Boiler Cruiser Posted June 1 #1 Share Posted June 1 My wife and I are going to be taking a cruise to Alaska on Princess in 2025. Our cruise is RT from Vancouver. We have not sailed out of the Canada Place Cruise Terminal before. I am curious what other cruisers' experience has been going through Vancouver. How was your embarkation experience? How did your disembarkation go? Did you use a transfer supplied by your cruise line, or get to the terminal on your own? Was it crowded? Was it easy to drop off luggage? Was check-in what you expected? Do you have any advice for my wife and I? Anything you can share would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Host Kat Posted June 2 #2 Share Posted June 2 5 hours ago, Boiler Cruiser said: My wife and I are going to be taking a cruise to Alaska on Princess in 2025. Our cruise is RT from Vancouver. We have not sailed out of the Canada Place Cruise Terminal before. I am curious what other cruisers' experience has been going through Vancouver. How was your embarkation experience? How did your disembarkation go? Did you use a transfer supplied by your cruise line, or get to the terminal on your own? Was it crowded? Was it easy to drop off luggage? Was check-in what you expected? Do you have any advice for my wife and I? Anything you can share would be appreciated. Hello @Boiler Cruiser and thank you for your new thread! To help you out your new thread has been moved to the North American Homeports - West Coast Departures forum where it will be on topic. The majority of your fellow Cruise Critic members that have sailed from Vancouver frequent this forum and provide feedback here. Browse through the thread titles on this forum looking for threads of interest. You may find your fellow Cruise Critic members have already posted questions and received answers that may be of interest to you. The Cruise Critic website and message boards are both great resources for new as well as experienced cruisers and we are so glad you are posting! Please feel free to browse the Cruise Critic Community categories list of the various forums. I suggest you put the link in your Favorites for quick & easy access in the future. Please read a few threads in the different forums to get a feel for what each forum is about. Make sure you read any pinned threads (aka stickies) on the top of the first page of threads in most forums. You will find very important instructions or information there. Hope this will be helpful and glad to have you aboard Cruise Critic! Happy sails, Host Kat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ferry_Watcher Posted June 2 #3 Share Posted June 2 There isn't much you can do about it, so I wouldn't start thinking about it a year before your cruise. That said, we cruised out of Canada place as recently as May '23 & May '24. May '23 was super easy as we were guests at the Pan Pacific Hotel and we used their Bellman Service to have our luggage brought down to the luggage hall the morning of the cruise. This is a gratuity based service, and I think we tipped $20 US for the 2-3 bags. I would highly recommend looking at booking the Pan Pacific now for the best rates for you 2025 cruise. Our room was Harbor-Side and loved watching all the marine traffic and seaplanes. During the embarkation process there was lots of walking, but we didn't have to look for luggage drop off (which saved us some time). Our May'24 embarkation was a little bit different. We couldn't get a room at the Pan Pacific so we stayed in Burnaby (which was about 10 stops on the Sky Train). Once we arrived at Canada Place, we were directed down the ramp along the driveway into the lower level of the parking garage. As we walked towards our Celebrity luggage drop off area, we passed 2 different luggage collection points (one was for Princess) which were Hertz moving trucks with porters/longshoreman next to a Princess Cruise sign taking luggage and putting it on the truck (This was about 10 AM). The other collection point may have been HAL. Since we were Celebrity, we kept walking until we were pointed to a line near an elevator, where we got on and took the elevator up one floor and then dropped off our luggage where the longshoremen put the luggage into transport cages. We then walked some more and then went up a level via escalator, walked outside, then re-entered the building. We then were in a long line that was checking passports, boarding passes, security screening - although I don't remember the exact order. The entire process is very convoluted, but you need to trust the pier-side employees that they know where to correctly direct you. Even after all that up & down, and lots of walking - it was just 1 hour from arriving at Canada Place to stepping on to the ship. So my advice, stay at the Pan Pacific and get yourself an early boarding time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jean-lynd Posted June 3 #4 Share Posted June 3 You may want to see how many ships will be in port because that is a big factor. You can see that at claalaska.com. I know the day we go there will be over 7,000 people so I expect it to take awhile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
memoak Posted June 3 #5 Share Posted June 3 We always go in a day early and stay at a hotel near Canada Place. The Pan Pacific is in the dame building and they can have your bags sent to the ship for a small gratuity. We always wait out the crowds have a late breakfast or early lunch and the board after 1pm when the crowds are gone and we have no waits 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boiler Cruiser Posted June 5 Author #6 Share Posted June 5 On 6/3/2024 at 11:39 AM, jean-lynd said: You may want to see how many ships will be in port because that is a big factor. You can see that at claalaska.com. I know the day we go there will be over 7,000 people so I expect it to take awhile. Thanks for the suggestion. Here is another website that I have found to be very helpful in finding what ships will be in port with my ship. https://www.cruisetimetables.com/ In my case, it turns out that there will be only one other ship at the terminal other than mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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