martincath

I agree - check the currency! But even if they are the same when using the same units, the cruise line won't be offering a guarantee - whereas all the local firms give a lifetime 'free repeat trips until your boat sees whales' as standard. You might not plan to come back soon, but if you're on one of the unlucky 5-10% of trips that doesn't sight whales at least you'll get another trip whenever you do manage to make it back again...

The real problems at YVR were for folks flying out - understaffed security, Covid tests required by the US to board a plane, nightmare. The incoming folks did face issues when there was a covid test on arrival - an extra step that caused major lines on-site as if even one person in a group was flagged the whole party would hang around waiting for Uncle Bob to get tested! Testing disappeared entirely, and now that it is back (on a much smaller sample size random basis) the testing has been moved to offsite labs, so the flow of pax through the airport itself is back to pretty much normal when arriving. I think there's still a somewhat increased average wait time for bags due to luggage handlers still being understaffed, but all of the staffing issues have been getting notably better this summer, by next year that aspect should no longer be relevant.

With that much time, any of the longer post-cruise tours are definitely safe to take - North Shore attractions like Capilano & Grouse do suck up a fair bit of drive time, but still tend to be too short a time on site to fully experience things. Local providers are Land Sea and West Coast, both of whom offer 6-7 hour tours. Personally with that much time to play with though I'd buy a transit Day Pass, store suitcases downtown, do a bunch of stuff all day, have dinner, collect bags, head to YVR for 9pm* on SkyTrain if mobile enough, or just spend the extra ~US$28 on a cab if you really cannot manage to roll your bags at all... if you need a porter at the airport and pier then you need a cab, but if you can walk from curb to check-in unassisted, SkyTrain to the airport is easily done with luggage. *Evenings are less of a hassle, and flights this late have no Preclearance, so even two hours beforehand will likely turn into 'wait over an hour at the gate' but better safe than sorry in these days of extra-stress air travel.

Nope, it's 100% free - but just like when eTAs started being required, a bunch of scammers have built websites to (at best) charge a fee while actually completing the required application and (at worst) take the money and run...

Unless your indy tour is with Westcoast, don't use the official pier storage - it's the priciest in town at $10 carryon/$15 suitcase. They might be offering discounts with one of their tours booked - they did this pre-pandemic. Personally I'd hit the PP upstairs first, as that's likely to have less of a queue since only folks who find out about it here on CC will be trying to do it, whereas anyone disembarking without a plan for bags will see the signs and join the queue for Westcoast storage!

Bring your laptop is the obvious answer! Then everything will be exactly the same in terms of completing the Trip entry - although unless you schlep a printer along too, you'll either have to haul the laptop out for anyone who requests to see the QR code or find a business centre to print it (Staples lets you email a print job). Are you traveling with someone else, who has a smart phone, Android tablet, iPad etc? Emailing them with your result would work, even if they don't count as being part of your traveling group such that you could have them include you on their ArriveCAN entry. Many folks don't seem to realise that even a regular Kindle can display documents and images not just ebooks, you can email a PDF, jpg etc. file to your Kindle. So if you even have a Kindle, you can email your results to yourself on that. Worst case, someone else anywhere in the world who you trust with your info can fill out ArriveCAN on your behalf! Kids, grandkids at home who aren't cruising with you? They can do it - just be sure to confirm you crossed the border so they don't 'help' too soon and cause you trouble!!!! - and then email the result. If you have a precruise stay in a hotel, use their business centre to access the website and print it works too.

Ask HAL if they're offering transfers; if it's for next season then Amtrak train should be back to regular service which personally I've always found the least-annoying way to cross the border. But unless you plan some pre-cruise time in Seattle then heading up here afterwards, flying into YVR is obviously the method that involves the fewest moving parts/things to go wrong/independently arranged travel legs. If it's this year and you're locked into your SEA flight then HAL transfer, QuickShuttle, Amtrak bus (or book directly with Cantrail), Flix, or Greyhound are your land-based transit options that shouldn't break the bank. A one-way car rental, if you can find one, seems to have high minimum rental days this year so frankly buying a flight SEA-YVR might even be cheaper... Regardless, git'er done ASAP as many of these services are sold out given the lack of options this year!

^Agree - you'll need to be very proactive, find out which gangplank is going to be opened and be among the first people waiting, then hustle (the cab waiting area is just beyond the secured area of the pier, so pretty close) and hope. If you hit the pier within 15mins of official arrival, good chance - but the typical wait is longer than that, even ignoring any issues with weather, propulsion etc. Also, unless this is some sort of 'arranged through the cruiseline' special seating - if it is, then tea should be served when the group arrives - the last service of Afternoon Tea this year is 5pm (and that's only Thu-Sun, Mon-Wed it's 3pm). At over CAD$90 a pop with local tax it's a pricey thing to miss out on, so I would be contacting the hotel directly (email: emp.diningres@fairmont.com) to verify what they will do for late-comers/no-shows (Victoria suffers from occasional wind issues that make docking challenging or even impossible).

You're welcome - this is why they pay me the big bucks! 😉

I may be misreading your grammar - but for clarity, you need to do your ArriveCAN before you get to Seattle pier, rather than before you arrive in Vancouver... for cruises, it's all about when you embark the vessel and lock yourself in the proverbial 'floating petri dish' with the other pax that will then bring you all into Canada As I think I mentioned further up this chain, but honestly it's all a blur these days, Canada does not demand an ArriveCAN entry for people who are only leaving the country - but I have no idea about Royal's admin procedures for check-in staff. Given that fines are applied when folks shouild complete it but don't, they may be demanding to see ArrCAN for all pax under the K.I.S.S. principle to avoid errors... As to the dock, there's just the one building - Discovery docks on East side, Niuew Amsterdam West, and Serenade will be at the North end - so you won't even have to go outside if you don't want to. Right - with no intervening US port, you will never officially leave Canadian waters. Incidentally, this does mean that your first US port, Astoria, will suck immensely as the very small CBP complement there will have to clear all pax for entry to the US! By hitting Vic after Van, the law which allows Preclearance at Canada Place does not apply, so instead you'll have officers who only have to clear a handful of ships a year doing it manually, rather than kiosks and an experienced group. Do NOT book any excursions close to docking time! Even worse - Fall, Columbia Bar? Astoria is notoriously prone to weather cancellations, and if you do miss it that means CBP in San Francisco will now have to scramble to staff up for an unscheduled immigration clearance! So I would likewise avoid any soon-after-docking excursion bookings in SF. Even when they expect you, it took over 3 hours to clear Golden Princess when we sailed into SF a few years back - I think that held only a hundred or so extra pax compared to your SotS. 3 ship day on Sep 25 - your two plus Nieuw Ansterdam. If you're OK with skipping tourism, then I'd say the latest boot-off time is bang on (from what I hear, 9:30am is still the 'everyone except Covid +ve folks being bussed to quarantine' last timeslot). While you can expect to hit some queueing, I'd find it highly unlikely that you would spend more than an hour between walking down the gangplank and being able to drop your bags off for the second cruise, then go join the herd waiting in the check-in hall. One small bonus is that while Security will still be 'all the pax from 3 ships' busy, skipping CBSA removes the usually-the-worst queue from the process (although as noted, even a bad day at Canada Place is frankly going to be more efficient than CBP at Astoria or SF so you're trading one annoyance for another bigger one...) If you do still need to test - very likely, given how slowly Canadian rules about cruising have rolled out throughout I seriously doubt anything will change until next season - and the CP network is slow, then try walking away from the pier and use the city network #VanWiFi, as it should be less overwhelmed than the one right at the pier given 3 shiploads of pax might all be trying to use it for testing, ArriveCAN etc. mid- to late-morning. Good news for you is that your arrival will be at a SUPER quiet time of day for internet use - you're scheduled for 3am so that Discovery can fit under Lion's Gate bridge at low tide. Even if you can't get off the ship until CBSA start work, sit by a window (even better on deck if weather behaves) and you should easily get WiFi from shoreside, and until the other smaller ships arrive c. 7am there will be way less competition. Personally, with proctored online test kits, I'd be planning a Wee Small Hours test at say 4am, then back to bed!

Since that's where you're going in terms of the land border crossing, it makes enough sense to use that address if it's a same-day transfer. If you are coming up for some pre-cruise overnight(s) then use hotel address. Key thing is that for land crossing they want to know the border post you intend to cross at, and the time you intend to cross. I'd use 2 hours after leaving Seattle if your pickup is downtown and no other stops en route (add 30mins for a Seatac pickup or another stop or two; an hour if both apply - CBSA are pretty forgiving in terms of time, we've run into unexpectedly good traffic and been a full hour earlier than our ETA without any problem). Buses all cross at the 'truck crossing' which is variously known as Douglas or Pacific Highway, local Canadian side address in Surrey BC. Depending where your cruise goes, that might be you done with ArrCAN entirely (one way to AK, no Canadian stops) but if it involves an RT cruise that brings you back to Canada, you'll need to complete a second Trip AFTER crossing the border. ArrCAN does not hold multiple trips, so trying to add a second one before completing the first simply writes over the data! Plenty free WiFi all over downtown (citywide #VanWiFi network, plus the pier itself should have their own wifi operating) so if it's a charter coach rather than one of the scheduled buses that have WiFi on board, you might need to wait until you arrive but you'll still have time. Setting up a new Traveler is the only bit that takes any time - after that, each Trip is a matter of 2 minutes to pull who is going from your list of stored people and add where and when they cross the border again.

If you're at home within the timeline, then sure - use the website, print the code. A bit of paper is not susceptible to running out of battery, no pfaffing around trying to open the App or find a screenshot on your phone if you're not very techy, so definitely printing it keeps things as simple as possible at check-in time if you print all your other docs. However if you DO have a smartphone, the App is actually easier to get the required Traveler info input as you can take a picture of your passport and Vaxx card - there's no need to scan pics into your desktop, no risk of manually typing in the wrong passport number/spelling name wrong or other silly keyboard errors. A should anything go wrong while traveling you'll have the phone app in your pocket in case your plans change (there's a current thread from someone whose flight was cancelled so they missed boarding and are flying to join the cruise - that sort of event changes dates of border crossings so might invalidate a Trip on ArriveCAN and need you to revise it). Whatever is easiest for you to do really, Canada doesn't care which version you use!

My understanding of this is the same as yours - no cruise stops in Canada, therefore no 'Arrival in Canada' at any point after embarking the ship, so no need for a new ArrCAN completion. If they ask - which may be a simple admin "since we need to confirm Vaxx status, and ArrCAN contains that info verified by Canadian gov't, then let's just ask for ArrCAN to satisy the Canadian gov't that we are doing due dilligence on pax vaxx status" then your still-valid-since-less-than-72hrs-ago border crossing entry should have a QR code they can scan that works. Worst case, if Princess actually demanda fresh entry made at the pier just do it - any private company can set whatever rules of carriage they like as long as they are MORE stringent than what gov't demands rather than less - and with the difficult stuff already in the app, bunging in another Trip should take all of 2 minutes... there's free WiFi at Canada Place, and it's not like you need a fast connection so even if many folks are using it you should be good. 100% you need to complete it before boarding - folks working at Seattle pier have confirmed that staff there check on entry to the building, so it's not relevant at all which cruise line as the line-specific desks cannot be accessed until after you get inside! And whether you get off or not in Victoria is also irrelevant - your ship enters Canadian waters, so Canadian rules require the ArrCAN data be supplied in advance of the ships arrival.

I think this is one of those situations where an airport does make more sense than downtown - even if flights are on time, many downtown attractions might be closed by the time you get through immigration, to hotel, drop bags, and head out. If money is no object, the convenience of the only hotel at the airport itself (Fairmont) might be of interest to you - you can ride SkyTrain for free on Sea Island, which means you can zip between the McArthur Glen outlet mall and the airport for shopping if you're early enough to have shops still open; dining at the mall is similarly casual to the airport but without the price hikes! For a simple 'comfy bed for the night, dining nearby' there are several hotel options with shuttles, so if you collect/want to use points then Holiday Inn (and Express), Hampton Inn, Days Inn, LaQuinta, Ramada, Marriott, Four Points, Radisson are all on the table. For the best overall shop/dine/reasonable price combo, the Radisson is probably the winner - right across from the Aberdeen and Yaohan malls (pretend you're in Hong Kong) and with the Continental centre just another block away; Aberdeen SkyTrain station is also right there, so if you are full of beans on arrival and want to head downtown it's a good option. If your overnight is Fri/Sat/Sun, the Night Market might be a great combo of shopping, eating, and general 'keep me awake until a civilized local bedtime to help get over jetlag' attraction. It's pretty much nextdoor to the River Rock casino hotel - and also Bridgeport Station if you're in a hotel on the Canada Line (if not, try asking if the hotel shuttle will drop you off/come get you again).

No worries: the upside of 'load all the permanent info' is of course that future trips take all of 2 minutes to enter data for because the difficult bits are all done; the downside is of course forgetting what you put in ages ago!!!

No - you cannot have multiple trips in one ArriveCAN account, so you'll have to wait until AFTER crossing the border on the bus before you can add the cruise. As soon as you start to add a new trip, it over-writes any existing entry that is not complete! As to 2 entries or one - Canada does not care whether you are both listed in one app or each use your own, provided the required info is supplied, so if one of you has a more reliable phone/better battery life than the other maybe put both of you on the account on that device? No - you will not be allowed to board the vessel without ArriveCAN being completed. The 72 hour clock counts back from when you are supposed to embark on the ship that will bring you to Canada - doesn't matter if it's a one-day repo from Seattle, a round-trip 7 day that hits Victoria on Day 5 then return to the US, or a one-way that arrives in Canada only on the last day when you disembark. Do put all of the permanent info into the App now - your ID, vaxx status etc. that will not change - and then whenever you have WiFi/free data available on the last 3 days of the land segment, you can put in the trip-specific info about the cruise.

Assuming you mean Afternoon Tea (tiny nibbles and socializing) rather than a British working class early dinner, then yes we have many and varied options! Some of the Fairmonts in Vancouver put on a damn-near-as-overpriced-as-in-Victoria version of Afternoon Tea - the Hotel Vancouver's 'Tea at the Castle' is probably the closest match if you're thinking Downton Abbey but service is only on weekends (Fri-Sun); the Pan Pacific has a weekend only service in Five Sails which they actually even call High Tea. Laduree (a French chain) has a 'salon' on Robson that offers swank at better value, and daily, than tyhe hotels do; Patisserie Fur Elise is a local spot, open 5 days at the moment, in a modest Victorian house that has somehow survived the surrounding Condo explosion - it's probably your best bet for a traditional 'many pastries etc. on a tiered stand' tea service downtown at a decent price in pretty surroundings while also avoiding the majority of tourists. Outside the core, but easy to reach by bus or cab if a bit of a hike isn't desirable, and very convenient if there are also some manly men among your party who would rather have a beer than tea and dainties, La Petite Culliere is a modern tearoom that does a pretty big 'High Tea' and is very close to several breweries - Brassneck would be my recco for the boozehounds, but if anyone's into weird beers then 33 Acres might be just the job. Lastly, if you are happy to assemble your own nibbles rather than default to a 'platter of dainties for a fixed price' option, a couple of other suggestions: Finch's Teahouse is in a historic building, very Ye Olde Decor, and I've even been served by someone wearing full 'Queen Victoria' cosplay so it definitely has a vibe. But the food (while very tasty) is more typical cafe fare, sammiches and soups and salads, so you'd have to order a few things and cut them into dainty sizes to share among your group. Small Victory is a huge, modern, bakery-come-coffee-house that does a wide range of delicious in-house pastries and some very swank coffees (they do have tea too), so the type of food fits the Afternoon Tea vibe better than Finch's.

Sorry for the delay, only saw your post just now. Depending which hotel, day, and possibly even time of day SkyTrain might be cheaper and faster - e.g. especially if it's early in the day and you planned to do some sightseeing outside the core, so getting a Day Pass each at the airport to be able to continue transit use until the wee small hours of the next morning could be a real bargain. But with 3 pax per vehicle, taking a pair of cabs is a sensible default policy if all you want to do is get from airport to hotel and then sightsee, eat etc. close to the hotel with no further transit use needed. Yeah, the 'testing no longer done at airport' is less efficient in every way except in the one very specific aspect that made them begin the policy - getting people the heck out of our key airports so they don't add to the already critical problem of massive queues of people all over the place!

The brewpub isn't close to the best beer or food we can offer locally - for a comparable price (if you avoid the fancy steaks) you will get much better food, and a better sunset view if you time it right, in Cactus Club English Bay - which is basically a 2-tier glass box built on the beach side of the seawall. It would add about 200 metres walking - but takes you right past A-maze-ing laughter, one of my fave pieces of outdoor art which is also extraordinarily photogenic (huge happy people statues, palm trees, and sunset makes for a lot of composition options!) If you dine early, but want to hang around for sunset, then the lounge in the Sylvia hotel is very nice place to chill - extremely old school cocktail bar vibes, lots of quality wood, live music several nights a week.

You're welcome - re: checking in, I'd play it safe and visit the desk inside on arrival (with bus being sold out, they might have stand-by folks waiting to see if anyone doesn't show!) Depending how casually you want to dine, the Barclay is on the same block as an excellent locavore resto, Forage - it is casual in the sense of no dress code, often have 'on the bone' dishes so eating with fingers is normal, but it's not cheap! Good value for the portions and quality though. Within a couple of blocks either direction on Robson though you'll pass over a dozen cafes & restos, from Timmies and ramen joints on the really casual end, Earls as probably the most mainstream-y wide menu midrange spot, to pricier places like CinCin if you want to celeb-spot. What to go see in your limited time? That really depends on what you like to see and do! You're very close to a HOHO stop (outside Blue Horizon, on the next block from Barclay) so if you get here fairly early in the afternoon you'd actually have time to do some hopping on and off (last loop starts around 5pm) - with limited time it would give you an overview on your first day, maybe you'll see somewhere you want to return to next morning before boarding. If you're up for a long walk, or renting bikes, the Seawall around Stanley Park is a great place to take in a variety of views - sunsets from here can be great, but do note that the park is not open overnight (no gates to stop you, but also very little lighting, so hustle out right afterwards if you do watch the sunset from in the park). It looks like the only HOHO running this year no longer has multiple park stops, just one at the pavilion (close to Rose Garden, walkable to Totem poles, but not much use for the rest of the park) so unfortunately without sweating it's hard to see most of the park (the pricey horse trolleys have a limited loop with just 4 stops for $50pp - it's now at least $699 per hour for a private hire, double the pre-pandemic pricing, to go anywhere else).

No worries on the question-answering - your flagging me about the visa thing meant I saw the rest of the thread updates, so it got a speedier reply! On the visa front, I guess we've had opposite experiences - I've never seen a Canadian visa that did have a picture on it! Based on when we immigrated, things have undoubtedly changed - we haven't really had friends who needed visas since the early years, when every get-together among expats always eventually covered the 'how much hassle did you have getting your student/family/skilled/refugee/whatever category from <country of origin> for Canada issued/renewed?' stories. Given you saw one recently, I figure it must be certain categories of visa have/don't need one rather than it being a 'back in my day no photos, but all the kids these days need 'em' situation 😉

Thruway buses pick up on the west side of the station, there are signs - I've never actually taken an Amtrak bus from SEA, only been 'ferried' around landslides in them then put back on the train, but from what I recall hearing announced while waiting for trains there you will hear announcements about the Amtrak Thruway to X destination' as well as the trains. However, I can say that King Street has the WORST setup speaker system I've ever encountered in any train station I've ever been to - that beautiful, big, boxy, high-ceilinged marble room makes for the most godawful echoes and zero thought seems to have gone into speaker placement or angles! Move around until you find a sweet spot with minimal echoes and sit there if you are early enough you want to sit down rather than just stand at the curb. Not sure if the porters will load checked bags onto the bus - if so, you need to be there at least 45mins early to check them. If you can handle schlepping them yourself then you can cut it much closer - in case the bus has actually sold-out with the train still not running, I'd recommend obeying the suggested 30min prior check-in to play safe. There are always staff around so if in doubt, ask someone in uniform where to wait for the Vancouver BC (NB: make sure you specify BC!) thruway bus: at least with it being a Cantrail coach it will stand out among the actual Amtrak livery coaches going elsewhere... On the Vancouver end, the Barclay is at least 40mins walk from the station, a bit uphill, so I'd definitely take a cab - they will be lined up outside waiting, but as they fill and move away there will be gaps of a few minutes before the next cabs start rolling in. At least with a bus it's only ~50 or fewer pax, so it's unlikely you'll wait long even if you're the last folks off. A smidgen over 2 miles drive, so ballpark $15 on the meter should allow for a little traffic, and tip as you would in the US.

I think the fact that the visa is attached to a page of a passport, which already has a photo in, should suffice - unlike the US where the Green Card is a thing in and of itself, I think all Canadian visas are dependent on a passport and not worth diddly squat unless attached to a valid one, and if the passport expires before the theoretical end of the Visa lifetime then both go *poof*. I found this last bit out the hard way as my initial residency here in Canada expired when I renewed my UK passport even though it had over 6 months left on it! We were very lucky that processing time was short and it didn't screw us over for any travel while I reapplied for my Canadian visa - this is what led me to start doing 'original source' searches myself as CBSA advised me incorrectly when I first landed that the visa was it's own thing, so as long as my new UK passport had the same name it would remain valid... Nope! Fortunately I called CRC to double-check (I wanted to know whether I could restaple the visa into my new passport, or if I had to bring the old corner-clipped UK passport as well as my new one whenever I traveled outside Canada) so we found out in enough time to fix the problem! To be fair, we were among the earliest folks to get the shiny new 'spousal visa for in-demand professions' or some other equally-waffley name that was running as a pilot program at the time, so I ran into several folks in my first couple of years who did not have a clue about that particular category...

So in 2 weeks time you'll still have sunset around 8:30pm, so you do have some daylight to play with. Get off promptly and you could manage one circuit on the HOHO - which does somewhat defeat the purpose, as you won't have another bus to hop back on if you hop off anywhere! Unfortunately most of Victoria rolls up the sidewalks between 5 and 6pm - things like art galleries and museums you likely won't be able to get into by the time you get off the ship (even the excellent Royal BC Museum has abandoned their late opening Fri/Sat in cruise season). Some money-making Touristy things as always will try to stay open - you'll be able to shop, be entertained by buskers, and Butchart Gardens might be on the cards depending which day of the week... staffing issues mean earlier closing and no firework shows at all this year (but on Fri or Sat there are live concerts!) and getting there that late in the day realistically means taking a cab (~CAD$60 each way) You might find a 'sunset whale watch' on offer - a 6pm departure for a full 3 hour tour would give you plenty time to get back to the ship, but realistically that would be your entire port stop taken up. We've used Prince of Whales ourselves, but there are several companies and all share info so the only real difference in sighting % is how fast the boat is - a zodiac or jetboat can get out to more distant waters and back in the same three hours compared to a slower boat. Personally all our cruise stops in Vic are basically 'go drink good beer' stops! There are 2 brewpubs which not only make good beer, but have proper-temperature cellars to serve it from (8-10C, like white wine, rather than regular fridge 4C) - Swans and Spinnakers. The former is more easily walkable, the latter is a great stop if you are pootling around on the harbour ferries linked above. There are also a bunch of other pubs that have various good reasons to visit - Scottish, Irish and English style places, some with live music, varyingly extravagant numbers of beers on tap etc. If you're not a 'Real Ale' enthusiast so prefer your beer fizzy and cold, any of these will probably work better than the first two! Try Bard & Banker, Garrick's Head or Sticky Wicket all conveniently downtown. Lastly, while it's not a huge risk at least a few stops in Vic each year don't happen due to weather - so don't prebook anything that doesn't let you cancel if the ship can't dock or is much delayed.

Glad it was helpful - enjoy however much precruise time you have left, and then of course the cruise!