We booked the 3-night Pacific Coastal cruise from Vancouver BC to Victoria BC, Astoria, Oregon, and back to Seattle. We live in Astoria, so that was one of the reasons for taking this particular itinerary. This is the second time we've done this cruise, both times on Oosterdam. This was our 17th cruise, second for HAL. We've sailed with Carnival, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and Holland America.

We drove to Seattle and took Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver. Nothing could be easier. The train is just across the street from the SkyTrain monorail, and just a couple of stops down is the cruise terminal, and SkyTrain is just across the street. Very easy!

Check-in was fairly uneventful, but HAL has an odd way of seating everyone in lines of chairs and then calling them by rows. It would be better to just let them queue up in the lines and wait for the next agent, since they have the Tensa-barriers already set up to do so. Read more