Introduction:This cruise was planned approximately one and a half years in advance as our honeymoon. My wife and I were married in January, but had to wait until May for the first Alaskan cruise that Carnival offered. The cruise's main attraction was the day in Glacier Bay, which is only offered a few times each year. We spent four days in Ohio before the cruise visiting my wife's family, and then flew to Seattle. From Seattle we took the Quick Shuttle from Seattle/Tacoma Airport to the Vancouver area. It worked out to be cheaper doing that, than flying directly into Vancouver, or renting a car and driving there. The only real downside is that the shuttle ride takes about five hours since there are several stops to pick up and drop off others. We stayed the night at the Park Inn, which was very nice. The next day we spent some time down at the Vancouver waterfront, and then got a cab to the pier.

Embarkation:We got to the pier around 11 AM, and the porters were quick to take our bags. The embarkation process at the Vancouver Cruise Terminal is probably one of the longest I have been through. The line for the security checkpoint was extremely long, and didn't move for about 20 minutes. I wasn't overly worried about this, since they weren't even loading the ship yet. I asked one of the Carnival reps. if there was a VIP line, and he said he didn't know, so we just stayed in the regular line. Once they opened up all the security lanes, it went quickly. We then had to enter the line to go through US Customs. This also went very slowly, almost a half-hour, since there were only four or five agents to check hundreds of people. Once we were through Customs, we approached a kiosk where two Carnival reps were standing. There were two lines, and the one to the left had two signs. One sign said "in transit guests" (back to back cruisers) and right behind it was another that said VIP. Being in a suite, and Platinum, we got in the left line. Once we got to the lady, she said we needed to be in the line to the right, and that her line was for the back-to-back cruisers. I pointed to the VIP sign, and she said, "oh, ok" and handed us the health declaration papers. Dumbfounded Carnival employees seemed to be a developing trend. She then pointed us to the VIP check in desk, and off we went. After this, everything went fast and we were on the ship in only a few minutes. The whole process took about an hour, and didn't seem very organized. I attribute the lack of knowledge on the Carnival employees' part to the fact that this was the first cruise of the season out of Vancouver, so there were bound to be problems. One security officer did help things by addressing the crowd when she escorted several back-to-back cruisers past everyone. She did a good job informing new guests about why the others were passing them. That little twenty-second oration probably eliminated 50 complaints from the angry folks waiting in the customs line.

Overall, the whole embarkation process at Vancouver needs a lot of work. It shouldn't take an hour to board the ship when I can be onboard in 15 minutes anywhere else. Customs is mostly to blame, so its good that Alaska cruises will be leaving from Seattle starting next year. I also think that Carnival needs to extend its VIP embarkation to all steps of the process. The current system doesn't really do much since the only benefit is skipping the line to get to the check in counter. Read more