My wife and I left Austin, Texas on August 28 and flew to Seattle. We had free tickets on Southwest. We stayed at the Red Cloud by the ballpark. Very nice and close to the Amtrak station which was our departure point on Friday morning.

We arrived at the Amtrak station just in time to check our bags and immediately boarded the train. The train was cheaper than a flight from Seattle to Vancouver and the seats were much nicer and roomier. There were a few stops on the way and the train was a little more than an hour late getting to Vancouver but still arrived in plenty of time before departure.

We took a cab from the train station to the dock which was only a few miles away. The boarding process took less than thirty minutes from when our luggage was unloaded from our cab to when we were standing on the decks of the ship. Read more