ricknroll

We sailed with Grand Princess on May 9 from Canada Place, along with Golden and Noordam. It was the first big test of three ships from Canada Place this season, so I thought I'd share our experience.

We stayed at Pan Pacific prior to the cruise, and they transferred our luggage. About 11:15am we went to Expo Hall D, where we waiting in a line for the ship and received a numbered ticket around 11:35. We were yellow 19 (yellow looks more like orange to me by the way), and they were calling yellow 10. We took a seat in a sea of seats.

At 12pm they called yellow 19, and we lined up along the wall. From here there's a pretty treacherous staircase down to the cruise level. It's about 4 feet wide and the treads are very short. When they encourage you to check all your bags - they have good reason. We're young(ish), and managed it fine (in fact I was strongly encouraged to slow down), but I can imagine it being difficult for many cruisers.

From here we went through security and then were routed to another holding pen prior to customs. Here they directed a group into a row of seats and then excused the seats from the same direction, so the first into a row was the last out. A couple of rows after us, a group figured this out, and sat at the near end of the row, causing a traffic jam and one upset couple that had been at the front of the line and was now going to be in the back.

Customs was next, and I think the biggest bottleneck. They've got a dozen or so kiosks to complete the majority of the process and you just hand the slip to the officer (similar to Global Entry). I question a bit whether technology helps or hurts the situation with the typical Alaska cruise demographic. By luck of the draw I was directed straight to an agent - ironic because I'm both Global Entry and a computer software exec, so the kiosk would've been a piece of cake.

After customs was the health form, and virtually no line to check-in for the cruise. We were checked in at 1pm and walked directly onto the ship.

The whole process took us almost two hours, which looking back at it doesn't seem so bad, but I think the stop-go rat maze nature made it seem more tedious. I'm glad we got an early start - friends who came later spent 3 hours or more in the maze. I heard from one couple that transferred via Princess straight from the airport that it took 6 hours from airport pickup, including an hour of waiting on the bus to get into Canada Place. Our muster and sailaway were delayed over an hour.

It didn't seem as though they were disorganized. Most cruises don't require customs on the front end and that creates a bottleneck. I'm not sure there's any good way to move three ships worth of people through the security and customs funnel. I just thought I'd share our experience, because I think it's a bit better if you know what to expect. Start early, and make sure you packed some patience.

We just returned from the May 9 Northbound. I was concerned because of the posts, but the Grand was in great shape IMO. It was our first sailing on Princess, so I can't really compare furnishings.

There was a bit of a musty smell in the starboard Caribe hallway when we boarded, and they had a fan going. The next day both the fan and smell were gone. I also spotted 1 tiny drip in the midship elevator lobby. No bucket, and I never saw it again. The furniture in Explorers wasn't too comfortable - it was definitely worn, but the issue seemed to be with design rather than wear. We also had an "electrical fault" that caused a "spurious" alarm around 4:30am on Glacier Bay day, but that just helped everyone get up and see the glaciers.

Generally though, the ship seemed fresh and I have no complaints. We had a great cruise with fabulous weather and Alaska is breathtaking. I wish I could've stayed and sailed back ;)

I hope to start a full trip report soon.