GVM

On 6/25/2023 at 10:36 AM, cabland said:

We were in Skagway on the 13th of this month on the Holland America Koningsdam.  There were FOUR ships in port per the attached Panorama pic.  Our ship and the Grand Princess directly next to us were just disembarking directly to the docks.  The Royal Princess (closest tp the landslide area) was tendering (all day).  The Celebrity Solstice behind it actually appeared to be "bussing" people in long Greyhound style buses along the pier (past the landslide area) - I actually did NOT see it tendering.

Just back on Celebrity Edge after a day in Skagway. I can confirm that this is still the same situation.

Max capacity seems to be 4 ships. Today, two HAL ships were docked almost in front of town, a Princess ship and our Celebrity Edge were exactly docked as here above.

The Princess was tendering, because that ship is exactly in front of the ‘landslide area’.

Our Edge needed to be bussed. It was announced that the busses would be running every 10 minutes, but it was a continuous loop of busses. So luckily no waiting at all for me. (I have to admit that we docked at 0700hrs, and I disembarked at 1100hrs, let’s blame the Premium Drinking package 🙈. I can imagine that queues are expected when you want to be off the ship early morning).

Eventually the bus ride was just 2 minutes.

It seems that things are not solved here for 2024. The ground staff told me that after the 2022 landslide, a second (but smaller) landslide occured in 2023, hence the bussing.

I really hate to be depending of busses and tenders, as I am a walking guy, but I have to admit that the process (also coming back to the ship) was a breeze.

2 hours ago, richart said:

Just following up with a report on our actual experience with the Vancouver cruise port. There were two large cruise ships at the port on May 4. Ours, the Discovery Princess was scheduled to depart at 3:45 pm. We stayed at the PanPacific and had the bellman take our luggage direct to the ship. We checked out of our room at noon and headed down the street for lunch. Returning to the cruise port about 1:15 pm, we had conflicting information from the cruise terminal guides stationed in front of the terminal. One said to enter the cruise terminal on the right side and the other said to use the left side. It turns out the right side was correct. The check in process with Princess went relatively quickly after being in queue for about 15 minutes. The queue for customs was a bit longer and took about 30 minutes overall for U.S. citizens. From start to finish it took about an hour before we were on board the ship. In retrospect, we would have waited until about 2:00 pm to start the process and would have probably breezed right through. 

Exactly, this was also my impression, boarding after 1330/1400hrs, will probably saves you waiting in line.

1 hour ago, newcruzer2 said:

I'm with you I really don't understand this thread.

My goal is to pack as little as possible and light weight was possible. 

I can't see myself lugging heavy coins 1/2 way across the world.

But I am happy for any outcome, that makes others happy.

I understand, but I am Dutch, and in Europe you can exactly do nothing with USD coins 😉

Banks only change back USD banknotes to EUR, but not coins.

I flew Business Class to YVR, so for my checked-in luggage, weight was not an issue.

But if you are reading this thread from an American perspective: indeed, it seems weird 😉

8 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

So just so I'm understanding, you took an accumulation of coins and traded them in for bills at the cashier's window?  Like, I could pack my laundry and couch coins that I've squirreled away in a jar and they will take them just like the Coinstar machine in my local grocery store?

Exactly! 🙂

You can get banknotes back or transfer it in Casino Credit 

Just stayed two nights in the Westin Bayshore prior to my 6-Day Alaska cruise with Celebrity Edge, and I am very happy that I chose this hotel. 

Yes the Pan Pacific and Fairmont are literally in front of the Cruise Terminal, but in my opinion the location is too hectic.

The Westin Bayshore is a 20 minute walk away from the terminal, but I strongly recommend to take a taxi if you have bagage, since it's a kind of uphill walk. My Uber was 9 CAD.

I also advice you to take a room with Marina + City view so you can enjoy the waterplanes taking-off and land AND you have first row view to the cruise ships. Try to take floor 3 or higher, because if you are on the lower floors, the trees might block your view in spring/summer.

If you have 'just' a Marina View room, you will end up at the other side of the building, facing Lions Gate bridge, the second marina and Stanley Park. 

If you want the seaplanes and cruiseships, make sure you take Marina + City View rooms.

My stay was amazing, I was lucky with the weather and even spent a few hours in the outside pool (10 May).

Bike are available free of charge for 2 hours, every additional hour costs 25 CAD + taxes. For my the 2 hours were enough to ride around Stanley Park, and downtown YVR. I went al the way to Rogers Ice Hockey Arena, Gastown and China Town. Basically a full loop of downtown YVR. 

Next to the hotel there is bike rental shop for longer e-bike and normal bike rentals. If you just want to commute within the city, you can also download the Mobi Bike App, this is a Pay-As-You-Go bike rental, with about 20 bikes parked in front of the Westin. Both normal bikes and e-bikes.

There are tons of drop-off/pick-up locations in the city. The minimum charge per rental is 3 CAD, it starts with 1 CAD (normal bike) or 2 CAD (e-bike) + a charge per minute of about 0,50 CAD per minute. For my two trips to and from Chinatown in the evening I paid 11 CAD and 12 CAD. Similar to an Uber, but I liked to ride through town. 🙂

For what it's worth, just boarded Celebrity Edge from YVR for a 6-day Alaska cruise.

This day, there were three ships due to depart at 16:00. HAL Koningsdam, Majestic Princess and Celebrity Edge. My boarding time was 12:30, however, I always prefer to board as late as possible. I arrived at the terminal at 13:15, dropped my bags, went straight to security. Maybe a 5 minute wait. 

I had a bottle of wine in my carry one, no questions asked 😃

US Immigration was split in two lines, one for US and Canadian Citizens (max 5 minute wait) and one line for all other passports. Since I am Dutch, I had to queue in the longer line. Waited in a slow but steadily moving line for about 35 minutes. 

I noticed that if I would have been 15 mintues later, I would have been the last in de queue. So if you don't mind boarding late and want to skip the rush hour, try to arrive 13:30 and from then it should be almost a straight line to the ship.

A thing what noticed me: at other (Europan Terminals) check-in and security is done first, last immigration. Here it was security, immigration, and as last check-in. A bit odd, because as a cruise line, I would want to know if my pax are in the terminal already and probably are still stuck in immigration.

Having said that; I was preparing for chaos and long queues, but eventually it was really really acceptable.

From what I have seen on (Youtube) reviews, it seems that the bad reviews are based on people who want to board as one of the first, around 11:00 or something. And of course, then you are stuck in the lines. 

Just to update:

I am at Edge again (coincidence), and cashier again took my USD coins happily! She told me they are always short of USD coins.

On 12/4/2022 at 11:53 AM, Heymoe said:

I'm on the Infinity now and can confirm that Celebrity blocks most VPN traffic. Their DNS definitely blocks lookups of sites with "VPN" and it appears they block ports commonly used by VPN programs.

 

If your VPN provider has an option for using TLS protocol (Port 443), you're in luck.  That's the protocol used to break China's Great Firewall - also used to break the great Waterwall of Celebrity.  It's very hard to stop because websites using "https://" transfer their data over port 443

 

Most VPN standalone programs don't offer a TLS connection, but one that does appears on StackSocial.com with good discounts.  It's KeepSolid/VPN Unlimited.  Not the fastest, but has quite a few endpoints.  I'm not affiliated with KeepSolid but found it's pretty resilient.

 

And the cost to bypass Celebrity's 'curation' is $50 a day!!!

Lifesaver! I am on the Edge, sea day, between Vancouver and Juneau.

I always use OVPN, and indeed, first it didn't work. After switching to TLS Protocol (Port 443) I able to stream my local Dutch television. Needs some buffering every few minutes and it seems that the max quality is about 480p resolution. But hey, beggars can't be choosers! 🙂

Thanks for this tip!

Just checked my Celebrity Account to update my new passport for 11MAY24 6-night Edge Alaska cruise.

At the end of DEC23 I booked 'cruise only' + 'premium wifi' + 'premium drinks'. Combining this resulted, in 200 USD cheaper than 'All-Included' (Shoot me!)

Premium drinks at that time was 504 USD. Now about two weeks before sailing, I was updating my new passport details and noticed a 50% flash sale on drinks.

To my surprise, I was able to cancel the premium drinks package and get a full refund. 1 minute later, I booked the new (flash sale) premium drinks package for just 360 USD.

Saved 144 USD! Woop woop!

#extremecouponing 🙂

On 3/7/2024 at 6:05 PM, alserrod said:

 

 

Hello

 

As I posted here, there are 10521 taxis in Barcelona (I searched in an official web)

 

 

All of them give the same service, same fares, etc...

 

Just assure you call an official taxi. It is a service where it is hard to swindle (specially to the airport where there's a fix fare) and hard to find fake taxis

 

 

I  agree with booking with a local taxi company. For some strange reason, Uber is not that reliable in BCN. I've been in BCN about 10 times over COVID-10 (let's say the past 2 years), and prebooking or simply holding a taxi at the street is faster and cheaper. 

Having said that, this is not really an option for you as you are disembarking a cruise in BCN, with 4 docks. Read: 4 ships disemabarking at the same time. 

My advice: pay a premium to have a confirmed pre-booked taxi, and don't rely on Uber or Bolt.

On 3/7/2024 at 6:05 PM, alserrod said:

 

On 3/7/2024 at 12:50 AM, Jim_Iain said:

 

Respect your knowledge as a Dutch national.   Wanted to point out that in May of last year we used ApplePay with a U.S.Chase Sapphire Visa card on the Train as well as subways in Rotterdam and Amsterdam.   As a matter of fact it was the only way we could board the subway at the subway station closest to the port as there are no ticket machines.    The guard told us to just tap our credit card.    Worked perfect.

 

Now --- I 100% agree with you on using a U.S. credit card at a grocery store in Amsterdam.   They told me the only way I could use was for the agent to ring up give me the chit and I would take it to the front desk and they would use a different terminal and complete the transaction.   After doing that once we shifted to cash instead of holding up everyone in line behind us.

Ow no worries, I believe you! Obviously you did it yourself, the best evidence there is 🙂

And yes, I fully agree (and I am ashamed) that most Dutch supermarkets don't accept creditcards. There is a supermarkt below my office, in front of the Heineken Beer Brewery in Amsterdam, and every time I am at the cashier, there are tourists having issues with their creditcards since Albert Heijn (the number 1 supermarket brand in AMS) doesn't except creditcard simply because of the fees to the creditcard companies.

Now you know the saying "Being Dutch" means, being cheap 🙂

And I am not proud of that 😞

So Americans: Debit cards are widely accepted in the Netherlands, but indeed, we are not such a creditcard country. 

Still.......if you compare it to Germany, society is almost 90% still cash there. So we are not that bad 🙂

40 minutes ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Thank you! Very helpful. Do we need an OV chip card each to use the train or can one person buy tickets for the four of us? We’ll be in the Netherlands for five days prior to the cruise and want to make transit as cheap and easy as possible lol. Last time there our Airbnb host had cards for us preloaded and that we could reload online.  Was easy to just tap in and out. We can use our credit cards the same way tho?

Only Dutch bank cards and creditcards are accepted with NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen = Dutch Railways). And then still only in connection with OVpay-app. (OV = Openbaar Vervoer = Public Transport)

So yes, your best bet is purchasing one-time OV-cards every time, and you can purchase them with bank cards or creditcards at ticket desks with employees or even faster: at self service machines.

If you are staying a bit longer here, it's indeed better to have a 'reusable' OV-card which you can load up with as much money you want. 

Good thing is, with this card you can travel in all public transport in NL. So bus, tram, metro, train. The ferries in AMS are actually free. (The ones behind Amsterdam Central station, which is actually next to the AMS Cruise terminal).

3 minutes ago, cruisegirlppp said:

Thank you for taking the time to help us understand the options and even providing links, it is much appreciated.

No worries. I am Dutch, so it's a lot more easier to find this information than for foreigners. More than happy to answer other Netherlands-related questions 🙂

1 minute ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

We have the same AC flight at 12:15 but in June. Our plan is to do walkoff and taxi to Rotterdam Centraal station and take the train to Schipol. 🤞. For our cruise the ship shuttle to Schipol is sold out and I also don’t want to be stuck in traffic. Last time we were in the Netherlands we were amazed at the public transit system there and went everywhere without a rental car…most of the cars were usually stuck in heavy traffic anyway. 🤷‍♀️

For what it's worth. The 'fast' train is called 'Intercity Direct': https://www.ns.nl/en/travel-information/special-routes/intercity-direct.html

It's only 2.90 EUR more expensive per one-way than the regular train. 

https://www.ns.nl/en/season-tickets/campaigns/other/intercity-direct-supplement.html

Just an example of a Wednesday morning direct train:

https://www.ns.nl/en/journeyplanner/#/?vertrek=Rotterdam Centraal&vertrektype=treinstation&aankomst=Schiphol Airport&aankomsttype=treinstation&type=vertrek&tijd=2024-06-12T07:00&firstMileModality=PUBLIC_TRANSPORT&lastMileModality=PUBLIC_TRANSPORT&disabledTransportModalities=&context=arnu|fromStation%3D8400530|toStation%3D8400561|plannedFromTime%3D2024-06-12T08:12:00%2B02:00|plannedArrivalTime%3D2024-06-12T08:36:00%2B02:00|excludeHighSpeedTrains%3Dfalse|searchForAccessibleTrip%3Dfalse|localTrainsOnly%3Dfalse|travelAssistance%3Dfalse|tripSummaryHash%3D2388658439&ritnummers=909

This is a 08:12hrs departure from Rotterdam Central and a 08:36hrs arrival at Schiphol.

Normal price 14,50 EUR one way 2nd class + 2,90 EUR supplement.

I think this is indeed a no-brainer 🙂

16 minutes ago, Shadow9612 said:

Thank you for this. Do you think walk off/ taxi is better than Celebrity transfer?

 

I have an Air Canada flight to Canada, 12:15pm departure, on a Wednesday mid July.  Trying to determine what to do.

 

Thank you to the OP for starting this discussion and to all the answers so far.

A pre-ordered taxi is always faster than the Celebrity bus, but more expensive. I am more than confident that even with the Celebrity transfer you are able to make your flight. 

12 hours ago, cruisegirlppp said:

Thank you for this suggestion and all the others- our flight is at 12 and we were going to Uber to Schiphol but after reading this thread I'm thinking that taking the train from Rotterdam would be best to avoid being stuck in traffic.

Both are fine options. Your departure time is one hour later than the topic starter, so that widens your 'room for error' :).

Traffic jams generally clear in NL after 0930hrs. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays are heavy traffic days. Wednesdays, Fridays and Weekends are pretty fine with almost no traffic jams in the morning. If you also walk off yourself at 0700hrs and you pre-order a taxi, your 1200hrs departure from AMS (even intercontinental) will really be fine. 

On 3/3/2024 at 5:44 PM, dani negreanu said:

 

Long lines as well as for border control if you don't hold and EU passport. Awful airport.

This is partly true for immigration yes, but mainly for arriving non-EU pax. Departing non-EU pax will not have lines longer than 20 minutes. And again; yes, the last two years, AMS was horrible, but after summer 2023 things really really improved!

15 hours ago, Softball20 said:

If we do walk-off on Celebrity at 7:00 a.m., is a 10:40 flight out of BCN doable?  It looks like the airport is fairly close - less than 30 minutes.  (we flew in there once, but it was years ago and I just don't recall the distance between the port and airport.)  I'm thinking that it's cutting it too close - just evaluating options.

If you indeed do self service walk-off at 0700hrs sharp AND pre-book a taxi, you can be on the airport at 0800hrs. Even if there are traffic jams due to rush hour, it will be traffic going into the city, you are leaving the city. 

I live in AMS and fly a lot through Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. In 2022 queues and crowds were horrible at the airport, but since summer 2023 Schiphol has invested in more staff and now lines are rarely over 20 minutes wait.

All security checkpoints acutally do have fast tracks for Business Class and elite status. And at AMS checking in 2 hours before the flight is more than enough for transatlantic.

If you are disembarking on weekday, and taking a taxi, you will end up in the middle of rush hour between Rotterdam-The Hague-Amsterdam. So this might be stressful. 

With a cab or even public transport you can ben at Rotterdam Central railway station within 30 minutes. From there, every 15 minutes a train departs to Schiphol Airport. The fast (more expensive) train, takes about 30 minutes. The stoptrain, literally stopping at all stations, will take about 60 minutes. 

If you do self disembarking it should be possible. All in all, your schedule is doable, but there is not a lot of room for error.

I arrived end of April in BCN after a cruise with MSC World Europa. We docked at 0600hrs, allowed to disembark 0700hrs, but I was allowed to stay in the room until 0900hrs.

I did self-disembarking (at 0900hrs) and took a cab in front of the terminal (about 30 EUR for 1 person), I was at check-in at about 09:45hrs. I had a flight at 1300hrs. 

Ergo; you shouldn't worry.

For other future cruisers: Keep in mind that BCN is a pretty big cruise terminal, with 4 cruise ships to dock at the same time. If you are unlucky and 4 ships disembark at the same time, you should really really book a transfer to the airport in advance. 

So if you are able to disembark at 0700hrs and book a transfer in advance, a 1000hrs flight departure wouldn't be a problem. 

15 hours ago, hcat said:

what was the cost?

Premium Wifi 1 device: $ 32,99 per day, but with flash sale $18,99 per day

Premium Wifi 2 devices: $ 58,99 per day, but with flash sale $28,99 per day

May 2024, Edge, Vanvoucer>Dawes Glacier>Seattle, 7 days. 

Already briefly mentionend here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2960513-basic-wifi-package-cost/

For what it's worth; I booked a Cruise Only yesterday and I can confirm that no Basic Wifi option was available as package, only Premium Wifi.

It seems that things changed when Starlink entered the Celebrity-fleet 🙂

More info here: https://www.celebritycruises.com/faqs/wifi-onboard

Haha, nice! Happy to help you out! I was walking around with I think 2kg of coins on the first day of the cruise 😂

Thanks for all the tips here for solo travellers! 🙂 🙋‍♂️

1. For what it's worth, it really does make a difference in pricing if you book via the US/UK/EUR-website. I checked an Alaska cruise for 2 persons, including taxes, cruise-only, concierge class:

(All prices converted to USD, total pricess)

US: 2135 USD

UK: 2400 USD

EUR: 2320 USD

2. As a solo traveller I am willing to pay a bit more, but 200% is crazy. So, let's say I book a stateroom (cruise-only) for me and John Doe. John doens't show up, taxes are refunded. But I want to buy a drinking package in advance. Celebrity FAQ says that all persons of legal drinking age in the stateroom must buy a package. Preferably I only want to buy myself a Premium Package (heavy drinker) and nothing for John ;). But that doesn't seem to work. Is the only work around here to get a Zero-Package for John and simply 'lose' that money?

Any other creative ideas are more than welcome 🙂

Back from the cruise and I feel I need to give you an update/confirmation 😉

There are two ATM's in the casino to withdraw money, one in USD, one in EUR.

At the cashier desk they indeed do take coins, but only in USD. I was expecting to get the coins converted into casino credit, but they were low on coins, so cashier seemed pretty happy with me, and offered banknotes bak. Eventually I managed to exchange coins into 45 USD banknotes 🙂