Vancouver Port to airport

[rdaniel]

We are on a Southbound Alaska cruise this summer that ends in Vancouver.  The early afternoon fights options seem to have disappeared.  Is it possible to make a 11:15am flight out of Vancouver or is that cutting it too close?  Also if you are flying back into the US, do you clear customs in Vancouver or in your first stop in the US?  TIA

[wheezedr]

You do not indicate when your ship docks or the day of the week. Those points might help a little. Also will you be able to do self walk off.

 

answer to second question is that you clear US customs in Vancouver.  Has been fairly quick our last 2 trips but always a potential variable.  Again whether or not you are checking luggage will affect your flow though the airport check-in process.

 

11:15 is doable but may cut it close depending on above factors 

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by wheezedr
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[d9704011]

I’d say an 1115 flight out of Vancouver is too chancy.  It’s not too difficult or time consuming to get to the airport from the cruise terminal but there is potential for delay.  The real problem could be US pre-clearance at YVR and the length of time that may take.

[martincath]

Both of the above posts are sensible.

 

11:15am could be trivially-easy on the right day (no other competing ships), especially if you have NEXUS or Global Entry to short-circuit both the Security (actually longer than CBP queue these days, ever since we got the Kiosks for immigration the per-passenger time at CBP is much-reduced) and Customs/Immigration lines - or nightmarishly difficult on the wrong one (3 or 4 ships, some of whose pax get off before you, a cab queue that exceeds an hour, any traffic incidents at any of the key bottlenecks on the route to YVR).

 

If you can handle self-disembarkation that's a HUGE time saving - not just about what time you get off the ship, but far more importantly how many other people are ahead of you is reduced which means that queues for taxis and then all the queues at the airport become shorter for you as you beat almost all of your fellow pax. So if you can manage ALL your bags using just one hand (Vancouver does have people enforcing the 'you must have a free hand to use the escalator' rule) and can therefore self-disembark, I'd say that your risk of missing the flight would be minimal. If you do have NEXUS/GE and don't mind walking to Transit (<400 yards) then your risk drops to almost nonexistent as the only real bottleneck left is the cab queue, so even if enough folks do get off before you to make that too long to risk you will still be at YVR within ~40mins and you'll get into the short queues at YVR.

 

Best plan though is always to stay post-cruise, sightsee, enjoy Vancouver, then book an early o'clock flight on another day which guarantees you being at YVR before any of those annoying, queue-creating, delay-causing cruisers that everybody hates to pieces ruin your airport experience;-)

[3rdGenCunarder]

The only nonstop for me from Vancouver leaves at 8:45 so I have to stay over one night after my cruise. That's fine, I can find plenty of things to do. But I'm curious about how long/difficult the security checks are at Vancouver airport. The airport website says to arrive 3 hours prior for flights to the US. Is that much time really necessary? 

 

[martincath]

21 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 The airport website says to arrive 3 hours prior for flights to the US. Is that much time really necessary?

Nope. Arriving 3 hours preflight usually means about two hours of spending money in the restos and shops!

 

On a busy cruise day, with a flight noon to 3pm, the 3hrs preflight recommendation is quite sensible - but with a flight as early as yours you'll have no problems. CATSA checks are more efficient than TSA (you don't have to do quite as much of the 'strip naked and take all your worldly possessions out of your bags' up here; plus the staff are usually more pleasant) so it's really just the Immigration/Customs part that is 'extra' compared to normal US airport experiences - and since the kiosks were installed the average time to process each person has dropped a lot. Nowadays the only queue that ever gets really long for outbound flights is Security.

 

Aiming for an arrival time at YVR of 6:45am would be sensibly conservative. If you have Global Entry or NEXUS to get into the short queues you could easily arrive as late as 7:45am and still make your flight; I've never spent more than about 30mins total getting through security and CBP preclearance since I got my NEXUS card. But if you aim for 2 hours early and still end up an hour early at the gate, you can have a wander around some of our art displays and grab a last Timmies before heading south.

[3rdGenCunarder]

10 hours ago, martincath said:

Nope. Arriving 3 hours preflight usually means about two hours of spending money in the restos and shops!

 

On a busy cruise day, with a flight noon to 3pm, the 3hrs preflight recommendation is quite sensible - but with a flight as early as yours you'll have no problems. CATSA checks are more efficient than TSA (you don't have to do quite as much of the 'strip naked and take all your worldly possessions out of your bags' up here; plus the staff are usually more pleasant) so it's really just the Immigration/Customs part that is 'extra' compared to normal US airport experiences - and since the kiosks were installed the average time to process each person has dropped a lot. Nowadays the only queue that ever gets really long for outbound flights is Security.

 

Aiming for an arrival time at YVR of 6:45am would be sensibly conservative. If you have Global Entry or NEXUS to get into the short queues you could easily arrive as late as 7:45am and still make your flight; I've never spent more than about 30mins total getting through security and CBP preclearance since I got my NEXUS card. But if you aim for 2 hours early and still end up an hour early at the gate, you can have a wander around some of our art displays and grab a last Timmies before heading south.

 

Thanks! I was hoping to get by with 2 hours. Even at Newark, which is insanely busy, I think the longest "processing" time I've had was 30 minutes or a bit more.

 

And how did you know I'd need one last visit to Tim's?!?!? 😀

 

[martincath]

8 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Thanks! I was hoping to get by with 2 hours. Even at Newark, which is insanely busy, I think the longest "processing" time I've had was 30 minutes or a bit more.

 

And how did you know I'd need one last visit to Tim's?!?!? 😀

 

You might have more time than 30mins if you're traveling as a Regular Joe (but at least our airport is vastly more spacious and pleasant than Newark - blech!)

 

As to Timmies - the coffee and Timbits are laced with crack cocaine to keep people coming back, just like Girl Scout cookies;-)

[3rdGenCunarder]

2 hours ago, martincath said:

You might have more time than 30mins if you're traveling as a Regular Joe (but at least our airport is vastly more spacious and pleasant than Newark - blech!)

 

As to Timmies - the coffee and Timbits are laced with crack cocaine to keep people coming back, just like Girl Scout cookies;-)

 

I'm going premium economy on Air Canada, so check in/luggage drop should be quick. Security is the big question mark. Newark is my "local" airport, so I fly to/frum there, but I agree that it's a mess. When it was built it seemed spacious, but it's way too congested now.

 

I am pretty good about not overdoing the Timbits, but Girl Scout cookies are definitely addictive. Hmm, I think I have some thin mints in the freezer...