Dreaded Deep Cleaning Email

[Wandering_star]

Hello!

 

We are eagerly waiting to board the Star Princess on Sunday in Vancouver for a 10 day coastal cruise. Last night we received the dreaded deep cleaning email stating that check in will not start until 1pm and embarkation will be from 2pm to 3:30pm. While I greatly appreciate the efforts of Princess to prevent any further illness, I am a little nervous about the ability of the check-in staff and immigration officials to deal with this large amount of people in a relatively short amount of time. Anyone who has cruised in or out of Vancouver knows that despite everyone's best efforts, it can be a total zoo!

 

Anyone have any experience with this? Any advice on what we should do? We're thinking about going down early (we live in Burnaby, so it is just a skytrain ride for us), dropping off our luggage and killing time in our old neighbourhood (we used to live 10 minutes away from Canada Place)... Or is it a better strategy to leave later in the day to hopefully "beat the crowds"?

 

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

[Pam in CA]

I've seen it a total zoo... :( I'd do as you're planning: drop off luggage and head on out. Relax and come back later, maybe just before 3:30pm.

[Kamloops50]

That's nothing new for Canada Place. They quite often do those hours so that

the staff is run off there feet . The Star might be delayed in arriving due to weather in the area . They are currently having a lot of fog in the area which maybe is delaying their arrival.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Kamloops50

[Coral]

Canada Place can be a nightmare even with out this delay.

 

The good news, if there is a good news in this, is that your ship will be super clean!

[Wandering_star]

We've have cruised in/out of Canada Place numerous times without issue, but I know these are unique circumstances... Anyone have any experiences from Canada Place or another port that might give us an idea of what to expect?

 

Thank you!

[waltd]

As Princess has said Noro and deep cleaning. They will not let anyone on till they are satisfied that the job is done. As others have said you can drop your bags off and get out of there for a few hours. With that being said we did that once and when we got back they had just started boarding procedures and the line was out the door. So your choices are get there early and sit in the waiting room for 3 or 4 hours and be at the front of the line or take your chances and come back later and hope they have already started boarding or get in the back of a very long line. The day we boarded we did not make it to the life boat drill. Very late date.

[Bruin Steve]

Hello!

 

We are eagerly waiting to board the Star Princess on Sunday in Vancouver for a 10 day coastal cruise. Last night we received the dreaded deep cleaning email stating that check in will not start until 1pm and embarkation will be from 2pm to 3:30pm. While I greatly appreciate the efforts of Princess to prevent any further illness, I am a little nervous about the ability of the check-in staff and immigration officials to deal with this large amount of people in a relatively short amount of time. Anyone who has cruised in or out of Vancouver knows that despite everyone's best efforts, it can be a total zoo!

 

Anyone have any experience with this? Any advice on what we should do? We're thinking about going down early (we live in Burnaby, so it is just a skytrain ride for us), dropping off our luggage and killing time in our old neighbourhood (we used to live 10 minutes away from Canada Place)... Or is it a better strategy to leave later in the day to hopefully "beat the crowds"?

 

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

We have lived through this...January 3, 2015 on the Crown Princess in Los Angeles...A complete nightmare...

 

They did all this due to a Norovirus "outbreak" approximately six weeks earlier--even though the prior few cruises had very few reported cases...

 

For us, the email came telling us to not show up until after 6:00 pm--for a staggered boarding (depending on deck) between 6:00 and 9:30 with sailaway after 10:00 pm...

 

What they neglected to inform anyone was that Platinum/Elite guests would get priority boarding prior to the announced deck schedule. We sort of knew this and showed up early...Actually, we showed up in San Pedro, near the dock, several hours early and spent a lot of the day walking around town, having lunch, etc. We arrived at the pier at 4:00 pm and found a sizable zoo-like crowd starting to amass...with very little direction or supervision...

 

They did finally show up around 5:00 and started allowing the Elite/Platinum to enter the terminal and check-in, followed by the start of the rest of the horde after all of the Elite/Platinum were processed. Once inside the terminal and checked in, everyone was directed to a seating area--Elite/Platinum, followed by "Group 1", "Group 2", etc., based on arrival time...

 

At 5:30, they started allowing the Elite/Platinum to board...

We were able to get on quickly, get to our cabin to drop off carry-ons, then went right to the dining room for dinner...Smart move by us...We learned later that they had closed off the dining rooms to arriving passengers at around 7:00 pm--so that they had time to rush the diners through dinner, clear the rooms and then free up the crew for their tasks at the muster drill--set for 7:45...Most of the passengers never got dinner...

ALL of the entertainment and activities for that first night of the cruise were canceled...And, of course, magnifying all of this, it was only a 3-night cruise to begin with!

 

IMHO, NOTHING was handled very well...

 

Were I you, I would do as we did: Get there early...be aware that you may not have to wait until the announced boarding times--though it likjely won't be much better. If you are Elite or Platinum, you want to get the advantage of early boarding...if you are not, you, at least want to get into the first boarding group (I don't think they really followed the "deck" thing)...With a compressed boarding day, the crowds will only get worse as time goes on...From what we could tell talking with our ship-mates, even though we ran into that initial zoo outside the terminal, it wasn't half as bad as what people ran into later...

 

Good luck...

[senior lady]

You should be ok. The Star is the only ship in port, so won't be that busy

[Fletch1]

Vancouver has been the worst embarkation port we have experienced. It took over three hours to get on and that was just normal embarkation! Vowed to never embark in Vancouver again.

[tailspintom]

Hello!

 

We are eagerly waiting to board the Star Princess on Sunday in Vancouver for a 10 day coastal cruise. Last night we received the dreaded deep cleaning email stating that check in will not start until 1pm and embarkation will be from 2pm to 3:30pm. While I greatly appreciate the efforts of Princess to prevent any further illness, I am a little nervous about the ability of the check-in staff and immigration officials to deal with this large amount of people in a relatively short amount of time. Anyone who has cruised in or out of Vancouver knows that despite everyone's best efforts, it can be a total zoo!

 

Anyone have any experience with this? Any advice on what we should do? We're thinking about going down early (we live in Burnaby, so it is just a skytrain ride for us), dropping off our luggage and killing time in our old neighbourhood (we used to live 10 minutes away from Canada Place)... Or is it a better strategy to leave later in the day to hopefully "beat the crowds"?

 

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

I would do as you plan. There will be folks arriving from airports and transferring in early with pre-arranged transport.

 

We had a very positive experience on the Star a few years ago on a South American cruise. They needed to do a deep cleaning after a noro outbreak on the previous cruise. While we were under precautionary cleaning and service procedures, the crew was amazingly upbeat and attentive. The Captain, Todd McBain, communicated beautifully though out the 3-4 day

period. The leadership and crew turned a negative into a positive.

[cvpends]

I cruised from Canada Place twice this year. The first time was a zoo, the second time they had completely revamped their boarding system and it was wonderful. Hopefully my recent experience wasn't an anomaly.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited October 3, 2015 by cvpends

[Tweedy]

Just got home from the Star. We docked an hour early @ 6:30 but disembarkation was still delayed by a good 40 mins.

 

As for Noro, there was also an outbreak of a respitory illness which took hold of the ship before Noro did. According to some of the crew, Noro didn't appear until after Honolulu. We saw six ambulances take passengers away... 4 in Hilo and 2 in Kauai. There could of been more in Honolulu but we didn't see any.

 

This is the first cruise where I am truly glad to be home.

[cruisequeen4ever]

Just got home from the Star. We docked an hour early @ 6:30 but disembarkation was still delayed by a good 40 mins.

 

As for Noro, there was also an outbreak of a respitory illness which took hold of the ship before Noro did. According to some of the crew, Noro didn't appear until after Honolulu. We saw six ambulances take passengers away... 4 in Hilo and 2 in Kauai. There could of been more in Honolulu but we didn't see any.

 

This is the first cruise where I am truly glad to be home.

 

 

Wow, that's awful! Glad you escaped the bugs, and I hope the next sailing is a healthy one! [emoji40][emoji568]

[Kamloops50]

Hello!

 

We are eagerly waiting to board the Star Princess on Sunday in Vancouver for a 10 day coastal cruise. Last night we received the dreaded deep cleaning email stating that check in will not start until 1pm and embarkation will be from 2pm to 3:30pm. While I greatly appreciate the efforts of Princess to prevent any further illness, I am a little nervous about the ability of the check-in staff and immigration officials to deal with this large amount of people in a relatively short amount of time. Anyone who has cruised in or out of Vancouver knows that despite everyone's best efforts, it can be a total zoo!

 

Anyone have any experience with this? Any advice on what we should do? We're thinking about going down early (we live in Burnaby, so it is just a skytrain ride for us), dropping off our luggage and killing time in our old neighbourhood (we used to live 10 minutes away from Canada Place)... Or is it a better strategy to leave later in the day to hopefully "beat the crowds"?

 

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

That seems to common with Princess. Our Jan 2016 and Oct 2016 cruise documents say that boarding starts at 1PM.