martincath

@PJ1254, I see that you tried to 'flag' me not long after my post, but it seems to have stayed plain text so I didn't get a notification! No harm done, as most of what I'd have said was already covered by @SCX22 - I too feel like the value of Cap is poor for visitors, you guys subsidize us locals significantly (we literally pay what you do for one day to get an entire year of access!), and frankly it's a bit of a circus. Lynn Canyon is not only quieter, but IMO a superior experience due to the much more natural surroundings, actual park rangers in an informative little museum/eco-centre, and the cafe is IMO better and verifiably a lot cheaper than food at Cap! The only downside is the hassle of getting there without your own vehicle - transit is possible but lengthy with at least one transfer, on the day you embark it's not a risk I'd take unless you did the rental car thing or found somewhere to stash bags so you could get there nice & early. As to transit to Cap, a regular Translink bus from downtown literally stops right outside - which is why I mentioned the $3 ride if you really want to go (it does have a couple of distinctions, being much longer and higher than the Lynn Canyon bridge, and maybe the various modern froo-froo bits actually entice you!) Bus 246 is the one you want - Google Map with directions from a nice, central intersection - for CAD$3.15pp, even less for seniors and kids. If it's still something that entices - or doing Lynn by transit or Grouse Mountain or some other North Shore site - then with an airport hotel I'd say that the only way to improve your timing is to spend some money, and stash bags downtown at cost for the morning. The Bell desk at the Pan Pacific holds bags for non-guests and in theory operates 24/7; there are also various luggage storage options in other hotels and shops you can find via Google - bounce, luggage hero, several others operate - which have a more formal system with a hefty guarantee against loss for probably a saving (last time I checked, rates per bag went ~$6-10 vs. $10 at the PP). The official cruise storage at the pier is even pricier, starting at $13! Depending how many people you have, how many bags need stored, a rental car might work out well financially compared to stashing a bunch of bags for a fee though if you already have good insurance through a credit card, use your phone for GPS etc. to avoid all the bells & whistles. Parking is cheap at Lynn, even cheaper at some other places out of town (with a car, going as far as Squamish would be low risk if you left early enough - so the gondola ride or Britannia Mining Museum might be enticing), and while the cost in Stanley Park is higher a car is actually a pretty efficient way to quickly hit some highlights, as parking rate includes ALL locations so you can stop at Totems, drive on to Prospect Point, then round to the Beaches, the Rose Garden etc. in short hops and the cost is the same for one person or if there's a bum on every seat of the car. Best thing(s) to do though? That's too dependent on your personal tastes for me to say - if you've never been here the temptation is of course to ask about Must Sees, but with just the morning you can't possibly do more than a tiny amount, so far better to try and figure out what's the best bang for YOUR bucks. Tripadvisor's great for popular site comparisons, a solid idea of what Joe Q Public thinks is 'best' comes from just reading the top ten rankings. Get everyone in your group to look separately, choose their personal top three things, compare lists, and see how close to being on the same page you all are about which things are best for you. Personally I don't even think Cap is a must-see at all, others rave about it because they get more from the experience of being on the highest/longest bridge, looking down through the glass floor of the cliffwalk etc. whereas for me woodlands should be more about the 'forest bathing' quiet ambience and a really narrow canyon with frothing white water is more attractive than a wide-but-boring one, so Lynn checks my boxes much better. And definitely be back in town by lunch if you do decide to roam further in the morning. You really want toi be walking into the pier at 2pm for your planned 4pm leaving - CBP take the pre-screening just as seriously as any other border crossing, and the passenger manifest has to be locked down and transmitted IIRC at least 90minutes before the ship leaves! If it's a busy day with some other ships leaving later, there may still be a bit of queueing even at 2pm unfortunately - but far less than there would have been earlier...

I haven't taken any whale-watching boats out of Seattle, Friday Harbor (where I'm guessing that you are seeing 'chopper or floatplane me here' tours to), Anacortes etc. so I'm afraid so can't offer any specific company reccos - but certainly the same resident pods that are seen out of Vic & Van cross the border frequently, and in May we have lots of non-residents Biggs' also roaming throughout the Salish Sea with the new crop of bite-sized baby seals and salmon runs, so there's definitely a good chance of seeing Orca from many places both sides of the border - but the most reliable area for Orcas in this neck of the woods in May is probably around the San Juan islands, which you can get to on (longer) trips from Seattle or Vancouver but are much closer to Victoria and Anacortes. If you rent a car and drive up to Anacortes you'd be sailing from the east rather than west to the San Juans (the biggest island of which is called Orcas, but entirely coincidentally as a shortened form of a Spanish name!) - without needing the additional time or premium cost of first getting onto the San Juans by ferry or air and then taking a whalewatch when you get there. By May most folks are already running two trips a day, so you could leave Seattle nice and early to avoid traffic, hang around on land in Deception Pass just south of Anacortes (one of the better places to see Orca from land - but you'd still need a whack of luck with just an hour or so!), take a ~10am whalewatch, and be back in Seattle before evening rush hour gets too bad. Seattle-based tours with guarantees exist, but not for a specific species - the Clipper even runs one daily from I think May-October - they'll almost certainly take you to the closest whales of whatever flavour, but you might get lucky and those could be Orca... There's a chance of land-based sightings all over the place - heck, Alki beach in Seattle has vaguely reliable sightings although more in Fall than Spring - and several other towns 2-3 hours drive from Seattle port whalewatching boats, so you could play it by ear, check websites of companies in each town every day before you arrive and decide which one to drive to based on who's been seeing Orcas most! Port Angeles and Port Townsend at least offer options. If you repost your Q on the West Coast board, you may find a helpful Seattle area local or two that can give more authoritative info than I can; there are a lot of very narrow waterways around the Puget Sound where Orcas would be easily visible from land if they were using them, so someone familiar with local salmon runs might be able to point you to some specific places that have high probablities on your dates? Oh, and since you mention beginning in Seattle I'm guessing it's a round-trip cruise from there rather than a one-way out of Vancouver - but just in case, May-June is peak Orca season up at the other end, with the likes of Major Marine offering Orca-specific whalewatching from Seward!

Officially bag drop begins some time between 10 and 10:30am, depending how many pax are being offloaded. Earlier-than-that drops involve schlepping down to the lower parking levels and finding a longshoreman with a luggage cage for your ship - but even that is extremely unlikely to be available before ~9am, and I can only personally speak to having done it once at 9:30am (at which point there were literally just a handful of other bags in the cages). If you can score a late check-out from your hotel, or simply ask them to hold your bags until later, then you can spend your morning doing the across-the-bridge-with-notorious-traffic-woes North Shore sites like Cap before heading back to your hotel for bags by noonish (even if you do all the stuff at Cap, 2 hours is plenty of time especially if you pay the $3 for transit so you are there when they open, rather than arriving on the first shuttle with the hordes). Go to pier to drop bags then go for lunch and/or a short, very close bit of further sightseeing (e.g. walking Gastown for the Steamclock & cobbles, riding FlyOverCanada right at the pier, basically the sort of places that you can walk to the pier in minutes rather than risk having to cross a bridge back to town) and you can safely shave the margins very tightly.

As long as you bring your physical card with you, it should (TSA Pre status prints on boarding passes so as I understand it you almost never need to show the card to anyone in the US, but there's no TSA here and the CATSA folks working the security queue up here don't have access to scan passports at point of entry, so you need to show your card to get in that line).

Unfortunately not any more @nitewolfgtr - several years ago the folks who look after bags at the pier were the same folks who do so at the airport, so they would transfer for a fee; when the pier franchise changed to WestCoast that service was lost as well as all the prices going up! PorterGenie filled the gap (they picked up, and dropped off, bags anywhere inclyuding pier and airport), but they don't seem to have returned after Covid - their website is still active though, so it's possible they might return for 2024, you could contact them... Hugely overpriced cruiseline excursions will offer this plus an airport drop-off of you - but unless you are a solo traveler just doing the exact same tour booked directly, paying to store a bag downtown, and then a cab to the airport in the evening is almost certainly cheaper as well as much more flexible, so better at filling your whole day with as much as possible! Most tours drop you at YVR either around 2pm or 5pm, and in both cases you will be far too early to even be allowed to check your bags - so now you're stuck hangining around outside the secure area until 3-4 hours preflight when you can check them in and proceed through Security. With a flight that late, I would store bags downtown at the Pan Pacific, or with a local store or hotel using Bounce, Luggage Hero or similar service found online (all should work out to ~$10/bag or less), enjoy your day out, have dinner, collect bags again by 9pm and then cab (if you can't manage bags easily) or SkyTrain (if you can it's both dirt cheap and faster!) to YVR, arriving 2 hours preflight. That late you will breeze through bag drop and security, and there's no Preclearance - wherever your first stop in the US is, you'll see CBP there for immigration and customs, so hopefully you booked a nonstop or have a reasonable amount of time for the connection!

Sorry, I did assume because you mentioned NY that you were American heading back there - but there are actually quite a few other citizenships who can apply for GE! But again - even with no special treatment whatsoever, a 12:40pm flight really isn't much of a concern.

Sounds like either the Pinnacle at the Pier (tall, boring, glass tower a few minutes walk from Seabus) or the Lonsdale Quay hotel (pretty much on top of the Seabus), both over in North Vancouver - the outdoor farmers market runs summers and there are restos in the Shipyards area on the waterfront just along the way. Or possibly the Granville Island hotel in Vancouver proper, using Aquabus? If you can recall whether the ferry as a big, boxy, thing full of commuters (seabus to North Van) or a wee tiny 12 seater affair (False Creek Ferries/Aquabus) that would confirm it!

Going TO the USA, absolutely - all the airports with preclearance have dedicated queues for both Security and CBP processing you can use with GE. If it's an RT cruise, you just won't be able to use the short queue on the way into Canada, only NEXUS works both ways among the 'regular Joe' TT programs.

Bucketloads! Living close enought to walk means I've never used any personally, but if you want to arrange it in advance you can book through several 'gig economy' agencies that hook you up with a local store or hotel to hold bags, with hefty insurance policies, for ballpark $7-10 per bag (just google 'Vancouver Luggage Storage' and choose one which will confirm actual locations in advance, so you can ensure they are actually convenient to walk to from the pier). Or if you're a 'play it by ear' type the Pan Pacific hotel directly above the pier has a bell desk at street level who will hold bags even for non-guests, for what was widely reported last season as $10ea (NB: no change given if you pay in USD!) Just don't waste your time at the official pier storage - it's not just the highest priced ($12 last year) but is also hands-down the least convenient for you, as you must return to collect the bags by 4:30pm! Anywhere else you can leave them until after you have dinner downtown and want to head straight to the airport (and any evening, given the single zone pricing, it's really hard to beat SkyTrain then for less than US$3pp and <30mins)

Yes, specific time slot needed. Anecdotally if you book a time, but show up not too much earlier or later, they'll still let you into the express line. How quickly you are likely to be able to get off the ship and to the airport depends on how many other ships are in port that day, how big they are, whether you need help to disembark, and how you choose to travel, but since you will hit the hard cap for checking bags no later than 1 hour preflight the latest Security timeslot to consider would be ~11:45am. Another thing you might consider is applying for Global Entry - I see that processing time for new applicants is running 4-6 months, so with a little luck it might come through in time, and that would let you walk into both the short queue for Security and also the dedicated lane for Trusted Travelers at CBP, but if you are able-bodied enough to carry your own bags off then self-disembarking ASAP and riding SkyTrain if you can't hop right in a cab/get an uber within 5 minutes will be the biggest time saving option. All-in-all though, unless this is a seriously busy day (3 big or any 4 ships) a 12:40pm flight isn't really much concern - most cruiselines would even let you book a transfer, as the risk of missing the flight is very low.

If you plan to stay over in Montreal (it's quite a lot bigger than Quebec City, plenty of attractions, and IMO also a bit easier in general for wheelchair pushing on streets - fewer steep slopes & cobbles in the touristy parts) then sure - VIA, and taxis in both cities, have legally mandated accessibility standards that are as good or better than ADA rules in the US. Quebec City will be your most troublesome place as Ye Olde Buildings are often very hard to retrofit for modern wheelchair ramps, lifts etc. Some upper/lower floors may be simply inaccessible at times, although mostly it's an inconvenience (e.g. have to go around the back to find the ramp). If this is just about saving money by doing flight/train on the same day - no way I'd recommend it! Unless your time has no value at all, figure out how many hours you are spending to do this, factor in that while there will generally be English speakers around in Montreal there is zero legal requirement for any cabbie to speak English and if anything goes wrong and you need help, unless you speak good French you might need to get someone to fetch someone else or risk misunderstandings... Back in the day I travelled around Ontario & Quebec pushing my granny, and she only really needed a travel chair for longer distances she was OK with short walks, steps etc., just slow. I struggled at times as a relative youngster, and one time my mum took her shopping alone in downtown Toronto she ended up being carried chair and all by a workie and a cop across an intersection - without their help they'd have had to backtrack several blocks. Montreal is notorious for roadworks - "We have two seasons, Winter and Construction" was coined there I think! - and while mostly on the actual travel surface this does sometimes impact sidewalks too. So all in all, I'd advise against any additional steps and time spent just to save cash - more moving parts makes for more risk, and the potential language as well as wheelchair barriers just maginify those risks of missing a connecting piece - but if you are planning a few precruise nights then hitting MTL first is very common, it's a busier airport with more flight options than YQB, a superb food scene, and plenty of things to see and do even if it lacks the romance of QC's incomparably gorgeous setting with the city walls. As to the train ride itself - mostly a bit Meh IMO, sometimes you get a nice view of the river, but we used to drive to Montreal and Quebec City from Toronto most often; fly if time was tight; and only took the train in winter when time wasn't an issue, it's not pretty enough to be worth doing as a train ride for its own sake.

We really enjoyed our NCL cruise to AK - I do agree that Princess has a higher 'baseline' onboard experience with the puppies, naturalists, Iditarod folks on (I think anyway!) all of their cruises, but you have to ask how much that sort of stuff is worth to your peeps... If you're going to seek out the naturalist, grill them with questions, then knowing there will be an experienced one onboard is great, but like any other feature if you don't use them is it worth the extra cost? If you go to Glacier Bay then every ship gets a local Ranger who gives a spiel, so any line with GB visits has basically the same experience there for example. Personally I'd be looking at which ports you want to visit first, then looking at which ships go there - with priority given to GB visits for a first cruise, as that is by far the best 'as close to guaranteed as is possible to see glaciers' option. Secondly, unless you do a Seattle RT everyone will need passports or at least passport cards - while you can cross the Canadian border by sea or land without a full passport, all flights need one even for US citizens. Victoria port stops don't - the 'driving licence and birth cert' exemption for closed loop cruises covers you there, but only there, so e.g. no Yukon visits from Skagway without a passport or equivalent WHTI-compliant documentation. North or Southbound one-way and Vancouver RTs you will all need to ensure you have passports if you plan to fly - even flying via Seattle and taking bus or train across the border means pp cards or enhanced DLs at a minimum. So if you have a group, and for reasons of criminality, finance, or whatever reason anyone refuses to get a passport... you can abandon all plans for anything other than RT Seattle, which at least cuts down on choices!!! In terms of which ship to choose, once you have a list of possible cruises that fit your ports & dates maybe consider the smallest ships which offer enough onboard stuff to satisfy your peeps - Alaska really is about the ports not the vessel, but if Grampa 'Gambling Joe' McPokerpants is going to make everyone miserable bitching about no casino then book a ship with a casino! Not knowing which ships you have already cruised and enjoyed, I can't say how low on the bells & whistles scale is acceptable to you and yours, but hopefully you know them all well enough to have an idea! Personally I always recommend folks plan some Pre or Post time in Vancouver, especially if you're from far away, because we've got more stuff to see and do than all the AK cruise ports put together - so unless glaciers are your only reason to cruise it's a real shame to come all the way here without seeing some of BC... and while hotels in downtown do get real pricey, a big family group can find a lot of efficiency with e.g. car rental, apartment rental, or even just the YWCAs family rooms (5 beds) split among a lot of people.

Juneau or ISP are hands-down your best options - pick whichever of the two you don't have other plans for in port - as both of these will have guaranteed sightings. If you book a big cruiseline excursion, they'll hand you a crisp $100 bill after the trip if there are no whales sighted - smaller companies might give you free rides instead. But it really doesn't matter as nobody has claimed a guarantee offer since whalewatching trips began!!! Since you're northbound, you also have Vancouver trips available precruise - while not quite 100% (most companies claim 95%+, and all offer free trips for life until you do see some), we are by far the most likely port to see Orca from on a whalewatch in September. These days the local companies don't specifically target the local Orca pods, to avoid disturbing them constantly, but you still have a good chance of seeing them as well as the visiting Grays & Humpbacks as September sees our local Coho & Chum salmon runs begin (if you're planning next year rather than this, also Pinks which return in odd-numbered years here) as those are the main food source for our Southern Resident pods.

^What Bruce said. There's a massive length of 'inside passage', from well south of Seattle, but the crux for 95%+ of cruisers is whether or not your ship sails east of Vancouver Island. Depending on the time of sunset you may not see the most spectacular parts in daylight, especially northbound, but virtually all cruises out of Seattle except the teeny-tiny US flagged ships (and any Royal class Princess ship even out of Vancouver, as BC Pilots refuse point-blank to take them Inside as their manoeuverability sucks) go outside with zero views and somewhat higher chance of rough water. Visiting any of the southern Alaskan ports though you cannot avoid sailing parts of the Inside Passage - but out of Seattle on a mainstream or even luxury ship with more than a couple of hundred pax you are going to have at least one sea day with nothing to see whatsoever. Of course, if your party are the kind of folks who will be in the bars, casino etc. rather than looking out at the scenery it won't matter!

As Dennis says, you won't have a problem unless something freakish happens - that bus slot is literally designed for cruisers to get to Seattle, it would be later if there was any trouble making it for folks who don't run into problems with inadmissibility at immigration or customs declarations. You should be fine as long as you don't try smuggling goods and have no criminal record (NB: by Canadian legal standards - DUIs are a serious crime up here, not just a misdemeanour), both of which could easily mean no matter what time you book a bus at you won't make it!

Even on a 3 or 4 ship day, mainstream lines will book you on flights at 12:30pm with their own transfers - which are the most expensive and slowest option! The advice I always offer is to stay over - we're a heck of a town to visit! - then book an early flight next day so you beat all the disembarking pax to YVR, but if you have burned all your $ budget on the cruise so another hotel night and day of sightseeing just isn't on the cards, a 12:30pm flight is very low risk. If something goes so badly wrong that you miss it, there's frankly a decent chance that a flight later the same afternoon might also have been missed! If you are on a super-busy day (check port schedule - it should update for this season by March), these days at least the cab queue never gets as bad as it did historically thanks to ridesharing - even if you don't use the apps, every person who takes a Lyftuber is one less who needs a cab - but there are a handful of other things you can do to further speed your progress if the queue still looks long: Head upstairs to the Pan Pacific Hotel and get a cab from there - first time cruises here usually have no idea that there's a hotel right above, with cabs able to access the street level front door without getting fully caught up in the horrible bottleneck of pier access, and it's got elevators from cruise level so no worries about mobility issues If the PP already has a bunch of sneaky peeps waiting, the two Fairmonts across the street will be quieter - Waterfront is literally across the street, Pacific Rim is a block down to your right - to try the 'get cab at hotel' trick There's an indy shuttle that costs less than half the price of the cruiseline ones - while you can prebook, they also take walkups! The company running it changes now and again, no guarantees last year's folks will still be doing it when this season starts, but it's actually cheaper than a cab for two people (actual dollar cost $1 extra for Adults, but no % tip expected on top...) Link to the most recent operator, Ace Charters, here. Maybe you do use Rideshares? They pick up outside the pier - so while there is a little more walking to get to them, it's pretty much the same as if you crossed over to get a cab at the Pacific Rim, and now they don't have to come down inside the pier on their own dime more drivers are willing to take fares. If walking a block or two is not feasible with your dad, you have a much bigger problem - the distance from ship to shore can easily be 400+ yards, and even more at YVR to the usual US gates, so anyone who cannot manage at least a quarter mile on foot NEEDS to book wheelchair assistance at both airport and pier... especially if this is an RT cruise, as the boarding process in Vancouver involves an awful lot of walking and standing with no seats available for extended periods due to the extra step of US Preclearance! The airport allows anyone to prebook a slot to pass through Security - while having NEXUS or Global Entry is even better as they get a dedicated Preclearance queue, if you are stuck with waiting for bags to be delivered to the pier then even if you cab it and get one pretty quick the busloads of cruise transfers might already be clogging the queues at YVR when you arrive! Booking a slot in advance - no charge! - for the late end of your timeframe, say 11:30am, means that if you are running late you have it available but if things go smoothly andf you roll in at 9am before the cruise shuttles you can just join the regular lines.

Further to Princetons mention - the aquarium makes use of Boston Harbour Cruises Whalewatching vessels, so compare pricing direct (but if you already plan to visit the aquarium, a combo ticket through the aquarium might be cheaper). Stellwagen Bank feeding grounds are reliable enough that you are guaranteed to see whales June through September (I believe that all the local companies are 'free trip' format rather than 'cashback' in the event you get unlucky). Big catamarans, even bigger than the ones Allen run in Alaska with IIRC up to 400pax, so rail space on deck can get tight up top - check the lower decks to see how busy they are too. Humpies are the bread & butter species but potentially several others - onboard naturalists should explain how to tell what's what from just 'backs & blows' and that's where to set your expectations If this is one of the longer RT cruises up to Nova Scotia, PEI, and Quebec then Boston is almost certainly your best bet for an actual whalewatch trip: Halifax and Sydney are the wrong side of NS for good whalewatching and getting over to Cheticamp or the Bay of Fundy would be very challenging on a port stop; Charlottetown and Quebec don't really have such tours at all; although you might get lucky with Minkes and Pilots seen from the ship, which are around in large numbers compared to most bigger whales, and even the rather rare Belugas anywhere around the Saint Lawrence river and gulf.

Probably... but even if plans are in place to have port security and longshoremen working to support folks entering and leaving the ship overnight, if you miss Victoria (high winds from the wrong direction do cause this a few times every season, and Bliss being a very tall vessel gives it slightly higher risk) then immigration checks involve CBSA staff rescheduling at short notice which could be problematic. Especially given this is a Friday, so for most visitors getting home for work the next is not a factor, I'd be inclined to stick to my normal recommendation of at least one overnight then as early a flight as you want on another day. I certainly would not risk booking a flight at 7am because someone on the internet said it would probably be OK - I'd want the cruiseline to confirm in writing that I could disembark overnight! Back to OP @Victorious8 who seems to have followed this advice to stay over - as a solo, you'll get even more 'win' than most from the YWCA hotel! They actually have single rooms, although I think all of those use hallway bathrooms rather than having your own en suite like the standard double/queen rooms do. It's 0.8miles away from the pier on foot, decent WiFi and lobby with free coffee to hang in if your room isn't available - I met folks there last summer to take on a walking tour who confirmed it's still a great option despite the low price. If you want to spend all day in Stanley Park something nearer the West End would be even more convenient, but if Gastown/Chinatown/Yaletown/False Creek are on the cards it's one of the best-located hotels too (although given how compact our core is, and that 90% of the hotels are there, we really don't have any poorly-located hotels downtown!) Unfortunately this cruise is too early for you to triple-down on celebrating Victoria Day in Victoria, Victoria! But you could have a Victoria Gin while in Victoria 😉

The smaller the better to an extent OP - if your budget can handle it (lacking casinos and the like to subsidise costs, more staff to passenger ratios etc.) and you don't need the sheer variety of amenities on a Monstrosity of the Seas type beast - and a longer duration cruise with more ports means at the very least more time close to shore entering and leaving those ports. Likely the most 'close to shore' time would be on the US-flagged cruises of Uncruise or American Cruise Lines - or maybe Lindblad/NatGeo 'exploration' trips? There are indeed layers of 'even more inside' up the coast, which other than deliveries and ferries only the teeniest and longest cruises visit - just fire up Google maps and zoom in and you'll see the AK and BC ferries routes which hit up a lot of places never seen on cruises... although actually using ferries, even with cabins, might be a step too far!

Happy New Year Dennis! That makes sense - I do recall in several prior years that Bliss has had rather unusual timings due to the bridge. I think one of our other locals, @ceilidh1, has done some of these Bliss repos and might be able to speak from experience how the ship/shore acess works off-hours?

Let us know which port(s) @michaelbr and there's a much better chance of getting the right info quickly - there are sometimes oddities around port access for which local knowledge might be better than Googling!

Depends on your citizenship what you actually need @michaelbr - but all cruises headed straight to Alaska from Vancouver see US CBP at the port for immigration purposes, so if you need a Visa and don't have it you will 100% not be allowed to board. As noted above already, if you're Spanish it's not actually a Visa you need, and the cost is minimal - but if you're a citizen of a country that does need a Visa to enter the USA just residing in Spain, you need to comply with the appropriate rules for your country of citizenship. Even in the much rarer circumstances of a cruise which visits a second Canadian port after Vancouver, when prescreening would not happen, all pax details are sent to CBP by the ship before arriving at the first US port - if you're not allowed entry then the best case is your cruise card is flagged so security will not let you off the ship, but the worst case (assuming there's no issue of criminality that the US would want to actually arrest you!) is that you are forced to disembark and escorted to the nearest airport/border and made to leave the US right away at your own expense... In short - you are 100% going to be processed by CBP for immigration purposes on any cruise to Alaska, regardless of where it begins, so get your paperwork in order!

Railroad is also bookable through various indies, e.g. Chilkoot, who are also cheaper than cruiseline-booked in my experience - see if you can get an earlier slot that way maybe? Also, if this is just the 'summit' ride, up and back without getting off, unless something goes wrong with the train or the tracks it will be very much on time as there are no stations, no issues with freight trains etc. like Amtrak/VIA suffer from - so a 3 hour trip will either have a very small chance of a disaster you can't possibly make a sensible plan around, or be basically on-time which means walking back to the ship by recommended 30mins before departure should be fine... Also, have you checked whether you could book the 1pm train via the cruiseline? If so, whether you book independently or not there will be cruise pax on the 1pm train, so if there is a delay the ship might wait for those folks anyway...

This is tricky - without more info about your specific date/route I can't say! A theoretical answer though is that unless NCL are paying CBSA to work overnight at Canada Place (short answer - they absolutely won't be!), you might arrive at 11pm but you won't be cleared to leave the ship if this is the first Canadian port... but if you had a prior stop in e.g. Victoria, without any other US ports in-between, then immigration & customs was already taken care of so you can just walk off the ship whenever you like after it's tied up. So if you want to set your alarm for 4am, you might not be able to get your bags taken off for you before official disembark slots begin, but you would absolutely be able to self-disembark if you schlep all your own stuff. A 10am flight is potentially doable even if you need to wait until 'regular hours' disembarkation, but again there are unknowns - the biggest factor is your mobility. If you can handle all your own bags, then even on a busy day with multiple ships SkyTrain to YVR is viable which means you can definitely be at the airport within ~45mins of leaving the pier (~10min walk, trains every 6-7 mins, <30min travel time). Say an hour to get to check-in as there's also a bit of a walk from the station to the check-in desks - which means as long as you leave downtown before 9am, you should meet the minimum 1 hour preflight cut-off to check bags. You'll also beat all the other folks who are waiting for cruise transfers - none of them arrive at YVR before about 9:30am - so all the queues should be pretty light, I'd expect to be at my gate within about 30mins even without NEXUS/Global Entry to get through US Preclearance super-fast. If you need any help whatsoever with baggage though, abandon all plans for a 10am flight - there are just too many moving parts outside your control to make it worth the risk. None of the mainstream cruiselines even accept transfer requests for flights that early (noon, or even 12:30pm, is the usual cutoff as they know how busy it can get at the pier and airport and they don't want to be on the hook for folks missing flights!) Personally though I would always advise staying over in Vancouver - unless you've been here many times and seen everything, we have more stuff to see and do than every AK coastal port put together so it's a real missed opportunity to be here and not take advantage of one of the best cities in the world! Us locals might b*tch about cost of living, but with our weaker CAD$ we're still a relative bargain for folks from the USA, especially if you're from any of the bigger cities in California! Then by all means book a flight at 10am on another day when you can choose exactly when to leave your hotel - heck, you may even find a good 6am flight. The only thing to be aware of on those really early flights is that CBP do not start work until 4:30am, and start-of-shift briefing eats another 10-15mins - so arriving at Preclearance before 5am is basically pointless, even for a 6am flight. So many people obey the rule of thumb to be 3 hours early that there's always a lineup at the closed doors from 3am, which gets longer and longer until CBP actually start working around 4:45am...

Taxi firms locally must have a % (~17%) of their fleets Accessible - while there is zero requirement for Uber, Lyft etc. due to them 'sub-contracting' to individual drivers. So an accessible van taxi is on paper much more likely to roll in at Canada Place than an accessible Uber etc. to find at all... but there's no legal requirement for other passengers to pass up the chance of a van - and with cruisers very often being luggage-heavy, the average family of four may seriously struggle to get their bags in a Prius so they'll take a van rather than sit with suitcases on their laps all the way to YVR. Unless you book one specifically, it's a crapshoot in the 'first-come, first-served' queue... but if you contact any cab firm directly, by phone or their Apps, the local bylaws mean they MUST despatch an accessible vehicle on demand. There's no specific timeframe unfortunately, so a rando calling from a US cellphone isn't likely to get any particularly special treatment... but that's where the following workaround comes in! Who DOES get reliably good treatment from cab companies? Hotel concierges and bell captains - because unlike you, a one-off foreign visitor, those people call bucketloads of cabs every day and they can choose which cab company to call... so no cab firm with any sense will risk jeopardising their relationship by blowing off a hotel! Canada Place just so happens to have one of our fancier hotels literally on top of the pier - the Pan Pacific. There's also the just-as-fancy Fairmont Waterfront literally across the street - which will probably have a quieter lobby to sit and wait in - and the even-fancier Fairmont Pacific Rim a block down, which is not only one of just two five-star hotels in the city but is easier to get to for cabs when the pier is busy as it's both a little further away from the pier but also has street-level 'drive-through' access from Cordova so the cabs can completely avoid the bottleneck right outside the pier. I'd try the PP first - but if there's already people waiting for their cabs, cross to the Waterfront and if it's also busy walk the extra block down to the Pac Rim. Between these three swanky hotels, even on a busy day you should have a van cab arriving quickly... Start with an apology (the Canadian way!) e.g. 'sorry for bothering you, but <point at person in party who needs the vehicle> we are having great difficulty getting an accessible cab at the pier, even though we are not currently guests could you possibly call one for us?' would need a very hard-hearted hotelier to refuse!