The shipping agent here in Vancouver contacted us early on a Monday morning telling us that our container had arrived and that they had to deliver it by Wednesday without paying any additional storage costs either at the rail road or at their warehouse. We also had to make an appointment with Canada customs immediately and get in touch with the BC liquor control board to get an import license for our wine. Getting the appointment with Canada customs was no problem, however, the earliest we could go there was on Wednesday morning which meant that we had to get the container stored somewhere. Getting a liquor license was a different story, the shipping agent couldn't give me a phone number to call so after surfing the internet I called to an office where they couldn't help me but advised me to contact the liquor distribution branch. If you Google the liquor control board and the liquor distribution branch, you end up on the same website, and I really don't know what the difference is. Anyway, after being connected to 5 different departments, I finally spoke to someone who was able to assist me. She got the import license sorted out and we were good to go to Canada customs on Wednesday morning.
After paying CAD$320 to import our 60 bottles of wine (that was a small price to pay given the prices for wine and liquor in this country), the customs officer cleared out container without inspecting it.
The delivery of the container was scheduled for Monday, December 19th and just before 8am, the truck driver called me to let me know he was parked somewhere outside.
With our help, he backed up the container into the loading bay and left the container there. The crew was supposed to arrive between 8.30 and 9.30am, however, no crew showed up. When we called the shipping agent, they told us that the container had arrived (as if we hadn't noticed it...) and that the crew should be there shortly. Finally, 2 guys showed up an hour later and started to unload. Of course, it took way longer than expected and the concierge charged us extra for having the elevator blocked an additional 2 hours. The guys brought all of our 177 boxes into our apartment and unwrapped the furniture, however, left us with unpacking most of the stuff ourselves.
As great as the service was in the Netherlands, the service we got from the Canadian counterparts definitely did not meet our expectations. In the end, we were happy to have our belongings before the holidays and thanks to our first visitor Yvonne, who helped me unpack and clean, our house started to look like a home again.
