martincath

You definitely can add family, in fact the wording is much more broad than with Customs forms (where it can only be done with Household Members) - up to max of 8 travelers can be on one ArriveCAN trip, so as long as your group is crossing the Canadian border/boarding the ship at the same time as a group, the grandkids could be flying in separately from all over the world to meet up with you. Whoever completes the entry obviously needs to know the passport, vaxx etc. details for all of their party members - so if you are going to prep your entry ahead of the GKs being physically present in your company and showing you all the docs, do ask them to double-check any ID numbers, vaxx dates etc. very carefully!!!!

All bus services are treated exactly the same at the border, so expect to take ALL your stuff inside and be pleasantly surprised if they don't ask you to. Storage-wise it's a typical long-distance touring coach that Cantrail uses, so enough space underneath to handle 2 suitcases per passenger - and given many folks using it are doing short trips to Seattle without much luggage there should be ample space. Regular overhead shelves are present, so backpacks or even small carryons should fit. Yes, but many years ago and I've avoided them ever since - but realistically the majority of folks find their service just fine, it is convenient for cruisers with the pier to pier or airport service. Since they actually added WiFi rather than deliberately misleading pax by naming their 'we put movies on the tv screen' service 'Y-Fi' so when you heard it said you thought you had internet access, I've downgraded their weasel-rating ;-)

Good to know - I've been more recently than that and thought it was pretty much the same as it used to be in TheBeforeTimes, but frankly after months of staying home and cooking 3 meals a day I think my critical faculties are definitely rusty. We've been trying to spread ourselves around surviving spots, few duplicate visits to confirm consistency... and the fact the brisket has all that lovely curry sauce on it would cover up slight overcooking better than the roast dishes!

Unfortunately whale behaviour can't be guaranteed! But early in the season is theoretically best for all the arriving whale species, as they are feeding for the first time in rich waters after fasting down in the warm breeding grounds - so they're just plain hungrier than later on as they need to rebuild fat reserves. 'Backs and Blows' is a good expectation to take on any whalewatch for baleen whales - treat anything more as a bonus and you'll only ever be pleasantly surprised. I do agree that way too many folks discount whalewatching trips down here compared to Juneau etc., as we may fall short of 100% success it's usually 90-95% of trips with all Vic/Van companies across orca season, April through October. While we do seem to have more and more humpbacks and grays hanging out each year as herring stocks recover across the BC coast, why swim further north if you can find enough grub here after all, orca are the 'bread and butter' for local tour companies. Being dolphins, they're a lot more liable to do something exciting than humpies - and with prices usually on paper about 20% lower than AK tours, and Canadian dollar pricing dropping that another ~30% for US tourists, they're a real bargain too.

Gastineau are excellent - and on cruise days do not sell direct. Unlike H&M, all their boats are built specifically for whalewatching, and unlike Allen Marine they are small (IIRC 15-22 pax). The particular tour we did may have a different name on Celebrity vs. Princess who we booked through, but it included Mendenhall, the whale watch, and a 'rain forest safari' - and a professional photographer was with our group, explaining optimal camera settings for each of the different parts of the tour. All this for $10 more at the time than a 150pax Allen catamaran with insufficient deck rail space for all pax and non-opening windows. Unless you have a serious aversion to small boats, I would not hesitate to recommend Gastineau's trip over Allen's!

1:43 pm, even if it was right now, you'd be fine - the airport is <45mins drive, disembark even by 9am and you should be at YVR early enough to deal with a 3 hour delay... by September the security staff situation will very likely be better, even if not fully fixed; Covid testing to come home may no longer be needed removing another link from the chain; and if it still remains in place you will have an entire summer of reports from other cruisers about using ship internet or cellphones or free WiFi in Victoria or Vancouver to enable good quality, informed decisions to be made. But if you have the option to stay longer - yes, of course you should! Vancouver is awesome, you're already here, there's more stuff to do than in every AK coastal port pout together, and while we're rather pricey by Canadian standards your dollar gives you about a 30% discount across the board in real terms so we're still pretty cheap for you!

Sorry, can't help on ship WiFi - but while docked in Victoria you can find plenty of free internet (follow the crew!) or even pay for 1 day of data on your phone and use a land-based option. YVR does take walkups, but queues get long - if you decide to wait, book a timeslot as early as you could possibly make. If you're later than that they will still let you join the 'I have an appointment' queue, multiple reports of folks showing up earlier or later than their appointment time without any problem. Definitely best to get tested BEFORE you disembark - if you are +ve onboard, Princess are on thew hook for your quarantine! Get off, test +ve, and now you're paying for 10 nights hotel, food delivery etc. out of your own pocket...

Since you don't have time at the end of your trip to hang out in Alaska, and as mentioned Royal sucks (it removes one of the benefits of a Vancouver departure - sailing the full Inside Passage, instead spending a lot more time sailing all the way around Vancouver Island so probably giving you a shorter day in your first port of call too). Obviously I'm biased living here, but I'd do Vancouver RT on Eclipse - the dates work such that you can travel here early enough to get in some decent pre-cruise time in one of the world's most awesome cities, then do your cruise. OTOH, given the current issues with travel back to the US from Canada (Covid testing, security staffing issues making a 'fly same day as disembark' very troublesome right now) then for simplicity a Seattle RT avoids that - but you'll still need to do ArriveCAN because of the Victoria stop, and a precruise Covid test regardless of where you're departing from. Lots of people say they're doing a 'one and done' to Alaska, and most of them are wrong - but in terms of 'doing it right' you've already failed completely, since you'll literally just see a small fraction of 1% of Alaska on any of these cruises!!! There's an awful, awful lot more of it inland despite the long coastline ;-)

Canadian rules make the cruiseline 100% for your quarantine - transport to the hotel, room fees, food - if you are positive onboard, for 10 days less however many you have already been isolated for onboard. That's all though, with a potential weasel exemption that the line is only responsible for passengers who do not already have their own quarantine plans! So tell anyone who asks that you have no plan! And in terms of flights - if booked through the line, I would guess you are likely to get those rearranged for you, but independent flights I seriously doubt any offer of payment for since Canada is not forcing them to do it. Good will, bad press etc. is all well and good, but given the abandoning of disembarkation day testing in an obvious 'shift cost and responsiblity onto pax' move, I very much doubt that any compensation will be offered that isn't mandated by government...

Another tremendous post @Ferry_Watcher, which hopefully is seen early enough to avoid financial loss and familial problems (do those who have all the paperwork board and 'abandon' their fam...?)

Unfortunately the Robson Street CQ has declined a lot since the pandemic began - that's the one I always used to get food delivered from, but I've returned to using the Commercial Drive location as I'm just inside their delivery zone too and the food is significantly more consistent. The sheer number of TripAdvisor reviews from TheBeforeTimes ensure that CQ Robson still looks good on paper, but I have stopped recommending it.

1) Yes officially (it's literally the only difference from other rates available with the same other add-ons) but UNofficially is a bellboy going to turn down a 'pre-emptive tip' (not a bribe, honest guv'nor!) if you ask them to arrange it...? 2) Nobody can guarantee that at any specific point in time - but I've yet to hear of anyone complain that WiFi sucks in the PP and folks have successfully tested using YVRs public WiFi; plus, as long as the connection does not actually drop there is no specific rule about bandwidth, screen size etc. A potato-quality webcam, as the kids say, seems to meet the criteria 3) Don't eat in Five Sails - since Ernst & Gerry retired almost the entire staff have been replaced, it's now one of Glowbals chain of 'fine-dining' restos with recipes (which do look pretty good on paper...) coming from the chain's Exec Chef, and the two 'faces' deemed worthy of inclusion on the website for this resto are the pastry chef and FoH manager (who both look about 12!) rather than any of the chefs making the much more expensive savoury parts of your meal. Given Glowbal's usual performance levels there will be a lot of turnover and a hell of a lot less consistency than in the E&G years, with sometimes a truly stellar young talent in the kitchen bringing some good reviews, other times barely adequate people, and if the reviews dip too badly they'll pull Robbie from whatever he's doing to take personal charge for long enough to get the reviews back to 4+ again; then it's lather, rinse, repeat. All-in-all for the prices charged, no matter how well the menus read you'd be much better taking a walk down to the Fairmont Pacific Rim if you can't be bothered walking far and don't mind dropping big bucks.

Hopefully someone who has used the shuttle will see your post and reply specifically about that - but I can certainly confirm that our handful of trips since the border opened have all been by car and we have never even been asked to see the proof-of-vax that we were of course carrying with us. The most recent trip last month was as close to BeforeTimesNormal as we've experienced in two years - "Where ya goin'? Watcha doin'? How long ya gonna be? Enjoy Portland." - given you're actually American returning home I would expect you to be treated even more casually... although maybe you'll get a grilling on the customs front in case you're smuggling igloos in your luggage ;-)

Check for 2-day rentals - cheaper than a 9 day plus parking rental, but likely still pricey. At least one poster trying to get a one-way car found a 2-day option, for about $600 - last I recall the price was dropping but still yet to get anywhere near the <$100 of TheBeforeTimes! By September, at least we will have had 4 months of cruising, rental franchises will have a much stronger idea of demand for one-ways, prices and restrictions should keep dropping. As to your original query - hellz to the no! Again in TheBeforeTimes, for self-disembarker a flight as early as 10am was absolutely viable. Right now, with security queues that are woefully understaffed you might as well just burn your ticket for anything booked earlier than noon - even if CATSA can get fully staffed up again by September, unless you cruise with just a carry-on even meeting the minimum pre-flight time for bag drop (an hour to the US with all airlines) is quite likely to be problematic for a flight any earlier than 10am. Good news - Global Entry DOES help out here in Vancouver thanks to Preclearance. You will get access to the dedicated GE/NEXUS screening line at security and you can use your own dedicated bank of Customs & Immigration machines too, so everything except bag check is faster. But if Covid tests are still needed for flights to the US in Sep, you really need to ensure you get your test done onboard or I'd still consider a flight before noon to be very risky even for a GE cardholder (and NB: that you MUST bring the card to show to the person guarding entry to the short line - they don't scan your passport to verify GE status at that stage you have to literally pull your card out and show it to them).

12 day RT? Then yes, you DID need to complete the second ArriveCAN - because you were indeed Arriving in CANada as the name suggests after visiting US ports on the cruise! Cruises have various special rules - since everyone who gets on travels together until the end of the cruise, you get to skip the 72 hour thing - everyone who gets on at the start is expected to return at the end. The third entry was probably unnecessary - there has been confusion on all sides about getting ArriveCAN done before embarkation rather than doing it onboard, witness Carnivals fine for doing the latter with pax on RT Seattle which has been mentioned on Ferry_Watcher's thread over on West Coast Dpeartures! Or it might have been legit, to fix problems because pax had entered Vancouver as their arrival port originally during embarkation but the actual Port of Entry was Victoria? Definitely each cruise, or rather each type of cruise, has been a learning experience for all involved! I'm still waiting to see actual reports from folks who have booked a B2B Northbound 1st combo confirming if they are being forced to do ArriveCAN at embarkation for their return 2 weeks later, or if they have to do it during turnaround in AK, or if both are acceptable to CBSA...

Self-disembarkation means likely among the first off YOUR ship - but on a day with 3 or 4 ships, even in TheBeforeTimes without issues like moving folks who need to quarantine off the ship without them getting near anyone else causing the complete stoppage of anyone else using the gangway until it's been disinfected, which ship was cleared first varied. If this was three years ago, I'd say you could bank on getting off between 7:30 and 8am reliably - now though? Hopefully the same. I agree 100% with VibeGuy - if you are physically capable of carrying your own bags off the ship, then you can definitely use SkyTrain. If you walk past the cab queue and by some freak of chance there's next to nobody waiting, sure, hop in a cab as the extra ~10mins walking will eat the faster travel time of SkyTrain making a cab likely also 35mins from pier to airport. I've heard from multiple folks that an appointment at the airport CVM is not at all picky in terms of time - so book whatever you can get, as early as possible, and then just go get tested at whatever time you actually arrive at YVR. I'm sure you were posting elsewhere about taking eMed kits with you though @Buckeye10640, and I've also read multiple reports about people successfully using the YVR public WiFi to do their video-proctoring - saving them the expense and extra time queuing at CVM... Personally though I'd be trying to do your testing in advance of docking - if you have a Victoria stop the day before for example, fantastic, find some land-based WiFi or spring for day's use of your cell data to take a proctored eMed. If you only have ship WiFi to reply on due to sea days, bring an extra test or two in case of drop-outs, but the key thing is if you do test positive before you leave the ship, it's still 100% on your cruiseline to pay for everything - hotel, transport to it, and food. So the whole 'Oh dearie me, for Reasons Outwith Our Control we can no longer supply tests for folks with same day flights, boohoo, so sorry' announcements by I think now all the major lines make perfect sense - step off the ship without knowing your status, they're off the hook even if you test positive! Of course if you test negative - great, that's one less thing you need to do on a really, really busy morning at YVR!

Worst-case, if your insurance won't play ball you can simply ask for one SHORTER prescription period from your physician between now and when your cruise starts. By doing a 30 or 60 or whatever, you can pull forward the next full 90-day renewal to between a week and a month before your cruise starts, easily letting you have your required dates + sensible padding worth of meds. Obviously you'll pay an extra set of the fixed prescription fees element, but for any remotely-expensive drug that's small potatoes, it's the per-dose cost that is the large part of the equation. Definitely ask your insurance first - they do seem generally amenable to doubling-up for extended travel

Sutton Place is not bad for SkyTraining - City Centre Station would involve a walk well under half a mile, only one turn, wide sidewalks, and no slopes to speak of. With the extra $5 Addfare inbound though, if your group is 3+ the savings start to look weaksauce compared to fixed rate cab fare - that's CAD$34, tip whatever % you would at home, all cabs take Visa/MC, if the machine is 'broken' you don't have to pay and when you remind the cabbie of that it usually starts to magically work again ;-) To the port - if you're mobile enough to have come on SkyTrain, you can walk it! Slightly downhill on average, all the way down Burrard until you run out of street, then a block to the right for <3/4ths of a mile total. There's a passenger ramp to take you to the right place to start your embarkation, just walk toward where the cars are lining up. Really heavy bag that might escape down the ramp? Head inside Canada Place, several banks of elevators available. Too much stuff to schlep all the way? Cab will cost <$10 on the meter, but with traffic entering Canada Place often backed up for ages on busy cruise days you might see $8 become $18 while you crawl along at walking pace... and walking might be just as fast!

Do check that link I gave above now & again, until they publish the events and schedule - if this year sees the return of the parade, that closes multiple blocks around the pier from 11ish until 1ish, so a noon arrival would actually put you slap bang in the worst possible arrival by cab as you would also be fighting the other cruisers departing that day! Like I said, there's always at least one open road - but prepare for loooooooong delays, the driver to ask if he can drop you a few blocks away, or both :-(

Well this one's dead easy - there is not a single hotel that meets your criteria! Cruise shuttle is the trickiest one believe it or not - there's a grand total of one hotel downtown definitely still operating a shuttle, the Hampton Inn, and that is not a cruise shuttle... while it will drop you at the pier, you are fighting for seats with every guest who wants to anywhere in downtown, so expect very limited time options and a milk-run around various drop sites. Hot tub, sauna yes - no pool though, so if you can live without that it could work. Fancy hotels (Fairmont Waterfront across the street, Pacific Rim two blocks down) and the Pan Pacific literally on top of the pier render shuttles pointless - while they actually have swank towncar to drop you off around town at the Pac Rim, it's literally quicker to walk given traffic at the single entryway to Canada Place!!! The Pac Rim also has hot tubs, so if you ignore the shuttle it checks all boxes - the PP I think only has an outdoor pool, but it's heated (salt water too) and has a heckuva view, and if overall quality of hotel is a bigger factor L'Hermitage has been consistently rated in the top 2 or 3 hotels in the city since they opened, they have a fantastic deck with an infinity pool - but the views are down onto Robson Street rather than out across the harbour like the PP. Given cab fare to the pier from at least fifty downtown hotels will cost you under US$10, the shuttle angle really is not worth worrying about - Blue Horizon is much more mid-range, very tall skinny tower so every room is a corner and anything high up has great views, they do have pool/hot tub, a pretty good selection of restos and shops within a couple of blocks, and both Capilano shuttle and the local HOHO have a stop right outside. In general the cost of land downtown, with water on three sides, means pools tend to be very modest in size as few hotels have a large enough floorplate to handle anything big - if you're a lap swimmer rather than a lounger, or want water slides for the kids or similar, you'd need to get well out into the 'burbs to find properties with big pool facilities... or just use one of our public pools.

Here you go - if it ain't on this list, it's likely a fake - although check the date last issued, as labs can apply to be added so there may be a legit service provider whose name is working through bureaucratic red tape... personally though I wouldn't risk any service not listed, and with 2 days on land before heading home you are probably much better off in terms of finance, time, and safety to bring a test with you that can be done with remote observation instead of lining up with who-knows-how-many-randos here in a clinic with limited opening hours and forking over about twice as much cash instead of doing the test in the comfort of your hotel room whenever best suits your schedule!

One other (bad news) item for your traveling companions @Mom&MeCruiseAL - I see from other posts you plan to cruise in July but not exactly when, which means that the timeline to finish being vaccinated is already reeeaalllllly tight for any of the 2-dose vaccines (minimum time periods between doses apply, e.g. 4 weeks for Moderna, and only 2 weeks after the second dose is when you are deemed Vaxxed enough to come to Canada - so even if they got jabbed today it would be the very end of June before we'd deem then Vaxxed). Since the CDC updated their guidelines for the 1-dose J&J vaccine, I believe it now needs a medical issue that would contra-indicate Moderna/pFizer for any age to receive J&J now instead of the mRNA vaccines. So even though 1 dose of J&J counts as fully-Vaxxed for Canada it may be impossible to get for your peeps - if they can be persuaded not losing out on all of this travel is worth a couple of jabs, they really need to go get that first dose ASAP.

No - they started doing a completely-separate, 'Pre-Queue to join the real Queues' several days ago, and until you leave THAT queue and officially join the 'Gate X, Y, Z' queues the clock for the app does not begin. It's frankly ludicrous - there are valid reasons for running the queue that way, but either the app should be suspended entirely or else someone should be timing the 'Pre-Queue' and adding that huge chunk of time to each of the gate-specific timings.

You *might* be able to do your second ArriveCAN from home, as you have a more generous 96 hour window pre-cruising check-in, but I believe that the app only allows a single 'live' entry at a time - entering a second before you actually get to the border might invalidate the first one! Desktop and Mobile apps do seem to be different behind-the-scenes - you cannot begin an entry on one and complete it on the other - so using the App to do your Land Bus arrival and the Desktop to do your Marine Cruise arrival then printing it to bring with you might work... you can verify after trying it by loading the App back up and checking if your original land travel is still there. Note that it is 100% verified by multiple reports, not just theory, that the cruiseline will not let you board without a complete ArriveCAN if it's needed for that cruise! Carnival let some folks on in Seattle, had them complete it onboard, and got a big fat fine for their troubles - if you check over in West Coast you'll see a busy thread from Ferry-Watcher confirming that no you cannot even walk inside the terminal until you have your ArriveCAN receipt! So ship computer will not work - the 72hr limit is not a clock running backward from your first Canadian port, it's a clock that counts back from your embarkation. So - if your RT is a true loop, sold only that way rather than a Northbound and Southbound B2B combo, you will DEFINITELY need to complete your second ArriveCAN before you board here in Vancouver. If it's a B2B, then you might be able to board without it - but you'll need to complete it during turnaround before you can re-embark for the southbound leg. This point, about whether b2Bs are being treated as single cruises or not by Canadian authorities for ArriveCAN pruposes, I've yet to see any reports confirming Yea or Nay on - I've only seen folks reporting about their Northbound Only experience. There might be reports I've missed, but Searching on this topic is... messy to say the least, with so many results to wade through. Worst-case, if you cannot have 2 'live' entries premade from home using the desktop and mobile versions, do be aware that you do not need phone data to use the App - any smartphone able to run it has WiFi, and there's a free Vancouver City run WiFi service that you can usually find a signal for all over downtown (look for #VanWiFi as the network broadcast ID). Plus of course all the free WiFi at Starbucks, etc. In other words, you definitely have options locally to use your phone without having to pay roaming data charges - and if your phone company is one that simply does not operate up here, like Tracphone, there's not even a risk of you failing to turn off the right options and being billed! if you could use it here and just choose not to, make sure you know where to find your Roaming settings and turn them all off to avoid any problems - you want to just have the WiFi enabled for the App.

I've never had to test here yet except at home with a video-chat when we were randomly selected coming home from the US, so I cannot fairly give any specifics in terms of 'this clinic or that one' - but personally in your situation I'd be bringing a comparatively-dirt-cheap Antigen test with me from the US, and scheduling a Proctor observation of me taking it in my hotel room the evening before. Almost certainly more reliable than ship internet, no need to queue up with randos indoors, results quickly by email, so your total period of stress is as short and simple as possible. Multiple reports are out there of folks even successfully using YVRs free WiFi to conduct their online-observed tests successfully - and I've never found that YVR WiFi was particularly fast, so you should be absolutely fine with your hotel connection. Again, personally I'd be sure to have at least 2 kits with me just in case of a drop-out that means the proctor cannot sign off on having witnessed Definitely You Taking A Test!!! There's absolutely no way that airline staff will refuse to accept your test results once you have them - Proctoring services provide the exact same reports that a physical lab does, there are specific criteria from the US gov't about what needs to be included in the report, these services comply with that or else it would be incredibly widespread news. Every story I've seen anywhere about 'Man Refused Boarding Despite Negative Test!' has been clickbait with an idiot at the heart of it, doing an unsupervised test and waving 'their' negative test kit at someone - of course they were then refused! If I waved around a positive pregnancy test nobody would believe my beer gut was really a baby, they'd assume I was waving someone else's test around ;-)