Vancouver Airport/luggage question

[ruetundra]

I have not sailed with Princess yet and am curious how they handle your luggage. Has anyone disembarked in Vancouver and can tell me what/how Princess handles the luggage along with customs?

 

Thanks

[srphnx]

You take your luggage through customs, if you have Princess transfers, the baggage people will take them from you after that point.

[Coral]

It depends on what you are doing after.

 

I had Princess transfers after our Alaskan cruise to the Vancouver airport (June of this year). When we disembarked - we never saw our luggage. It was automatically put on our bus for us. We got onto the bus and went to the airport.

 

Once at the airport - they unloaded all of the luggage before they let us off the bus. We then were let off and could pick up our luggage and then go into the airport.

 

It sort of bugged me that I didn't see my luggage after we left the ship - in case something was missing - it would have been nice to know before we got to the airport.

[irislady]

We thought that Princess handled our luggage in a very orderly manner. Unlike Carnival, our bags were actually in the correct color-coded area. If you have several bags grab one of the luggage carts as you get off the ship. It was really so much easier than trying to piggy-back our wheeled suitcases.

You take cart and all right through customs.

[duckygirl]

When we got off the ship we grabbed a cart (they are free) and found our luggage. You will go thru customs there. We then took our luggage to the bus that took us to the airport. We then got our luggage (again we used the free carts) and went to check in at the airlines. Be advised that it takes a long time to get thru the check-in process. We were on Alaska Air and they weighed all of the bags (50 lbs. max per bag). Then you received your boarding pass. They don't take your bags from you yet. You then get in another line to go thru immigration, followed by another line where you finally get rid of your bags. Then you go thru security and can finally go to your gate. Start to finish - 2 hours. Yikes! This was mid-week, not even a weekend.

[CaribbeanIsland]

We did not see our luggage until we reached the airport. We went through customs normally and then we were put on a bus. After we stopped at the airport -- we were able to retrieve our luggage.