Turtlelove17

How walkable is the new Royal Caribbean terminal from the downtown/strand area (such as the Harbor House)? Or is it best to just take a cab? 
 

I keep finding info on the OLD terminal being easy to walk to but not so much on the new one.

On 6/21/2023 at 9:40 PM, mac_tlc said:

What a great first day in Honninsvag! We had a North Cape tour with Blue Puffin and it was wonderful. Monika was our guide, her and her husband Sebastian own/run Blue Puffin. It was about 4.5 hours and stopped at two fishing villages, one very near her house in Kamøyvær. @Norwaylady, she mentioned that the village no longer has its own school. Here are some postcards, I mean pictures of the fishing village. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Next it was on to Skarsvag, where we got up close and personal with a King Crab or two. 
 

 

 

 

Next up —- the North Cape and reindeer! 
 

mac_tlc

 We were also on this same blue puffin tour with Monika. She was amazing! We left that your feeling like we spent some time with a local learning all about her home in Norway. She is also very engaging and fun to listen to. Perfectly timed and beautiful stops at the fishing villages. Even our 8 year old loved it 🙂

I would highly recommend this tour!

We have 3 kids. Two are vaccinated and one is not. We get emails for all the kids to do the pre-cruise testing every cruise. When we arrive, they just ask us to show proof of vaccination for the kids. 

Just want to triple check I have this right, as we leave 8/8!

The unvaccinated kiddos can test Friday, Saturday, or Sunday for a Monday departure? Its the 3 days prior to the actual departure date. 

A double side by side stroller would be challenging I think on the ship. The halls can be quite narrow. It would be hard to pass people in the halls with the double. I would look into a tandem if you want one stroller or two umbrellas (with connectors) if you want side by side. We have taken the umbrella before which did its job, but got a little bothersome over cobblestoned streets or long walks (just doesn’t handle rough terrain well & is shorter than a normal stroller lol). Also didn’t have the bottom basket for long days. What about a Sit & Stand? It’s tandem, and decently priced for travel. You can fold it up at night if you need the space.

Also, we have never really used the stroller on the ship itself. Just for time off the ship and walking around towns.

For reference, we have 3 young kiddos. We cruise often. Each kiddo started cruising around 5 months to a year. 

We are also diamond, but our kids were only showing as gold when we booked this cruise and on all their boarding documents/cards. We also earned our points on celebrity, but ventured over to RC for the first time. On the first night of our cruise, we received a letter stating our kids would be granted diamond status due to “your parents status.” It included the drink vouchers & other perks such as 1/2 off ice cream & buy 1 get 1 movies. Their cards still say gold as their status though… 

We are trying to book specialty dining, but it is charging us “adult” price for our kids. If we book through our cruise planner at full fare, will it reimburse us later as the kids are a cheaper rate?

We did UDP last time we were on Navigator of the Seas. We don’t see it as an option in the cruise planner. Do we need to do this when we get on board? Or is the UDP not longer an option? 

We are a family of 5 in one room. Do we all need to check in together? 
 

We have one unvaccinated toddler and two vaccinated young kids. We are hoping to send one adult to check in with the unvaccinated kiddo (and wait for the antigen test) and avoid pulling the other two from school early. 
 

Is this possible? Or do we all need to check in as a family?

6 hours ago, BazingAu said:

@HBCcruiserAre they giving out Cruise Compasses again? Or do you need to get them from somewhere?

We were able to get them by asking at the guest services desk. 

We had to cancel a cruise the day we were to depart in September 2017. It was terrible. They only refunded our port taxes/fees. The worst part is we were booked in a suite for 4 people so we lost a lot of money! We tried to get money back, but also respected that we didn’t have insurance on the trip so we chalked it up to bad luck. On a whim I decided to write a letter to celebrity letting them know I was disappointed in losing so much money as we are long time cruisers. We also chose not to cruise with celebrity for the time being as it was just so disappointing to lose money and a trip we had been looking forwards to. We started cruising with other companies instead. Well about two weeks after the email, I got a call from celebrity who refunded us about $8,000 as a cruise credit. We then had 2 years to use that credit. It was a very welcome surprise! So I just suggest that you at least try again if you are denied any refund. It doesn’t hurt to ask... they worst they are going to say is no!

My daughter is allergic to most regular laundry soaps so we need to us a fully fragrance free/dye free type laundry soap at home. We want to be able to have a load of laundry done on the cruise ship since we will also be traveling pre and post cruise and want to travel light.

Do you know what type of soap celebrity is using? Do they have a hypoallergenic option (wishful thinking I’m sure :p)?Anyone else with an allergy have any issues with their linen and/or laundry services?

Seattle has Redcaps - but you may have some trouble in Vancouver. I've never seen any of the VIA porters on the Amtrak side on all my train rides, it's a very short schlep so there's just not much demand for these services - but given that Amtrak do take disabled pax I am sure there must be some way to get help with bags even if it's the train staff helping out, or calling for a VIA porter to come to this side of the station.

 

Amtrak refuse to buy their own luggage carts here, so after years of just 'borrowing' the ones that belong to VIA the station staff now ensure that they keep them locked away securely on the Canadian side!!! You could call the station to ask if their porters are allowed through to the US-administered part of the station past security (normal VIA services are all domestic, so I don't believe they are all required to have US security clearance in order to work there, but some may have chosen to apply for the relevant permits like the Longshoremen who work at the pier on both US/Canadian side).

 

In a nutshell, there are normally no carts in the Secure area - when you get off the train, you walk past the checked bags which are just laid out on the platform (upright, sometimes even with the handles popped up for you) for you to collect. You then drag your stuff and your kids and yourselves maybe fifty yards through CBSA inspection into the main station concourse before you can reach any luggage carts - but by the time you're there it's only about another fifty yards to go outside and left to the cab queue so if you managed the bags this far, a cart is kinda pointless anyway...

 

If you can't trust your kids to walk in front of you/beside you where you can see them, you'll need to keep a hand free to hold on to a kid. If you can trust the bigger one to also hold the hand of the smaller one, one of the adults could pull 2 big bags along easily enough. I assume your kid's stuff is either going to be mixed into a big suitcase with yours or in a smaller bag, that could perhaps stack onto a bigger wheelie bag? If not, acquiring a couple of smaller bags that will stack onto your big ones securely so you only need one 'luggage hand' each seems like the way to handle this, with any personal bags being backpacks or shoulder bags that do not need a hand to carry.

 

SkyTrain from here to pier - bad move. No luggage storage, and by the sounds of it there's no way you can manage to hold all your bags on your laps which is the only legal place to put them. Aisles and wheelchair/bike spots are not allowed to be blocked with bags, it incurs a hefty fine if you refuse to disembark the train. Since they're automated the odds of a staff member being present to hassle you in the very short ride are slim, but even if it's a quiet time to ride so you're not inconveniencing the commuters it's not the best idea (and would involve dragging bags another hundred yards or do then up an escalator/elevator/staircase). Just take a cab - to the pier will run about $12, maybe $15 if there's a lot of traffic.

 

Personally with your family I'd be seriously considering renting a car for a one-way trip, dropping it at the pier (there are multiple rental companies operating right at Canada Place). You'll need car seats for the kids on top of the basic rental costs, but it would mean you can get the kids and luggage right to the pier. The only other way to do that would be a cruiseline transfer from Seattle (possible, but not always available - check with your line!) or using QuickShuttle, who have a pier drop and various pickups around Seattle. The latter is not cheap, but if one of those pickups is convenient for you it's hard to beat being dropped right at the pier where you can hand your bags over to the Longshoremen right away.

 

I'd still prefer a rental car myself, so you can arrive at a better time - both Amtrak and Quickshuttle (and cruise bus transfers) tend to come in right at the busiest block of time, noon to 2pmish. Unless it's a one ship day, this means long queues for everything. On a 3 or 4 ship day, it means your life will suck as you drag your kids through lineup after lineup. Ordinarily I'm an 'arrive as late as possible for the shortest wait time' guy, but with toddlers to herd, nap-times to worry about, I'd be inclined to aim for a 10am arrival so you can hand over bags, be among the first folks waiting, and when they open boarding around 11am you'll then zip through the queues pretty fast... and the only practical way to get there that early is to either stay overnight or drive up (the earliest Bolt Bus and Greyhound are also pretty early, but they also arrive at Pacific Central so you have the whole luggage hassle again - although since you arrive 'domestic' at least there are some carts around).

 

NB: that all buses usually involve you having to move your bags from the bus to a conveyor belt inside for x-raying. Sometimes you get lucky and don't

have to, and you can always have one person run the bags in and out while the other herds the kids, but it's still more hassle than a car!

Thank you so much!! This was a huge help =)

Hi!

We will be traveling from Seattle to Vancouver on the Amtrak train. We will also have our two toddlers with us (2 and 3 years old). I am very nervous about getting all our luggage on/off the train without losing a kid! While we won't have a ton, we will still have enough to make it difficult.

Are there carts available at either end? Do you have to walk a far distance in Seattle (King station) within the train station itself to get to the train? Or is it a long distance in Vancouver to get to the cabs? We are assuming that a cab will be easier than the sky train to get to the terminal with both kiddos?

Any advice?

Please no negative comments about traveling with toddlers... We love traveling often and cruising with our kids so we already know what we are getting into =)