Day 01 - 09/16/26 - Embarkation Day

 The embarkation for this cruise was one of the most different that we have ever done. We woke up at 5 AM in Burien at our home and prepared for our journey north. We left the house around 6 AM headed for Surrey, British Columbia where we are leaving our car with cruise friends. The drive up was pleasant and not many holdups. There were a couple sections which had pretty intense fog, but we made it through those safely. The border crossing into Canada on the truck route was uneventful and very smooth. There was one car ahead of us and they cleared just as we reached the stop sign. The Canadian border guard was efficient and asked the typical questions and we were soon through the border. We drove about 20 minutes further north and found our friends townhouse. The total trip was about 2 1/2 hours.

We had not seen them in about 3 years since we sailed with them on the grand South America cruise. We've certainly kept up via Facebook. We had a chance to briefly chat and enjoy some tea and cookies before they drove us to the King George light rail station, which is actually called the skytrain here in BC.  At the ticket kiosk, we purchased two senior three zone tickets, said our goodbyes and boarded the train. The fare for a 45 minute ride to the waterfront station next to the cruise terminal was only $3.30 US per person.

The skytrain had a number of stops and was relatively full the whole trip until we reached the downtown area and the majority of the riders got off before our last stop. Disembarking the train, We took a couple sets of Escalators up to the street level and a cruiser was at most 100 yards away. Docked at the terminal was the Zaandam, Coral Princess, and Island Princess. We were instructed to go around the west side of the terminal building where we entered at 11:10 AM. We went through the boarding process, security, and US inmigration before boarding the Zaandam. We were in our room, almost exactly an hour after we began the preceding process. We did the mandatory watching the Safety video and checked in at our muster station before going up to the Lido for a little bite to eat.

They were periodic calls for people to complete the muster drill process and at 1:20pm a call went out from the cruise director over the PA system that 200 people had still to go through the muster drill process. Our scheduled departure was 2 PM.  The captain came on and gave his speech about Safety which completed the muster drill . At about 1:50 PM there was an announcement from the front desk for a couple of passengers to immediately go to the front desk. Just after that, the Capt. came back on the PA system and said we had a couple people that were still in the cruise terminal and we were waiting for them. He ndicated that once they were on board, we were prepared to shove off and head off our cruise. That occurred at around 2:08 PM.

The sail away from Vancouver is really pretty and just after leaving the berth we headed under the Lion's Gate bridge, which is also very scenic.  I spent most of the disembarkation time up on deck 10 out in the open photographing the departure. I was also able to call a long time cruise friend and chat with her which typically do on departure day. I then joined Angela and the Crows Nest for a short time before heading to the room and unpacking. I also took the opportunity to update this blog.

We've traveled on the Zaandam many times and it's been really interesting to see all of the newbies who need some additional handholding to gain their sea legs and their sense of what needs to happen and where it is located. We tried to help where we could.  After having sailed on Princess recently, the vibe on this ship is definitely laid-back.

We ate our customary dinner in the LIDO and attended a Mariner cocktail party before doing a little shopping.  There we chatted with the first passenger that we recognized from a previous HAL sailing. In the clothing shop, all of the Alaska merchandise is 75% off as this is the last cruise of the season.  I took the opportunity to purchase a black & red plaid Alaska coat and Angela found  a shirt she liked.  The entertainment was a brief cast show to perk interest in the upcoming production shows. Afterwards we listened to Marcel play & sing in the piano bar.  He was pretty good. It was then time to get some needed sleep.










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