You enter the Amtrak building and are put in a line similar to checking in at an airport without the familiar touching and metal detection. Your bags are weighed in which you really do need to check like you would at the airport; complete with the same 50 weight limit per bag. You can go over if you want to pay. I do not recall if there was a major limitation to the amount of bags you check, just the amount they weigh each. Once you are done with that you go to a seating area similar to a gate. They were under new construction so check if you will be doing this soon. Although you will be able to grab coffee and breakfast on the train, it is a limited menu. Get your last cup of coffee before entering the train. The seating is confirmed but you are assigned an actual seat number once they are almost ready to board. The train is mostly 2X2 so every seat is more or less a window seat. If you make nice with the conductor prior to boarding I would ask for the left side of the train as it is more scenic on the way up to vancouver. The seats are roomy, comfy, and do have overhead areas for storing smaller bags. The "bar car" has a limited menu of snacks, coffee, drinks, and breakfast items which were all prepared by microwave. It was not a bad deal and we enjoyed our breakfast like we would on any normal commute day via a gas station or 7-11.
The train ride was about 3 hours and change. There are a few brief stops on the way up so if the seat next to you is open, it probably will not be by the end of the trip. The scenery is beautiful with the sea to your left and the terrain on your right. We saw some bald eagles for the first time which the friendly conductor points out via the PA system.
(views from the train)
HINT OF THE MORNING- memorize the Canadian National Anthem and prepare to sing it for a bonus. This is an actual serious tip. Once you get to Vancouver they will hand you the usual customs form. They will only allow 1 car to get off at a time. Following those cars that are considered business class they will literally ask for volunteers to sing O ' Canada over the public announcement speakers. If someone from your car does this, you get off first, which means you go through customs first, and technically get to the ship first. No one from our car did this and we began to panic because it was now getting close to 12:15 by the time we were allowed off the train. They line up your bags along a fence and you easily pick them up and get into line for customs. As my blood pressure rose up fearing we would miss out on the early cruise fun and possibly lose out on sail away events it quickly calmed. We were through customs and into a cab within tweny minutes of getting off the train. At the port within thirty. I think the cab cost us about 8 dollars or so. He took American money so no worries.
We pulled up to the port, dropped off our bags to a friendly porter who was shocked when I handed him a tip ( usually they stand there until you give them one) and got into line. This was the fastest check in process we have ever experienced. They were friendly and fast which is perfect. We were on the ship within thirty minutes from the time we dropped our bags, to check in, customs again (you go through Canadian and then American before getting on the ship as you will not go through customs again in Seward(weird). More to follow regarding sail away. But all in all we were on the ship by 1:15 if I remember correctly so 1 hour from getting off the train from being on the last car to get off so do not worry.
When we checked in we were given only one WOW card which we didn't realize at first was a mistake. Then when we got our seapass cards we noticed that Lindsays C&A status was not on the card. We went to guest relations right away and they were able to look it up and give us a coupon book. However, they could not give us a second WOW card as those are only given out at the pier (or so they say).
After that was settled we went to begin our cruise ship ritual, some opt for a DOD, some opt for the honey stung chicken for us its the hot tub. Once we got on the ship we grabbed some lounge chairs, change into our bathing suits that we keep packed in our carry on and get into the hot tub as soon as we can. The pools were also suprisingly warm, not sure if they are heated, but we think they were as they were the warmest we have had. This goes for the solarium and the outside pool deck pool. We had lunch at the Park Cafe, which is where we had lunch almost every day and walked around the ship for a little bit. At around 3:00 we stopped at our cabin and our bags were already waiting for us and we met our room steward who we found annoying throughout the week. (every day around 7 oclock she would knock on our door to see if she could make up our room. We had late seating dinner and we were always in there getting dressed, you would think by the third night she would have figured this out, but this continued all week long) Muster drill was at 3:45 and then we went up for sailaway. Typical sailaway party with very few participants dancing most people were around the outer decks snapping pictures of the scenery. We set sail around 4:30.
We went to the welcome aboard show-nothing to write home about- our CD was Paul Rudder and the activities manager was darren (who was also the Activities manager when we were on the enchantment in january) Dinner the first night was good. It was our first night with Ioan and Ivan who were the best dining team we have had. We were at a table for 2, #491, located at the bottom of the stairs. Lindsay had ceasar salad and the fish, Jason had the vidalia onion tart and prime rib. We skipped dessert the first night, and Ioan thought something was wrong. Nope- just not very hungry. All week they thought we didnt like the food when we wouldn't clear our plates- I guess american cruises really do have the reputation of being glutenous.
After dinner we went to the piano bar and enjoyed Kelly Goodrich who we would enjoy all week long.
Tip of the day: Try to get on the rock climbing wall before sailaway as once you are moving on this itinerary the winds were too much for the wall...or so it seemed.
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