AE_Collector

I don’t know for sure but I doubt you will need to go through customs at Vancouver if staying on for the next cruise. But of course you DO want to take advantage of the opportunity to explore Vancouver as a stop on a cruise and not a embark/disembark port! Canada Place is RIGHT Downtown, a luxury slowly disappearing at so many locations due to ships becoming too large. We’ve done Vancouver-Whittier-Vancouver several times and as small as Whittier is, we always go exploring.

North / South Alaska cruises are typically a reference to the one way Vancouver to Whittier OR the one way Whittier to Vancouver cruises. These are the ones that now have the mask mandate. They are also the cruises that have significant numbers of passengers doing a land portion before or after the cruise. And the Alaska ports probably have limited ability to house hundreds of passengers from each ship needing to quarantine.

Just the increase in fuel costs (they don’t hedge it all) combined with ships half full precluded any profit. Best they can hope for is to stabilize the losses.

Drydock for the Crown is October 2 to 18. @The Collie you needed to do the Royal Princess 12 day Vancouver Alaska round trip in may. We took it rather than doing a 14 day North-South as it stopped at Icy Point Straight as well as Sitka. Plus the usual 3 stops and 3 glazier days. Icy Point Straight was interesting if you leave the dock area as Hoonah is very close by. We did a walking tour from a wildlife rescue area through a large park and into Hoonah. We had a good time. They do this 12 day again in September but in Grand Princess.

I thing far too much attention is paid to required/not required and far too little attention to common sense. For example, flying anywhere on a crowded plane, 2 weeks of vacation activity, flying back on the crowd plane and going to work next day in a job where you tend to be in crowded situations and not being bothered to wear a mask (in most cases where masks aren’t required doesn’t make it illegal to wear one) is simply irresponsible behaviour of someone if they were to do that. JMHO….

Yes insurance and Princess are two different things. Plus if they let passengers change their cruising date on a whim they will be in here telling everyone about it and soon everyone wants the same treatment. They just can’t do that. Similar to those that come on here incensed that Princess won’t give them a refund when one of their travel party has an accident or medical emergency and no one has insurance. They see this as different than simply not wanting to go now so Princess should just be reasonable.

No need for any of this, Princess vacation protection allows you to cancel up to a day or so before you board.

I have one of… no ten of those too.

Maybe you mean NY to Quebec? If so, yes you will need to have ArriveCan filled in likely in order to board at NY. Unless it is gone by then but I doubt it at the moment. Create your ArriveCan account anytime uploading your info. Then create your trip to Canada within ArriveCan a little closer to your sailing date.

We have used ArriveCan quite a number of times since December for driving into Canada from the USA and are used to the 72 hours maximum before arrival. Then we had to fill it in for our recent cruise from Vancouver to Alaska and back and we’re surprised to find that when selecting Marine entry rather than land or air, the 72 hours doesn’t apply. We were able to fill it in a couple of weeks before our arrival back in Canada at the end of the cruise. I have no idea how far into the future you can complete it but it is more than the familiar 72 hours.

I bought a coffee card on our cruise a month ago. When ordering they see your medallion and would usually read my name off to confirm they were seeing the correct medallion. But sometimes they would say our cabin number instead. At the end of the cruise I noticed two charges of $3.45 (I think it was) on my wife’s account. So they likely picked up my wife’s medallion as she was with me and if they read our room number rather than my name we didn’t catch it. I’m not sure if one person can have Plus and one the basic fare or not but there is certainly room for similar errors if that is something that can be done.

How far into the future is your cruise date? I believe there is a limit to how far forward you can complete ArriveCAN.

I was saying that to the person I quoted. We just did our first cruise since the restart.

It’s a delicate balance because if more cruises get cancelled and there are more cases onboard there will be a significant cost to the industry in bad will and further delays in people booking cruises. The cost to cruise lines right now has to be staggering at a time when there is no way they can come anywhere near close to breaking even on each cruise. If we hadn’t just grabbed a last minute cruise to Alaska I would consider doing it again with these new mask mandates.

Just like they can cancel and change ports at their discretion, I assume they can mandate masks at the last minute if deemed necessary. Maybe it’s in the fine print, I don’t know. But anyone who is adamantly opposed to wearing a mask if cases onboard are increasing should likely just plan on another year or more away from cruising. We all know this isn’t over yet but it can be controlled if everyone is willing to do what is required.

Presumably Anchorage IS what is being referred to with limited ability to deal with large influxes of people with Covid. I doubt that Whittier has ANYWHERE to stay let alone people with Covid.

There are three Princess ships doing Vancouver North/South cruises. Royal, Majestic & Grand. Northbound these ships unload at Whittier which may have very limited ability to deal with the numbers of passengers with Covid. And southbound ships unload in Vancouver where Covid protocols are a bit more stringent than in the US adding a bit more complication.

In this case I would probably not cruise until COVID has gone away for good, not masks gone away for good. Maybe that’s what you meant. Masks going away seems to be more a who’s calling the shots/political/what’s best for me thing than a reliable indicator of the threat being gone. JMHO though….

@Cruizin4us You aren’t doing a Vancouver to Whittier North or a southbound cruise so you aren't affected at this time. Our recent Vancouver Alaska cruise had just under 50% passenger capacity so full crew really shouldn’t be required. I’m sure they are having trouble getting crew just like other companies are having trouble getting employees. There was no obvious shortage of crew on our recent cruise to Alaska. IMHO the best thing passengers can do to avoid Covid and all the inconveniences that come with it is to wear masks whenever possible in public areas onboard. Mask wearing was 60-70% in public areas onboard (until seated to eat/drink) on our cruise but reports now seem to be far lower than that. We have been wearing masks whenever in busy/crowded areas and most public indoor locations for over two years now and it just isn’t that big of a deal. Following the Alaska cruise posts here I have been expecting this as all reports are of Covid numbers quickly escalating along with very low percentage of passengers onboard wearing masks. There are more complications quarantining and returning home to USA from Canada and likely less ability to handle passengers with Covid in Alaska.

Yes I could do the summer between Vancouver and Alaska if they want me to! But apparently to partake in this I need to get back onboard and get Covid.

I would think they may look at the option of keeping Covid passengers onboard for the next cruise, especially those just diagnosed positive in the last couple of days of a cruise. And I think someone mentioned that had been done in one or more cases. Another 7 days gets the person so much closer to being ready to go home and the expense to Princess is far lower. Sure lots of variables including number of staff on ships, amount of food available and amount of space in the Covid ward onboard. But some passengers may prefer this and in most cases it reduces the expense to Princess. And as already mentioned, some ports may not be able to deal with the number of people.

Thanks for the excellent “Live” report. I’m so happy that the weather was much better for you in Vancouver than anticipated. It really is a fantastic city, many of us locals take it for granted but we try to get out and enjoy being here as much as possible. As @Thrak pointed out, you just managed to miss our homeless Street people area. We were downtown exploring the city the day you boarded and saw the three ships at Canada Place that day. I assumed that Royal Princess left at the usual 4:30 time and hadn’t realized you stayed at the pier so much later. Almost certainly due to the tides to get under the Lions Gate Bridge. And congrats on being upgraded to a balcony… I won’t remind myself of the 13 hours in total I spent over 4 separate phone calls trying unsuccessfully to PAY Princess for an upgrade from Inside to Balcony for our May 2-14 Royal Princess cruise. With over 40 cruises with them the experience still annoys me to no end. Buy they have had a real battle to survive the last couple of years so I will forgive and forget.. eventually. Keep up the great Live Report!

We were feeling a little more confident after getting on and off the May 2-14 Royal Princess cruise unscathed. We have wanted to do the “once a year” Eastern Canada and Greenland cruise round trip from New York on Caribbean Princess on August 15. But that means two flights, possibly with connecting flights and being in USA needing to return to Canada possibly with Covid. Just seems too risky after we were extremely careful for over two full years and avoided Covid. I know it is only one of many small things to help avoid Covid but we are disappointed that Princess doesn’t see that they need to make masks mandatory far more onboard. Yes they would lose some bookings but fewer Covid cases onboard will build more confidence in people to get back to cruising soon. And the cost to Princess of quarantining in hotels after disembarkation has to be astronomical.

At least with the Alaska cruises to/from Vancouver, a significant part of the problem this season is that Canada didn’t confirm that cruising was on again for certain here until March this year. Thus too late for so many cruisers to even consider booking this season. But that has created some hot deals for us locals!

Princess has always had Dos Equis beer but only the lager. Dos Equis has an Amber that is EXCELLENT yet it isn’t even available onboard to the best of my knowledge. Younger cruisers want better selection and this addition would seem SO EASY for them to accomplish.