We flew out on a Sunday from Atlanta to Dallas, and then Dallas to Vancouver the day before our ship was supposed to leave. It was a fairly long flight. Total flying time was a little over 6 hours. We arrived in Vancouver around 8:45 p.m. and the airport was an absolute ghost town! Our flight seemed to be the only one there.

We then proceeded to get a taxi to take to the Westin Bayshore (which we received through Priceline). It was a very nice hotel right on the water. We were starving and were trying to find something to eat, reasonably priced, and that was hard to do at the time of night we arrived. We ended up eating at a Dairy Queen and it wasn't very good. We could see the Island Princess from our hotel room window. It wasn't very far away. The next morning, Monday, we checked out of the hotel and took a 10 min taxi ride to the port.

Embarkation was a breeze! Princess staff had it so organized. We did arrive pretty early though. We arrived between 11:45-12:00. We unloaded our luggage from the taxi and gave it directly to the baggage handlers at the port. We then went directly inside to check in. Total embarkation process was less than 30 minutes and that included going through security. It was probably the easiest embarkation we have ever been through on a cruise. Read more