Bus Transfers from Vancouver to Seattle

[f1jon]

Does HAL have their own buses or do they use Quick Coach/Quick Shuttle? I'd like to pay through HAL and use cabin credits but they may be sold out by the time I'm on board. Any thoughts?

[TransOceanCruiser]

4 hours ago, f1jon said:

Does HAL have their own buses or do they use Quick Coach/Quick Shuttle? I'd like to pay through HAL and use cabin credits but they may be sold out by the time I'm on board. Any thoughts?

We used the transfer to Seattle last month in May and the cruise line used their own bus.  We only had 17 people onboard.  Made the trip in under 4 hours with traffic and a restroom break.

[HUNKY]

Hate to assume anything but does HAL handle the luggage or do we lug it ourselves for the bus transfer?

[P&PNH]

We used the transfer last Sunday June 5 from Vancouver to SEATAC.  No name on the bus and it didn't have a working bathroom.  This created a problem for some ladies on the bus, as they had to run back to the duty free shop while waiting to cross the boarder.  Customs station only had 2 unisex stalls which created quite a line.  Travel time was over 6 hours.  You also had to handle your own luggage through Canadian customs at the port.   

[Woofbite]

We ran into the same problem Sea Tac - Vancouver.   HAL was sold out, (although friends who took it said it had lots of empty seats), and we had to take Quick Shuttle service which left a couple of hours before the HAL trip.

That lady driver didn't know where her pickup stops were and we toured most of Seattle while she kept assuring us and a couple on Royal Caribbean that we would get to our ships in plenty of time because she, "had a schedule".  Yeah, maybe she did, but it sure wasn't the same one the company published.  We arrived at the far diagonal end of Canada Place and after clearing Canadian Emigration and U.S. emigration and hiking half a mile to the HAL embarkation desks, they rushed us on board to finish processing the paperwork. (Maybe having a suite helped). They literally were hauling the gangway as we cleared ship Security.

The return trip was on a HAL but which was much better but it also parked at the far distant end of Sea-Tac airport and it was a long hike with luggage to get to airline check in.

Maybe flying to Vancouver is a better way to go.

 

 

[zgscl]

Worst transfer (and also disembarkation) I have ever done was getting off the Zuiderdam in April. This was either the first or second Vancouver disembarkation and it was quite a cluster. They charged us $80 or so for a transfer and then bought us $40 tickets on the Quick Coach with multiple stops on the way. Getting from one to the other was extremely disorganized. It sounds like this may have been restart pains for Vancouver and hopefully they have gotten it all sorted out. But I don't think I am likely to ever buy a SEA/YVR transfer on HAL again. 

 

If HAL is running a direct transfer that should be faster than the quick coach. Quick coach is not a bad option as long as you are expecting it. It leaves from in front of Canada Place terminal and you can actually get off in downtown Seattle unlike the HAL bus which is theoretically nonstop.