterday afternoon received a email from Viking for our June 12th departure from Vancouver to Seward Alaska. Viking informed us that embarking time would be 4:00 to 4:30 pm instead of around 11:00am. They blamed this on the harbor master making this change due to ship traffic.

 

This is not the first time this has happened to Viking in Vancouver.  It happened a few years ago, in Viking's first year doing Alaska. At the time there were many posts on the subject and maybe even a post or two describing how things actually went on that day. With careful searching, you may be able to find these new posts (I can't remember if it was 2018 or 2019).

 

 

[Heidi13]

1 hour ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

This is not the first time this has happened to Viking in Vancouver.  It happened a few years ago, in Viking's first year doing Alaska. At the time there were many posts on the subject and maybe even a post or two describing how things actually went on that day. With careful searching, you may be able to find these new posts (I can't remember if it was 2018 or 2019).

 

 

Here is my re-collection of the Orion's port visit.

 

It was Viking's first ever arrival and there were also 3 mega ships in port that day. May 2019, if memory is correct. With 3 mega ships, they have no additional berth space for another 700' ship. In Alaska, Viking are the new kids, as the other cruise lines have berths booked years in advance.

 

The Viking Orion increased speed and arrived about 03:00 to 04:00, docking to discharge the baggage, then anchored within the inner harbour. The Harbourmaster made available their dock for the Viking tenders. Pax completed Immigration onboard, then disembarked by tender to the Harbourmaster's dock, which is adjacent to Canada Place.

 

While the Harbourmaster made arrangements to embark by tenders, it was vetoed by Immigration, as once you clear US Immigration you can't re-enter Canada. The plan was for pax to board a bus for a 1/4 ml trip to the tenders. This delayed embarkation until after 18:00, when Viking Orion returned to the berth.

 

Some pax speculated Viking provided the wrong arrival date due to crossing the IDL, but that was nothing but a poor rumour, as I verified it with the then Harbourmaster.

[Peregrina651]

Andy, the chatter I remember was focused mostly on the embarkation. They had advanced warning that things would be running late and there was a lot of speculation/worrying going on as to what would and would not be happening. Whether it was this same call, I don't remember but at least you have narrowed it down to 2019.

[sabrefan]

Thank you for further clarification as to how things did not run well in 2019. There is a concept used by some companies called, lessons learned.  If docking dates for this port are done years in advance shouldn’t Viking have this information? I am not an expert on how harbors function for cruises but wouldn’t the port of Vancouver be less busy on a Monday or Tuesday?

[sabrefan]

Seems like I remember some of these embarking issues going back to 2019 as this was a new route for Viking. In fact we booking this cruise in 2019 for 2020 but covid caused this plan to not come to pass. Then again 2021 didn’t work so here we are  for June 12, 2022 and almost two weeks away. Hopefully it finally happens and Viking actually starts checking people in at 3:30 like they stated in their latest email.

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, sabrefan said:

Thank you for further clarification as to how things did not run well in 2019. There is a concept used by some companies called, lessons learned.  If docking dates for this port are done years in advance shouldn’t Viking have this information? I am not an expert on how harbors function for cruises but wouldn’t the port of Vancouver be less busy on a Monday or Tuesday?

 

June 12th is the only day with 5 ships all season, with most weekends only having 2 ships. When Orion returns Saturday 2nd July they only have 2 ships - Orion and Majestic Princess.

 

As I noted before, the actual disembarkation/embarkation process depends on the number of security screeners and Canada/USA Border Agents available. Like everything else, post COVID, they have staffing shortages.

 

Clearly Viking knew the docking dates, but are not privy to the terminal operation months ahead.

[Heidi13]

3 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

Andy, the chatter I remember was focused mostly on the embarkation. They had advanced warning that things would be running late and there was a lot of speculation/worrying going on as to what would and would not be happening. Whether it was this same call, I don't remember but at least you have narrowed it down to 2019.

 

I believe it is the same incident. Not much was said regarding the disembarkation, as it went rather well considering the circumstances. However, the Port worked right up to the last minute trying to get a similar arrangement for embarkation, while the ship was at anchor. Hence the reason for the late notification.

 

If I remember correctly, Viking hired one of the halls at the Convention Centre, but it was last minute and wasn't to Viking standards. Lots of bad feelings, so the cruise didn't start well for many pax.

[sabrefan]

Thank for the further explanation. Viking will be providing a hospitality room at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel for passengers who are already in Vancouver and those who will be arriving that day. In this email that Viking sent out they didn’t mention the time that they anticipated departing Vancouver. Hopefully, this will be the only glitch on this trip. The web site has shown this cruise as sold out and I don’t know if this is totally true or not. I suppose that they need to have available room for possible quarantined passengers. 

[Peregrina651]

1 hour ago, sabrefan said:

The web site has shown this cruise as sold out and I don’t know if this is totally true or not.

 

Sold out does not mean 'we have sold every single cabin on the ship', it only means 'we have sold all the cabins we intend to sell for this sailing.'

 

You won't know until you are on board exactly how many pax are on board. When we sailed last summer on the second sailing of the Welcome Back cruises in Iceland, sold out was under 400 pax. That number has changed over the past year but it differs from itinerary to itinerary.

 

 

[jasardeax]

We were very fortunate to be the only ship in Vancouver harbor for our embarkation on

May 3rd for the Alaska and the Inside Passage cruise. 
Ship only had 485 passengers. 
We were onboard by 10:30 AM

We were around Canada place the day before when there were 3 ships in the harbor. 
Area around Canada Place was very busy. 

[sabrefan]

We are flying into Vancouver a couple days before the cruise and staying at Pinnacle Marriott and should be able to get a late checkout. At least that would make things a little more comfortable. This will be our 3rd cruise to Alaska, went via Princess and Oceania before. Friends of ours will be doing their first trip to Alaska and first cruise on Viking. I feel bad for them that this experience will be getting off to a bad start. Especially in view of the fact that I told them how nice the Viking ships are to cruise on. It would have been nice for them to eat lunch on the ship and discover the ship itself like normal conditions on this first day. With Viking you spend a lot of money and having to pay a year in advance, expectations are high.

[Pushka]

On 5/28/2022 at 1:13 PM, sabrefan said:

You would think that cruise lines have to schedule months in advance with the port authority in Vancouver and receive approval from that port authority. The port authority in Vancouver would have to know well in advance what their capacity is. In this case the same goes for the ports in Alaska. Should be interesting to see what happens on our way to Seward. What makes this worse is being notified by Viking only 18 days in advance of embarkation.

 

This is exactly what happened with our Alaska cruise back in 2019. We had to wait until one of the other ships had left. We were only advised a couple of weeks at most, in advance although from research I already knew we had no berth assigned.  We finally started boarding at around 6.30pm. We had to sit around downstairs in the border security area as they started our immigration process a couple of hours earlier. And we sat and sat. When Orion finally moved into berth we all cheered. It was our first Viking experience too. 

Edited May 29, 2022 by Pushka

[Cienfuegos]

Perhaps my memory is failing, but wasn't there a secondary / overflow docking location for cruise ships at Vancouver until 2018?  Turning that facility to other uses severely congested Canada Place.

[travelbug11]

That was Ballantine but ships stopped going there a few years ago 

[Heidi13]

6 hours ago, Cienfuegos said:

Perhaps my memory is failing, but wasn't there a secondary / overflow docking location for cruise ships at Vancouver until 2018?  Turning that facility to other uses severely congested Canada Place.

 

That is the primary reason why Vancouver has continued to hand the cruise ship traffic to Seattle.

 

Ballantyne Pier was refurbished in the mid 1990's to accommodate 2 cruise ships, as overflow berths from Canada Place. However, if memory is correct, they were closed to cruise ship operations around 2014/15, leaving Vancouver with only 3 berths.

 

While it wasn't the best area and it wasn't really walkable, at least it provided berths for 2 additional ships.

[sabrefan]

Received our e docs for the  cruise yesterday, they stated that we could board at 1:00pm. The itinerary in the e-docs showed an anchor symbol for Vancouver indicating a tender port, interesting. So I got in touch with my travel agent to get further clarification from Viking since the e docs did not agree with the email I received from Viking on May 26th. Anyway my travel agent stated that the email was the correct information and we would be tendered to the ship in Vancouver harbor. Very interesting, I wonder when Viking discovered that there would not be enough dock space as normal in the morning when they disembark. I would think that the passengers on Orion going from Seward to Vancouver would also have to take the tender as well.

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, sabrefan said:

Received our e docs for the  cruise yesterday, they stated that we could board at 1:00pm. The itinerary in the e-docs showed an anchor symbol for Vancouver indicating a tender port, interesting. So I got in touch with my travel agent to get further clarification from Viking since the e docs did not agree with the email I received from Viking on May 26th. Anyway my travel agent stated that the email was the correct information and we would be tendered to the ship in Vancouver harbor. Very interesting, I wonder when Viking discovered that there would not be enough dock space as normal in the morning when they disembark. I would think that the passengers on Orion going from Seward to Vancouver would also have to take the tender as well.

 

The Metro Port Vancouver cruise schedule shows Orion on the longer East berth with Celebrity Eclipse. However, the berth is only 1,660' in length and the Celebrity ship is 1,040' and Viking ships are 745'.

 

Even without an allowance for gaps, the ships combined are more than 100' longer than the available berth. Therefore, it could be a similar situation to Viking's first arrival in 2019, when they did spend time at anchor.

[TravlingGato]

On 5/27/2022 at 10:35 PM, Papadog said:

On 5/27/2022 at 4:54 PM, sabrefan said:

Late yesterday afternoon received a email from Viking for our June 12th departure from Vancouver to Seward Alaska. Viking informed us that embarking time would be 4:00 to 4:30 pm instead of around 11:00am. They blamed this on the harbor master making this change due to ship traffic. Anyway, I previously had a covid antigen test scheduled at 1:00 pm on June 11th. Viking stated that immigration will start  around 3:30 . I asked if there is any flexibility on their part since my testing time and embarking time would be slightly over 24 hours. Typical standard answer as you expect no flexibility. Pathetic given the fact that they will test us again when we board. As a result I had to scramble and find another company that will test me at 4:00 pm on June 11th. All of this inflexibility and masks are not required in public spaces. One side of the equation certainly doesn’t equal the other.

We are stuck with paying $200. each for airport PCR tests. just to assure our arrival in Canada. We have scheduled a less than 48 hour test window based on the unreliability of air transport schedules.  ByTheWay---have received no info from Viking about coping with Viking-booked  airline schedule changes at the airport or with the connecting airport.  Our long-experienced travel agent has been more than patient in dealing with Viking frustrations.  So far this is our worst travel experience in 30 cruises, and we aren't even on the ship yet.