Background: Family of 4 traveling for a summer family vacation; stumbled on a great cruise price & was able to use miles to fly to/from, so we booked it. This was my 9th cruise (priors with Carnival, Costa, Royal Carribbean, Norwegian, Windjammer), 1st with Holland America, 1st outside of the Carribbean. Kids ages 19 & 16.
Vancouver: Loved, loved, loved the city. Clean, active, lots to offer by way of shopping, dining & activities. More homeless than I expected to see in such a beautiful & well done city--did not harrass us though. Stayed at The Fairmont Vancouver 3 nights pre-cruise--it was decent, but dated & glad we had points to use for this too. Restaurants throughout Vancouver were pricey. Loved Gastown & Granville Island. Didn't realy like Chinatown.
Embarkation: Simple, well organized. Arrived at port 11 ish. Onboard by Noon. Cabins ready promptly by 2pm even though we were warned about possible delays due to ship's late arrival to port that morning.
Great amount of Storage (4 closets) & tons of drawers--for 4 people, we still had empty space. Lots of noise when coming into port--banging from below--otherwise very quiet cabin.