20260916 Wednesday, September 16, 2026 Disembarkation and Onward Home

20260916 Wednesday, September 16, 2026 Disembarkation and Onward Home

Princess has a new program for passengers who have TSA PreCheck or Global Entry status, which allows them to skip going through Canadian customs and immigration in the cruise ship terminal.  So-called “Direct to Airport” passengers were gathered together in the Explorer’s Lounge, where they were given excursion stickers matching their luggage group, and then dispatched in batches to load buses and head to the airport.  

Vancouver Convention Center next to Canada Place from our window.

The ship docked at the Canada Place wharf, which is conveniently situated on the waterfront, but because street traffic in Vancouver is bad, it took nearly an hour to get from the ship to the airport.  Instead of getting dropped off at the curb, we entered by some loading docks and then walked into a large holding area where our luggage was segregated by luggage group tags.  We had no trouble finding and collecting our bags before then heading off to the airline check-in counters.

Although we skipped customs and immigration in the cruise ship terminal, we still had to go through US Customs and Immigration to get to our Seattle-bound flight.  Fortunately, there was a Nexus/Global Entry lane which was empty, so we pretty much walked straight through.  All we had to do was stop briefly and look into a camera on an automated kiosk, and then on to an agent who asked if we had anything to declare.  We got waved through after simply saying “no”.  

We were at the boarding gate before 11am where we ran into a pair of women we had been seated with during the one dinner we had with reservations during the cruise.  They were heading to Arizona via Seattle, but were on the flight departing before ours.  We were surprised to see our flight was departing just one hour after theirs, so Alaska Airlines must be running these flights very frequently during the week shuttling passengers between YVR and SEA. 

The excellent weather has been following us all the way from Alaska as we arrived in Vancouver with beautiful blue skies and temperatures in the 60s.  

The flight from Vancouver headed west over Vancouver Island and then turned south over the Olympic Peninsula, which isn’t as familiar to us as the terrain over the I-5 Corridor and Cascade foothills.  Hood Canal and all the inlets and waterways of southern Puget Sound create quite a complex web, but we were able to recognize the twin spans of the Tacoma Narrows bridges and the huge and glorious Mt. Rainier as the jet began its turn to the north for its approach into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Unlike Denali, Mt. Rainier was completely visible with nothing but blue skies all around.  

Since we had cleared US Customs and Immigration in Vancouver, we were able to walk off the plane and collect our bags without delay and actually were able to catch an earlier Whidbey Sea-Tac shuttle, getting us home 90 minutes earlier.  It’s quite unusual for us to be able to make it home during daylight hours and in time for dinner.  After all the expensive meals in Alaska, it was comforting to be able to grab dinner at Sonic for just $7 each.  It’s good to be home.