Alaska HELP!

We we are leaving this May for Alaska, I am a " Caribbean" cruiser..so this is new for me,so here are my questions;

I don't like paying the Cruiseline for transfer, is there transportation to get to the ship?

how do you dress in May?

can you or trust an on land excursion people that meet you out side the ship?

Thank you Thank you Thank you

Where is your cruise departing from? Seward or Whittier? How much time do you have between landing and having to be at the ship? Are you willing to rent a car? How many in your group?

Something to keep in mind is that there seems to be more excursions in Alaska that won't allow you to book them directly but instead refer you to book the Excursion through the cruise line. That sort of thing is very rare in the Caribbean in my experience by comparison.

This post may have been entered by voice recognition. Please excuse any typographical errors.

In Alaska you have to be prepared all kinds of weather . Dress in layers so you can adjust for the weather.

Alaska can go from sun to rain to snow to cloudy to sun to wind still to windy in less than 30 minutes .

Cruising or visiting a glacier can be on the chilly side.

Both Seattle and Vancouver can wet or dry in May.

Where is your cruise departing from? Seward or Whittier? How much time do you have between landing and having to be at the ship? Are you willing to rent a car? How many in your group?

AKStafford;

departing out of Vancouver,

get in at 10;30am

just 2 of us

We are also departing from Vancouver and I know transfer options from the airport are either taxi, Uber, private transfer (hire a car of some sort), and Sky Train. SkyTrain goes straight to Canada Place, which is the cruise terminal, so that might be the best option for you. You can use the SkyTrain website and even figure out when the trains depart, arrive, and what it would cost.

Check the West Coast Departures board for more specific info. I've gotten lots of good Vancouver advice over there.

We are also departing from Vancouver and I know transfer options from the airport are either taxi, Uber, private transfer (hire a car of some sort), and Sky Train. SkyTrain goes straight to Canada Place, which is the cruise terminal, so that might be the best option for you. You can use the SkyTrain website and even figure out when the trains depart, arrive, and what it would cost.

 

Check the West Coast Departures board for more specific info. I've gotten lots of good Vancouver advice over there.

Vancouver doesn’t have ridesharing services like Uber or Lyft. Taxi are fixed rate from airport to downtown. Canada line goes from the airport to a station about two blocks from Canada a Place.canadaline trains run about every ten minutes. If you use Canada Line you’ll find it’s busy and you’ll have to hold your luggage. There aren’t any racks to store luggage.

...departing out of Vancouver, get in at 10;30am, just 2 of us

10:30am on day of embarkation? Brave! Do recall that one-way cruises out of Vancouver means of you miss the boat that's your vacation done as all other ports are in the US so would violate PVSA rules to fly on to the next one...

Assuming you are on time, once done with immigration (could be an hour - depends how many other planes come in at same time), if you go straight to the pier you'll be right about in the worst possible time to start boarding. Many others do the same as you and risk same day arrival by plane and by Amtrak - which rolls in before noon if on time bringing sometimes hundreds of cruisers up from Seattle.

So I would strongly recommend dropping bags at the pier but NOT checking-in yet. Go have lunch, do some sightseeing, and come back later. You have a hard deadline of 90mins pre-departure - for US immigration - and the closer you shave it to that deadline, the shorter the queues! Just walking around Gastown (good lunch options, our oldest neighbourhood) and riding FlyOverCanada (right at the pier, ~30minute total time inside) are both close by, safe options, no transportation issues to delay your return.

How to travel? SkyTrain is cheapest ($9.10pp weekdays, $7.85pp weekends, pay with credit card at the ticket machines right by the platform entrance) and as fast as cab without traffic. <400 yards to walk at the downtown end, and since you board at the other terminus there is absolutely no concern about not getting a seat (bags go under the seats, extra legroom on these trains, they are a totally different layout from the commuter SkyTrain lines). Taxi is fixed rate of CAD$35, door to door, and will drop you inside the terminal making it really easy to hand over your bags then walk out again. They'll even take USD cash - but at a crappy exchange rate, so paying with Credit Card is more sensible.

Kamloops and martincath, thank you for the taxi info.

Thanks for the info, we will definitely go on the fly over Canada ride.

We we are leaving this May for Alaska, I am a " Caribbean" cruiser..so this is new for me,so here are my questions;

 

I don't like paying the Cruiseline for transfer, is there transportation to get to the ship?

 

how do you dress in May?

 

can you or trust an on land excursion people that meet you out side the ship?

Thank you Thank you Thank you

You do realize you are in the United States..:D;pyes, in a pretty remote state, but it that still has laws....and vendors need to follow them to stay in business. So highly unlikely someone will treat you unfairly.