U.S Direct Program - Awesome!

[zonara]

okay, you got me all excited and then i read the fine print.. Only those sailing on the Coral Princess can participate...

 

pwillmo--it's not just for the Coral. Last year, the Coral was the only Princess ship participating. We contacted Princess in Vancouver, and it sounded like all their ships are participating this year.

[emilygrace]

Well, I finally broke down and purchased our flights yesterday. I had been wavering back and forth between flying into Vancouver or flying into Seattle and renting a car to drive up to Vancouver, mainly to avoid the long lines for immigration at YVR. I had the finances all figured out on paper and it was almost equal (factoring in rental car cost (both directions, GAS, hotel rooms and meals) but once I heard about the US Direct program I decided to go that route. Then it was just a matter of finding a good airfare. I know there will probably be cheaper ones in the coming months, but I wanted to have it all settled, since there's 4 of us going. After I got rid of my initial headache from dealing with United, I feel much better now, having it all taken care of!

[johnb0529]

I also confirmed with Princess that all ships are participating in the program. The key is that you need to have your luggage tags on your luggage BEFORE you board your flight (or only do carry-on). If you luggage does not get flagged to go directly to the cruise ship, you will have to go to immigration and baggage claim.

 

The Princess Cruise Reps don't know anything about the program yet (at least the 3 I talked to didn't). But if you can the Vancouver Princess Office, they are very nice and will give you all in information.

[CruiseIsGood]

I wrote Carnival to ask if they are participating in this, and talk about a vague response!

 

Dear Denise,

 

Thank you for visiting the Carnival Cruise Lines' Web site. We sincerely apologize for the delay you have experienced receiving a response to your e-mail. We checked Carnival's press releases on our web site and we do not see a press release for the news story mentioned in your e-mail. We suggest you visit http://www.carnival.com/CMS/Articles/News_Release_Landing.aspx periodically for current press releases.

 

Again, thank you and hope to have you aboard on a future "Fun Ship" Cruise!

 

Kind regards,

[3some]

I found this on the Carnival site.

http://www.carnival.com/cms/Static_Templates/EMB_US_Direct_Guest.aspx

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't mention going from ship to airport which is what we need.

[CruiseIsGood]

Thanks! I hadn't seen that before, so maybe it's new. I'm pretty sure that if it's good going out, it's good coming in too.

 

Unfortunately, it's effective June 1 and I leave May 11. :(

[Texasbob]

Here's a link about using the program to check in onboard ship if you fly out the same day. It sounds wonderful.

 

http://www.yvr.ca/guide/around/onboard/?id=5#royal

[uromac]

Hi!

 

We're leaving on the Infinity for Alaska on August 7th and we wondering if anyone has gone through this new program and could comment on how it worked!

 

Thanks

 

Melissa

[vhord]

Hi!

 

wondering if anyone has gone through this new program and could comment on how it worked!

 

We just returned 6/24 on a southbound cruise on the RCI Vision of the Seas. We paid to participate ($30) in the US Direct Program.

 

We were issued special tags to put on our luggage outside our room and were supposed to be issued our boarding passes in the lounge the next morning then be put on a bus and taken to the back of the airport to avoid the need for US customs.

 

Everything seemed to work well for everyone but us and another couple. I do not know who dropped the ball (RCI or America West) but for some reason our boarding passes did not arrive on board.:eek: We did not discover this until almost all the boarding passes had been issued. We had to catch a different bus and get our boarding passes at the airport. We therefore had to go through US customs with our carry-ons as our other bags had already been taken directly. We were lucky that our flight did not leave until 2 p.m. so we had plenty of time.

[Barneylee]

We used U.S. Direct on our 6/19/05 sailing - it was fantastic! Very easy and very fast. Signs in the airport are easy to follow. Only confusion (not for us) seemed to be on the plane before arriving in Vancouver - I overheard others saying they didn't have to fill out the Canada customs declaration card they give you on the plane because they "weren't going through customs." We played it safe and filled out the cards anyway....and were happy we did - because you DO need to fill them out and other people on the plane who didn't fill them out had to do so at the counter (while we walked by and got to board the bus).

[uromac]

Thanks for everyone's advice -

 

- right now some of our group is paying for the transfers from the ship to the airport from Celebrity for $20 per person. The travel agent said this is for the U.S. Direct program and the timing is OK for a 12pm flight (time was changed due to Delta flight cancellation on their part) according to Celebrity (I spoke to them also). Hopefully it will work out! Please let us know about any more comments (boarding passes, luggage, customs, etc.) that you can think of!!

 

Melissa

[vhord]

With RCI the transfers were also $20 ea. but before we departed we had to pay an additional $15 ea. for "express baggage handling" (or something like that). That was for handling the luggage from ship to plane I think. We set our luggage out the night before and did not see it again until we reached out final destination. And it was there!!!!!!!:)

[Joy2Day]

I used the onboard checkin when disembarking the Dawn Princess on 6/27. The instructions I received onboard were to report to the Vista Lounge in the 8:00 - 8:45 timeframe. When I went down to the lounge at 8:10 am, the line stretched from the Atrium (mid-ship) to the Vista Lounge (aft). I stood in that line over an hour. There were only 4 people to hand out the boarding passes for hundreds of people.

 

After receiving our boarding passes, those of us with Princess transfers were told to proceed to the forward gangway via the forward doors by the Princess Theatre -- however, we had to make our way through the Atrium area which was clogged with people trying to disembark via the main gangway mid-ship. After weaving through the Atrium, we found out that we had to go out onto the promenade deck through the main mid-ship doors then proceed to the forward gangway. At least twice in the process, we were told that we could put something away, only to have someone else ask for it 50 feet later. Once we exited the ship, the process at the airport was very smooth.

 

When I got to my destination, my bags didn't make it. We had a 5-hour delay in Minneapolis. For at least the first hour of that delay, passengers (and their late-arriving luggage) continued to be loaded onto the plane. Due to weather, Minneapolis became a zoo that night. But that was about an hour after we had landed. I realize that a million times could have happened in Minneapolis. However, only 7 people were missing luggage on the flight to Omaha and we all were missing all of our bags. Everyone else on the plane received all their luggage. The common denominator was that we had all used the onboard checkin. Other passengers that had disembarked from the Dawn Princess, but had not used the onboard checkin received all their luggage, so obviously our luggage could have made the flight. (The gate agent checked the computer which showed that our luggage had been loaded in Vancouver.)

 

 

If you are not leaving Vancouver on a busy cruise day (weekends, I think), I would not recommend spending the extra money to participate in the program.

[Coral]

Hi Joy2Day -

 

Has your luggage shown up yet? I really hope it reaches you if it hasn't already.

 

We participated in this program this year on the Sun Princess. It just happened it was the first week in which the Sun Princess was doing it - it was also pure chaos in the Vista Lounge. They started calling numbers and no one knew their numbers, people had tours coming up and they were not getting called.....

 

Once we got to the airport - our bus was routed to the main terminal, not the cruise ship terminal so we had to stand in line with everyone who left the ship earlier then us and hadn't paid the $15 while listening to our guide saying "the cruise ship terminal is wonderful, I don't know why we are here"..

 

The only positive thing was that my luggage actually made it to Lincoln (we went through Denver). After all the chaos that day (flight was also delayed hours due to storms), I thought for sure I would never see it again.

 

While I had great success with it 2 years ago, I am not sure I would do it again.

[Texasbob]

and it worked reasonably well. We could have left the ship an hour earlier, thoough. We were not taking RCI transportation; they were calling people up by flight time for their transportation. We waited for our later flight; when the place started getting empty, I went up to the United line, and I was the last pickup! It was no problem after that. My son and I took a taxi to the Seabus terminal, crossed over to N. Vancouver, took bus #326 and spent the morning at the Capilano bridge. We tootled around Vancouver on the bus heading south until we ran out of bus line, then took a taxi the rest of the way. We would have trouble doing that if we had to lug around our bags, and get to the airport early for checkin.

[Joy2Day]

Coral,

Thanks for asking about my luggage. The gate agent was very stressed and overworked on Monday night. I completed the claim, but he never filed it. The bags got into Omaha on Tuesday morning, but without a claim, they didn't know what to do with them. They finally got to my house around 7 pm.

[Midwest gal]

We are on the Dawn leaving July 11th. We are flying directly from the US to Vancouver w/Princess air and have also purchased the transfers. With our final docs there was info in there regarding US Direct. Sounds like its great, but do we have to pay anything extra for this being we have already paid for the transfers. Thanks

[Coral]

We are on the Dawn leaving July 11th. We are flying directly from the US to Vancouver w/Princess air and have also purchased the transfers. With our final docs there was info in there regarding US Direct. Sounds like its great, but do we have to pay anything extra for this being we have already paid for the transfers. Thanks

 

On the Sun Princess - we had to pay $15 in addition to the transfers.

[lrn376]

Did US direct today(July 1) with Celebrity. It worked fantastic. Only way to go to avoid Vancouver customs and avoid long lines.