Vancouver Embarkation and Customs Issues - August 2016?

[Pamthecat]

I just received a message from Princess to come to Canada Place in Vancouver early (between 10am and 12 instead of 1-3) because of multiple ships in port that day and problems with customs.

 

Can anyone provide some recent information on embarkation in Vancouver?

How long did it take?

What should I expect?

Also who exactly takes your luggage when you show up?

 

Thanks everyone!!

[martincath]

Even if you get reports back from people, they won't guarantee describing the process you will experience - Canada Place has been shifting things around a LOT this season, in terms of where the waiting rooms are and which order you do check-in/security/immigration.

 

One thing I can definitely answer 100% is your bag drop - unless you need help moving your bags from the cab/limo/whatever you arrive in, the best option is to walk straight to the conveyor belt signposted for your ship and hand the bag directly to the longshoremen loading the belt.

 

There are some guys roaming around with cages to save you rolling your suitcases a few yards, but handing it over directly means you have zero chance of bags ending up on the wrong ship because someone rolled the cage to the wrong place. Not that it happens often, but just like airport curbside check-in it's an extra step that brings a small risk increase.

 

NB: that the longshoremen do not officially start accepting bags until between 10 and 10:30am. Arriving any time before that means unless they have totally finished unloading the arriving vessels, they cannot take any incoming bags. On lighter days they do start before official time - I've heard as early as 9:30am reported - but with a 3-shipper, it's very unlikely you can drop off before 10am.

 

From another post today, it seems Princess are giving new but different messages to different pax - other poster was told to show between 9 and 10am or after 2pm. My best guess is that because their previous attempts to steer people toward boarding by deck at different times have been consistently failing, they are now sending a few differently-worded 'warning' emails to attempt to spread the embarkation load - as for both the first person I answered today and for you the info they are giving is far from the most sensible if you want to minimise your hassles.

 

If it's a three-ship day (schedule here) show up 10 and 10:30am, or well after 2pm. Arriving as close to the 90min cutoff pre-sail time is the best way to minimise wait time. You can drop bags at 10am, then wander off to sightsee for 4 hours and come back to board - bag drop is outside security.

[hjd36]

I just received a message from Princess to come to Canada Place in Vancouver early (between 10am and 12 instead of 1-3) because of multiple ships in port that day and problems with customs.

 

Can anyone provide some recent information on embarkation in Vancouver?

How long did it take?

What should I expect?

Also who exactly takes your luggage when you show up?

 

Thanks everyone!!

We left Vancouver on Saturday 26 July. There were 2 ships in dock. We had exactly the same message. Turned up just before 11am. Took best part of an hour from arrival to being in the holding lounge to board, then probably 20-30 minutes till it was our turn to board.

However, the longest wait by far was for immigration. As we are UK citizens this took very much longer than for the US citizens. US citizens would have been at least 20 minutes faster.

We arrived by taxi; the taxi was directed to an area in the car park and there were people ready there to take the luggage.