We are in our early 50’s, aren’t married and have no kids, we have been on more than 50 previous cruises on 6 different cruise lines, most of which to the Caribbean. We’ve cruised with NCL before but not for more than 15 years. We chose this cruise to check out the new ship and because a Pacific Coastal is a nice change of pace from a Caribbean itinerary.

We chose to fly in the day of sailing to reduce time away from home and avoid the expense of a hotel in Vancouver. We normally fly to the embarkation port a day prior to sailing in case of travel delays, but since sail away was scheduled for overnight and the first port was Victoria, we decided the risk was minimal and flew in the day of sailing. Our flight landed just before 1PM in Vancouver. My plan was to take the train from the airport to the port, but since it was raining, we decided to hop on a transfer. After finding our luggage and exiting the baggage area we easily found the NCL desk and asked about the transfer. They took our name and room number, so they could charge the transfer to our onboard account, they also took our checked bag and transported to the ship separately. Then sent us out to the pick-up area where we waited only about ten minutes before a bus arrived. Because of traffic the ride to the ship took almost an hour. The only complaint about the transfer was that the bus smelled horribly of stale cigarette smoke. At least we didn’t get wet since we boarded and exited the bus under cover.

There was no waiting to check in, just a lot of walking. First through security then upstairs to check in then back downstairs to board the ship. We arrived right when the muster drill was starting, so we went directly to our muster station, The Local Bar and Grill, to participate. Read more