Adventurous or crazy?

[Jmariab64]

Hi, all -

For my extra-super anticipated Alaska cruise in May of 2016, I booked the flights into and out of Seattle since the price was less than half of that into and out of Vancouver, and booked the Amtrak Cascades train to Vancouver (still about half the price of the direct flights). Unfortunately, the flight info Seattle lands at about 11 pm, so we're taking the morning train to Vancouver. We'll have a 3 hour window (or thereabouts) to get through customs and to the port.

I can stay with that, and hope nothing happens to delay the train, or I can take a car service to the port extremely early that morning.

So, am I being adventurous or am I crazy? Any opinions? Thanks!

 

[richmo]

Personally, I would prefer to be in the Vancouver area the night before the cruise. I don't know if it happens often, but I've heard the train is prone to flooding issues if there is a lot of rain. I think they run buses when that happens, but I'd hate to risk a cruise because of transportation issues getting from Seattle to Vancouver. Maybe as a backup you could have a car rental reserved at SEA...there's no issues with not using it or cancelling it if you don't prepay.

 

[Jmariab64]

Thanks! I'll look into that!

 

[DizMagic]

We are taking a car service the morning of from Seattle to Port for our coming cruise in 10 days. We are using Pacific Northwest Transport. We got a web-deal for like $350 each way.

 

[wdwwishes]

I'll add a vote for being Vancouver the night before. You never what can happen and I'm one for safe and sound vs. potentially facing issues. I'm sure the train ride is beautiful though.

 

[MelInAZ]

I recently took an Amtrak train from Philadelphia to NYC. We were delayed about 1.5 hours due to a 'passenger strike', which is code for a train hitting a person (sadly, it appears to have been a suicide - we weren't involved, the train that was involved was delayed significantly longer). In talking with other passengers, many of them frequently use Amtrak in the region and while most of the time everything goes smoothly (as it did with my trip three weeks prior to that), but every now and then something pops up. The woman in the seat next to me was delayed for 4 hours after a passenger strike on one trip and several hours after a car accident that caused the track to be blocked (train wasn't involved in that). So, although three hours sounds like a good buffer, I'd get to Vancouver the day before. Good luck!

 

[SirDuff]

The one time I took that train (though going the other way), there was a landslide and we had to get off the train and onto buses to finish the trip into Seattle. I think it was about a two to three hour delay. Admittedly, landslides aren't that common (though, in talking to others, having to get bused isn't totally rare), but I'd we worried about risking it.

 

[terramei]

I just wanted to add that the last time we took the Amtrak from Vancouver to Seattle boarder patrol came aboard the train at the border to check passports. According to a family member who is an engineer for Amtrak that stop is factored into the length of the trip.

Unless it's different crossing into Canada you shouldn't have to worry about extra time to go through customs.

 

[Plaid Princess]

You should also look into whether or not there are any events going on in Vancouver that could cause your train to fill up. Amtrak vastly over sells their trains (particularly in the economy cars) if they get busy. I take the train to/from Comic Con each year in SoCal, and if you don't have a reserved business class seat, you may find yourself watching the full train depart from the platform and told to "wait for the next one."

 

[ImNarek]

I just wanted to add that the last time we took the Amtrak from Vancouver to Seattle boarder patrol came aboard the train at the border to check passports. According to a family member who is an engineer for Amtrak that stop is factored into the length of the trip.

Unless it's different crossing into Canada you shouldn't have to worry about extra time to go through customs.

Crossing into Canada on the Cascades, you go though customs when you disembark. For that reason, I always recommend upgrading to business class on the northbound trip (Seattle to Vancouver) because they disembark and go through customs first.

If all goes smoothly, three hours is plenty of time, but when a train delay does happen they can be long. But the ride is fun.

 

[lunaland]

I work in a small town about half an hour from Seattle that has a train station for the commuter (Sounder) train. The Sounder uses the same tracks as the Cascades. In the Fall/Winter/Spring when we have wet weather there are mudslides all the time that cancel train service. They can't run any trains for a few days after each slide. Google sounder mudslides between Everett and Seattle. It'll give you a pretty good picture of the issue. It can still be very rainy in May.

I have also used Amtrak several times, although on the Coast Starlight not the Cascades. Those trains are always late. Sometimes VERY late. I don't mean to discourage you, but I'd have a backup plan. 3 hours between Seattle and Vancouver, via Amtrak, is not something I would personally risk.

 

[Jmariab64]

Thanks, everyone! I reserved a rental car just in case!

 

[KristiMc]

We did two one-way rentals for our cruise in June. I had looked into the train but the time schedule didn't work with what we wanted to do and the two rentals was cheaper for a family of 4 then the train.

 

[richmo]

Actually, what we wound up doing is renting a car at SEA and keeping it for the entire cruise. When we did the math, it worked out less expensive doing a SEA to SEA roundtrip rather than two one way rentals. It pushed us into a weekly rate (it was about 10 days I think...we spent a couple days in Seattle and one in Whistler/Vancouver before the cruise and one night after in Seattle) and there were no dropoff charges. The other nice thing about having the same car is we were able to leave some stuff in the car (Seattle souvenirs, maybe some laundry) rather than taking up valuable space in the ship.

Of course, doing that brings up the cost of parking in Vancouver, which you also have to add in. Parking near the port can be quite expensive, so what we did was park the car at long term in Vancouver airport (YVR). There are often good coupons on the YVR website (www.yvr.com)...the current one is for $54/week. There are various options for getting from YVR to the port; we took the SkyTrain, which takes you from the airport terminal to a couple minute walk from the port. It was a nice ride and the kids enjoyed the train.

 

[Jmariab64]