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If you will arrive at the Port on the Holland America Noordam at 7 a.m. at Vancouver port , can you make a flight that leaves at 10 a.m . from the Vancouver Airport ? What is the best transportation from the ship to the airport. Thank you so much

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You may get several different opinions here regarding this, but you probably know that when a ship is scheduled to arrive at 7 am, that doesn't mean you disembark at that time. If you are coming off an Alaskan cruise, you will be going through Canadian Customs and Immigration and that will take some time if there is more than one ship in. Personally, I would book a later flight but I'm sure some will say you can make it if you self-disembark and grab a cab straight to the airport. *shrug* The security lines at YVR can be long as well, so if you go ahead and book this, be sure to consider a Plan B. :)

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If you will arrive at the Port on the Holland America Noordam at 7 a.m. at Vancouver port , can you make a flight that leaves at 10 a.m . from the Vancouver Airport ? What is the best transportation from the ship to the airport. Thank you so much

Yes, but barely, and not within any officially-recommended timeframes, so it's not something any sensible person would ever recommend. Best case will see you arriving at YVR at close to 8am, and two hours should be enough to do bag drop/security/immigration/get to gate. YVR recommends three hours pre-flight for all US-bound and international flights.

 

You can improve your odds by choosing a flight with a first leg to another Canadian airport (this means no need to do US CBP at YVR, instead it's offload to the last Canadian airport you visit before flying to US). If you have Trusted Traveler status - Global Entry/NEXUS, not just TSA Precheck - it will be much more comfortable too as you will get access to the short security queue, and expedited CBP screening if you are flying to the US on the first leg.

 

If you decide to do this, there are two absolute requirements IMO - that you self disembark with all of your luggage as one of the first people of the gangplank (approx 7:15am), and that you familiarise yourself with SkyTrain to the airport (i.e. where to go, and have a credit card with Chip & PIN or Canadian cash to hand). If there is a long cab queue when you get off, you WILL need to take SkyTrain to get to the airport in enough time. Also no issues with traffic to worry about so usually faster end-to-end unless your cabbie cheats by speeding a LOT.

 

If money is no object, prebooking a limo to meet you should be almost as fast as SkyTrain with no risk of long queues. Cruiseline transfers are totally out - they won't let you book for any flight before noon or 12:30 depending on line.

 

Of course if ANYTHING goes wrong - your ship arrives late to due to weather/damage/breakdown, a bridge is blocked with an accident, a power failure or other system issue, odds are that you'll miss your flight or at the very least end up running madly through the airport screaming for help to get you to the head of all the queues. Not a fun way to end a vacation... and Vancouver is a fine city to spend some time in, so why not stay on an extra day or twelve, then you can book as early a flight as you wish back home without concern?

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they recommend post 12pm for a reason....

  • 7am dock
  • 7:30am first walk offs
  • customs and congestion at the terminal can make the time unpredictable at this point.
  • 8:30am in cab?
  • 9am arrive at airport after a 30 minute ride?
  • 12pm wheels up for the first flights after 3 hours of check-in, customs, and security searches.

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