Our first cruise was on June 13 2009 on Holland America's Zuiderdam from Vancouver, up the Inside Passage, to Alaska.
Check in for Alaska cruises is at Canada Place in downtown Vancouver at the Pan Pacific Hotel.
For passengers arriving by car, being dropped off by someone, they can drive into the underground parking lot to the passenger pick up/drop off area. Cars are allowed there for a few minutes, long enough to drop off passengers and their luggage, and then leave again. There are several parking spots and often there will be a backlog of cars waiting for a spot. There are several parking attendants directing traffic and assisting drivers to back in to available spots. If coming by private vehicle, there are attendants who will assist with the luggage. Namely giving out luggage tags which the passenger fills out with their room number on the ship. The attendants then take the luggage and have it taken to the ship.
We arrived by Skytrain, getting off at the last stop at the Waterfront Station at about 11:45am. Check in for the Zuiderdam started at noon, so we were in good time. We wanted to check in as soon as possible and get on board the Zuiderdam and start exploring. We walked over to Canada Place, and here it was a good idea that our luggage was on wheels and we carried backpacks. We walked down the sidewalk past the area where cars were dropping off passengers. This was our mistake. When we reached the check in area where passengers from the various cruise ships were being sorted into the correct line up, an attendant saw us with our luggage and directed us back to the luggage check in. Basically this is the same area as the passenger drop off/pick up with private cars. An attendant at a desk handed us luggage tags. We didn't know our room number but he had a reservations sheet and found our room number. We filled in the tags, attached them to our suitcases, and the attendants took them from us.
Now armed with only my purse, carrying our travel documents, and our cameras we went back to the sorting area. The only ships in that day were the Zuiderdam and Princess Cruise's Sapphire Princess. We proceeded to the metal detector. Our carry on baggage was put through a conveyor belt x-ray. A man ahead of us tried unsuccessfully to go through the metal detector but kept setting it off. They stopped him and motioned me to go through. I did with no problems. Kerry was behind me and set off the metal detector. He has a metal plate in his foot which he explained to the security guard. She waved her wand around him and sure enough it started pinging at his foot. She waved him through.
Next on our stop was a lady sorting out the passengers by country asking everyone from Britain and Australia to go straight and Canadians and Americans in another line. This was the US Customs. Our line up had two customs officers. The line up for all other nationalities had five customs officers. Our line up was going faster. We had a ten minute wait here. Once we got through we were sent through a large room, a big holding area for all the passengers to check in. There were about 25 agents behind desks ready to check in the cruise passengers. Most of the desks were empty so we were ushered to an agent right away. She told us that very soon the area would be full of passengers and they would be checking in 400 people per hour. She took our photos and issued us the cards we had to carry with us at all times. This card was our room key and also to be used if we made any shipboard purchases. She gave us a map of the ship and told us we could board and go up to the Lido deck where lunch was being served.
We headed to the gangplank and photographers were waiting to take our welcome aboard picture which would be available for purchase later on board. It was now about 12:10pm. The whole check in process was very speedy for us.
Later on we heard from some passengers who arrived a little later in the afternoon and they had a one to two hour wait before they came on board the Zuiderdam
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