Disembark Vancouver Canada Place

[dna1990]

Getting off the ship in Vancouver, what are the steps and pathways between when you claim your luggage - and you can get a taxi?  Are their porters that can assist?  I assume there is some customs process once you have your bags...

 

In some videos, you see taxis down in the garage area that looks like they could pick up there....or is that only for passengers being dropped off?

 

 

Trying to formulate plan from the time we are reunited with bags - until we arrive at the YVR airport.  We are looking first at taxis, as navigating to the SkyTrain with bags will be a little strenuous for us.  We also likely have an extra bag from a pre-cruise tour portion of this trip.  And it seems there is a subtle advantage to taxis over Uber in terms of some dedicated traffic lanes?

 

Would love to stay at PanPacific one night to rest, and I understand they may have a process to help with baggage...but peak pricing makes that a tough call.  Even is picking another downtown hotel, still have to develop a plan to get bags over there.

[martincath]

5 hours ago, dna1990 said:

Getting off the ship in Vancouver, what are the steps and pathways between when you claim your luggage - and you can get a taxi? 

So unfortunately I have to start with the caveat that not everyone faces the same steps... if your ship already entered Canada at a port earlier in the cruise and you handed in a customs form in e.g. Victoria, then odds are high you won't even see a CBSA officer (we of course reserve the right to interview folks, but cruises generally have Immigration done entirely remotely - anyone whose file 'pings' due to DUIs or whatever generally has an announcement made to come to X room to see CBSA, and their onboard account flagged so they cannot disembark without ship security system giving an alert). This is quite common for start and end of season one-ways, a lot of cruiselines schedule trips that go Van>Vic>Sea or vice versa, but some Vancouver RTs also include local stops in Vic, Prince Rupert, Nanaimo.

 

If Vancouver is your Port of Entry (typical on both one-ways from Seward/Whittier and Vancouver RTs where all other ports are in the US) then you can expect to have to hand a customs form over to CBSA, maybe answer a question or two ("How long are you staying?" most likely), unless your declaration form has something of note or you seem suspicious expect literally seconds per person in the queue to process.

 

So you walk off the ship, grab your bags, hand a form over to CBSA or not, and then walk out - the taxi area you refer to from videos is indeed where you get in one (or rather, where you wait for possibly quite a long time in a slowly-moving queue to get in one if it's a day with several ships!)

 

As to the practicalities of moving your own bags vs. using a porter - there are porters around, but how easy/quick it will be to get one to help you is all about pax volumes... how many other ships, how big are they, on your day? Only ship in port - small queues, easy to find a porter probably! Four ships with 10,000+ pax? Expect to do everything yourself or wait quite a while for any service... although the great thing about Uber and its ilk is that even folks who do not want to use them gain from their existence in these circumstances, as every person who does head outside to call an Uber is one less person flighting for space in the cab line with you!

 

If you normally need a porter at the airport with the number of bags you plan to bring, then I agree SkyTrain becomes infeasible - even Uber etc. would be troublesome as they now pickup outside on the street (they are allowed to enter P2 to drop folks off, but NOT to pick anyone up). There's no real relevance to Cabs vs. Ubers except for this (lack of) pier access - I can't think of any travel lanes on the way to YVR that a taxi could use but an Uber could not, we do have HOV lanes and Bus lanes, but any vehicle with enough people can use the former and neither taxis nor ubers can use the latter.

 

If you cannot handle all your own bags with one hand free, you won't be able to safely Self-Disembark either - shipside staff might not enforce you trundling your bags down the gangplank, but shoreside will, there's someone stationed at the escalator to stop anyone with both hands full from using it (elevator queues get long, as anyone with a scooter, wheelchair etc. needs to use those plus anyone with too many bags!) If you actually could handle schlepping your own bags off the ship, then you can definitely manage to use SkyTrain - the Canada Line uses different vehicles, with loads of legroom and underseat storage. A couple with 2 big suitcases, 2 carryons, and a big purse or camera bag each definitely fit in each pair of seats - that's how the Missus and I travel to YVR and I'm both tall and wide!

 

So assuming you find a porter, or can manage to roll your own bags around, if the cab queue is  looking annoyingly long take the elevator upstairs to street level - the Pan Pacific hotel has its own little cab pickup spot, with bell staff to call one for you if there aren't any waiting. Able to cross the street, or walk two blocks? Then the Fairmont Waterfront and Pacific Rim respectively also have their own cab ranks - the latter especially should result in a quicker cab pickup as it has its very own 'through road' between Canada Pl and Cordova St so it's accessible from either road easily.

 

Since it sounds like you haven't got a flight booked yet, I would urge you to stay in town - taking an early flight (anything before 10am) means you basically avoid all the hassles that cruisers cause at YVR, due to the sheer volume of pax all arriving within a short span of time. Avoid those cruisers and as long as you get to YVR in time to check your bags (hard cutoff of at least one hour preflight!) you will definitely have time to get through Security and Preclearance even without Global Entry or NEXUS. Anyone can prebook a timeslot at Security these days too.

 

There's so much to see and do locally - and so many day-trip out of town attractions - that if your dollar and time budgets can handle it you can easily fill a week or more without any downtime, so it's a real shame not to at least add in a little time post-cruise to see some stuff as well as to open more potential flights up!

 

There are hotels an awful lot cheaper than the PP, and even if you end up in an airport hotel or simply taking a redeye home same day, luggage storage downtown is pretty cheap (the Pan Pacific bell staff will hold your bags even if you are not a guest for $10; pier storage is the most expensive at $13; a whole mess of other places can be found close by with a Google search - many stores, hotels etc. have signed up to make a few bucks with luggage hero, bounce and similar services) so you can have a wander around during the day without your big bags slowing you down.

 

As an absolute worst-case, consider a coach tour - you'll pay more through the line than booking independently, and with the possibility of customs issues you may be forced to claim your bags and move them past CBSA yourselves even with a cruiseline tour, but if you are hitting Vic before Van you may get a truly seamless 'bags outside cabin door, onto our bus, emptied out for us at the airport' experience that you might feel is worth the markup... note that you will never be able to do 'bags outside cabin door, collect them at home airport' here as US CBP insist on all pax being precleared dropping their own bags off for inspection!

 

Sorry, rambled on a bit there rather than strictly answering what you asked - but hopefully you got some value from the other hints and suggestions.

Edited March 10 by martincath