Vancouver Embarkation Craziness - Sept 23

Sept 23 Star Princess 14 day Hawaii. We took Princess Transfer from SeaTAC to Vancouver port. Arrived SeaTAC at 8:30 and made it on the 3rd bus departed at 10:30. Arrived Canada Place at 2:30 and thought - well the common advice on Cruise Critic is to arrive at 2:30 and you virtually walk right on because the "rush" is over. NOT!!!!

While Princess check in was almost instantaneous, we were then given a numbered ticket and directed to a huge room with hundreds of people waiting in chairs. At 3:30, our number was called and we proceeded to another room with more hundreds of people waiting in chairs. At 4:00 our row was called and we were directed to one of two lines - one for Canadians and other nationalities and one for US Citizens to pass through US Immigration. There was ONE Immigration agent processing US citizens at about a 10-second per person clip while there were 10 or more agents processing all the others at a much slower pace. We finally got on board at 4:30. They had already secured the welcome aboard photos and were directing everyone to go to their Muster station immediately - where we stood for another 30 minutes while we waited for more passengers to board. Our dinner table-mates from the US arrived at 1:30 and still didn't embark until 4:00.

The excuse we heard was that there were three ships in port (2 Princess and 1 Holland America) which overwhelmed the US Immigration staff.

Other than that, we had a generally great cruise. I'm just wondering from others if this is a common experience at Vancouver? If it is, we might reconsider our choice of departure ports Vancouver v.s. Seattle.

What, you weren't told that Purgatory was located in Canada Place.

This is the reason I will NEVER book embarking in Vancouver again.

My butt still hurts from sitting in those chairs.

framer

Sailed out of Vancouver once...never again. Lovely city and great people, but the check-in experience mimicked yours. I don't care if the fault is US Customs, Princess, the port officials or someone else. It's not a fun way to start a cruise, so I will avoid it.

Sailed out of Vancouver on an Alaska cruise in August. We had a very pleasant embarkation experience. None of the waiting in chairs I'd read about prior to the cruise. We did arrive around 11:00, so maybe that was the difference. They were really moving us along. Never a lag.

Just never know what to expect when embarking. :)

We sailed out of Canada Place May 17, 2017. Never again!! It's a shame, as we love Vancouver - it's such a great city - but we have never encountered such a disorganized cluster as we did on embarkation for this cruise.

Sailed out of Vancouver on an Alaska cruise in August. We had a very pleasant embarkation experience. None of the waiting in chairs I'd read about prior to the cruise. We did arrive around 11:00, so maybe that was the difference. They were really moving us along. Never a lag.

 

Just never know what to expect when embarking. :)

Are experience in August was very much the same. We did have a short wait - maybe 20 minutes, but were on in time to enjoy lunch in the MDR. But we too were early, arriving about 11:30.

We live in Vancouver and as much as we love sailing in and out of our port, it can be a huge challenge with all the delays.

Any friends that ask about cruising from here I tell them to try to check for a day when only one ship is in port.

However, I drove my son and daughter in law to the port on Sunday for their cruise on the Star Princess. They were doing staggered boarding and told to arrive at 1:00. Only ship in port and it was a zoo just the last 5 blocks to get them there. At least once they were inside they only waited about 30 minutes or so.

I honestly don't know what the problem is but Vancouver has to figure it out and they've had lots of years but still haven't.

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We boarded the Star in Vancouver on Sept. 23 and had a better experience that you did. Because we had read about the May 17 problems, we booked the Pan Pacific Hotel for the night before hoping to minimize the issues. We called the Bell Desk at 10:30am to have our bags picked up in our room. At 10:45, we left our room and made our way to the ship (a little convoluted finding the right place, but about a 10 minute walk total).

At 11:05 am we hit the first check-in point where we showed our boarding pass and passports. From there we went through several different checks, with the last one (Immigration) being the longest wait. We waited, seated in rows (US & Canada citizens in one area, other in another), and when they called our row, we had our passports scanned, were photographed and turned in our clearance forms. At 12:35pm we were onboard and in our room within a few minutes after that. So...a little under 2 hours "Door to Door" for us. I'd highly recommend staying at the Pan Pacific if there will be 2 or more ships in port.

Our problems only started once we got to the terminal. We stayed at the Times Square Suites and had a fabulous 4 night stay pre-cruise. The staff arranged for the cab to pick up the 4 of us plus luggage precisely at 8:30am so as to beat the rush of getting a cab later in the day (a 3 ship day). We got there early & dropped the luggage off and were told to go upstairs to wait. No problem, right? Wrong! No one knew where each ship’s pax were to wait. They shuffled everyone from one room to another then another and then they didn’t know where any of us were supposed to be. Once we did get checked in, they sent us to wait again in another large room only to find out later that they were supposed to send us back downstairs to go through customs. We were sent down an elevator that opened to an area filled with pax disembarking. It was a nightmare trying to get through there with our luggage as people were wall to wall and not wanting to let anyone through. We finally got through to customs & waited again. There were kiosks but they wouldn’t let anyone use them until we had all been there a while. After customs, we were herded into another large waiting area. Chairs were set up to wait in order in which you entered but then they changed their minds 3 times how the wanted to rope it off & arrange the seating. Then, we had one lady calling our group to go ahead & board only to have another yelling that we needed to sit back down. We did get on board finally but it was a total fiasco!

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I've sailed out of Vancouver twice with no problems at all, thankfully, and am leaving out of there next Wednesday and we are the only ship in port, so I expect it will be a smooth process for me once again.

i've had good luck in vancouver. only once was it as described. i thought it was because that one time was the first alaska cruise of the season and there were 3 ships in port and yes, it was a zoo!

I've sailed out of Vancouver twice with no problems at all, thankfully, and am leaving out of there next Wednesday and we are the only ship in port, so I expect it will be a smooth process for me once again.

I guess you're getting on as my son gets off. They are in San Pedro today and said all new mattresses were delivered to staterooms today.

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Our one experience was Sept. 25 of this year. We arrived about 9:30 a.m. and boarded a little after 12:30 p.m.. At no point did it matter that we were Platinum. Based on this, I'm inclined to skip Vancouver as a disembarkation port.

Jim

We have embarked 4 X out of Vancouver with no problems . We live about an hour out of Vancouver so is very convenient

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Sailed out of Vancouver on an Alaska cruise in August. We had a very pleasant embarkation experience. None of the waiting in chairs I'd read about prior to the cruise. We did arrive around 11:00, so maybe that was the difference. They were really moving us along. Never a lag.

 

Just never know what to expect when embarking. :)

So true. Just hope for the best and prepare for the worse.

6 vancouver departures, one adventure such as yours in May 2017....Very ugly. 5 hours of cooling heels in one set of chairs after another. After that I will always have snacks, a bottle of water etc with me. Wasn't fun keeping the kiddo happy!

Thanks for sharing. Sorry most of you all had such a bad experience.

Tony

This is too bad. Seattle is so much better.

I have been on 14 Alaska cruises, with six of them being from Vancouver. I love the city of Vancouver and the northbound cruises from there. But in my experience, Seattle embarkation is always faster and so much more pleasant. I wish this was not so.

I have two future Seattle cruises booked, and I am happy that this is the case.

So sorry about Vancouver.

The problem appears to be insufficient US customs officers....

I was on Vancouver to LA repo in 2015. There was no US customs in Vancouver for that sailing.... embarkation was so easy. But we were processed in San Leandro.... my assigned 9am debarkation turned into 2pm!!! That ruined my LA plans.

We sailed out of Canada Place May 17, 2017. Never again!! It's a shame, as we love Vancouver - it's such a great city - but we have never encountered such a disorganized cluster as we did on embarkation for this cruise.

That must have been the same date we were there ... ours was on the Celebrity Solstice.. there were also 2 other ships in port that day for embarkation / debarkation.

What a nightmare. I will now NEVER book a cruise that begins or ends in Vancouver unless it is the ONE AND ONLY ship docked at Canada Place. I think they could process the people from one ship with efficiency ... two, I don't think so ... and three, absolutely not! We arrived around 9:30 as I recall and it took us 4 hours to go through the processing. If you waited until 11 AM to show up to the port, I heard it was taking up to 6 hours to go through check in and immigration. As soon as they handed me that mimosa when I boarded, though ... it was smooth sailing from there on out. And, luckily, we disembarked in Seattle at the end of the cruise.

This is not good news for the people in Vancouver that rely on those tourist dollars. It is still going on and those of us that have experienced this chaos don't tend to want a repeat performance. And ... since a lot of us help others plan their cruises, that word of mouth doesn't bode well for the port of Vancouver either.

Someone mentioned on another post that it is the US immigration that is at fault. So, since it continues to be a problem, someone higher up in the food chain should really looking into beefing up that staff that makes this bottleneck occur. If it's bad enough to make an avid cruiser (with 50+ cruises) avoid this embarkation port, then you can only imagine the opinions formed by those that are taking their first cruise.

We've sailed in and out of Vancouver about 5 times and both embarkation and debarkation can be trying. This last time we left on a Wednesday with one other ship in port and it was a breeze. We did get there early and got through customs relatively quickly and only had to wait to get on the ship. I don't know if was the Wednesday departure, only one other shipping boarding or getting there really early but embarkation wasn't an issue.

On another cruise we got there about 12:30 and experienced the big room wait for customs. I'm a good waiter but others not so much. People were a little testy during the muster drill because of not only their wait but the long wait for people still trying to board. It wasn't a good start to a short 3 day cruise.

This is too bad. Seattle is so much better.

 

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Except Pier 91 is in an industrial area and hard to get to unless you are taking a cab.

Thanks for the heads up! We will sail out of Vancouver next June. Will get there early!

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We have sailed out of Canada Place a few times. Most have been fairly easy embarkations. Notice I said most! The only time we have come up to Vancouver on embarkation day (via Amtrak from Everett) was very much a nightmare. Arriving at the Cruise Terminal around 1:00pm we found a line that nearly wrapped around Canada Place. It took us nearly 2 hours just to get into the terminal and another 2 hours before we were on the ship. From that time forward, we have gone up to Vancouver a day or two before, so the morning of embarkation we can arrive early at the terminal (usually between 10:30 and 11:00am). So far it has worked for us. Hopefully that will continue. :)

Has anyone arrived after 2:30 or 3? I would hope the line is shorter then. Sure its nice to get on as early as possible, but there are so many restaurants andthings to see close to Canada Place I don't understand the rush of getting there at 9:30 only to have to wait for other passengers to disembark and then wait in lines.