tender at Vancouver canada place?

I will be at Vancouver Canada place on 9/24/2006.

I noticed from port of Vancouver website that 5 ships will be at Canada place on that day due to this busy re-position time. (Ryndam, Veendam, Dawn Princess, NCL Sun, NCL Star)

However, Canada place only has three berths.

Usually they only schedule 3 ships at Canada place.

For this particular day with 5 ships, what will happen to the other two ships? Tender? For the embarkation/disembarkation process for the whole two ships? That could be nasty, isn't it?

Have anyone experienced tendering at Vancouver Canada place?

As I think all of those ships are done with their Alaska runs, they each need only to disembark passengers that day. Perhaps a couple of the ships will disembark early and quickly, and pull out before two more arrive?

Thanks for the reply!

I checked the itinerairy of all those five ships, and amazingly, all five will need to disembark and embark passengers there. They have repo itinerairies like Pacific coastal or Panama Canal. All five ships arrive around 6~7 AM, and will not leave until 6PM. That really amazes me. Anyway, Canada place will probably be in a mess on that day. 9/24 appears to be the busiest day for Vancouver port in 2006.

There is never tendering at Vancouver; we also have Ballantyne Pier which can accomodate ships. Canada Place is the preferred pier as it is newer, but there is nothing wrong with Ballantyne Pier; have embarked and debarked at both piers with no problems.

Have a great trip!

~Karen

Thanks for the reply!

I checked the itinerairy of all those five ships, and amazingly, all five will need to disembark and embark passengers there. They have repo itinerairies like Pacific coastal or Panama Canal. All five ships arrive around 6~7 AM, and will not leave until 6PM. That really amazes me. Anyway, Canada place will probably be in a mess on that day. 9/24 appears to be the busiest day for Vancouver port in 2006.

Veendam is indeed repositioning, but doesn't she sail from Seattle?

She starts in Vancouver on the 24th and stops in Seattle the next day before continuing on to Los Angeles and the rest of the cruise.

There is never tendering at Vancouver; we also have Ballantyne Pier which can accomodate ships. Canada Place is the preferred pier as it is newer, but there is nothing wrong with Ballantyne Pier; have embarked and debarked at both piers with no problems.

 

Have a great trip!

 

~Karen

Thanks for the info.

What confuses me is, from http://www.portvancouver.com/vanAlaCruise/content/schedule/index.php

All five ships are using Canada place, while another one (Serenade of the sea) is using Ballantyne. I would imagine they assign more ships to Ballantyne, but they didn't. Is it possible that they do some last minute change?

The reason I ask is, we'll be taking Norwegian Sun to catch Dawn Princess on 9/24. Right now they are both assigned to Canada place. I wonder if it could be changed then we'll need to take taxi to go between piers.

If I'm remembering correctly a few of the ships will not be doing both embarking or disembarking - they will only be doing one or the other as the ships are sailing empty from Seattle up to Vancouver before heading out on their repo cruises.

This year 2 ships (Dawn princess & Norwegian Sun) are actually selling 1-day Seattle-Vancouver itinerairy. They call it "dinner and dance".

I won't expect full capacity on those trips, though. Maybe those five ships will take turn disembarking and embarking on three berths? I hope it will work out for me. We need to change ship there.

What exactly is it you concerned about? Is it the number of passengers and just the sheer volume of them all? Canada Place can fit 5 ships at once; please don't be overly worried about this. Hubby was down there a few weekends ago and Canada Place holds 5 ships. It's a large, fairly new facility and Vancouver is a major port city - a new cruise ship terminal would hold more than 3 ships.

As I mentioned, we also have Ballantyne Pier, but that one isn't used as often because it is a little farther away from the downtown core. The 5 cruise ships wouldn't have been given permission to dock at Canada Place if they couldn't all be accomodated.

Bless you and I hope you can set your mind at ease. Your trip will be wonderful! Try not to worry about something that is beyond your control.

~Karen

What exactly is it you concerned about? Is it the number of passengers and just the sheer volume of them all? ...

~Karen

I think what people are concerned about is that the sheer number of passengers will make the whole checkin procedure very chaotic. While the pier itself may handle 5 ships, can the the checkin process conveniently handle the crush of people that 5 cruises all starting at the same time entail? That's the question.