"The Canada Place cruise terminal at the Port of Vancouver will welcome a total of 329 cruise ships between March 11 and October 29, 2024. This could translate to a record 1.27 million passengers traveling through the Canada Place cruise terminal in 2024, about 2 percent more than last year."Many ships are converging on Vancouver now and for the next several weeks. This means we have a plethora of options as local residents. As mentioned in yesterday's post, my sister and a friend will be visiting in July so that we can take a 7-day roundtrip journey during the week of my birthday in late July.
However, well before those plans were made, Jay and I picked up a really cheap trip for just five nights. The Holland America Lines keep a number of ships in the area for AK cruises. The ms Noordam is one of them. It will arrive tomorrow from New Zealand but start its regular AK season from Sunday. It must 'waste a bit of time'. So, they created a unique itinerary that only includes Ketchikan, Alaska and Prince Rupert, BC Canada. Many of the remaining remaining hours will be spent going and coming through the wonderful 'Inside Passage' between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia.
We can never get enough of seeing this area from the water. It's our backyard but there is little to no road access to the vast majority of it. We purchased this 5-night cruise deal for about the cost of ordinary motels and road-trip fast food. We're always awestruck and enamored with the views and service on these amazing floating hotels and will be leaving with another 1900 guests on the ms Noordam tomorrow at 3:00 pm. We return on the 5th of next month.