3 Cruise Ship Medevacs in 6 Days Off BC Coast, Latest From Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas
If you're sailing a 7-day Vancouver-departure Alaska itinerary like Serenade of the Seas', or on Celebrity Solstice or Disney Wonder, check that your travel insurance specifically covers emergency medical evacuation, as helicopter rescues near Port Hardy can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Confirm this coverage before you sail, since the article notes these operations aren't cheap and standard policies may not include it.
Three medevacs in six days off the BC coast is a lot of activity for one squadron, and the pattern is the story here: Disney Wonder on September 8, Celebrity Solstice on September 12 (124 miles out), then Serenade of the Seas on September 14 (280 miles out, 2,143 passengers aboard). My read is this shows how far offshore Alaska-bound ships from Vancouver operate, and how reliant they are on RCAF's 442 Squadron rather than onboard resources alone. The article is careful to say we don't know the medical details in any of these cases, so I wouldn't read too much into "why" beyond distance and bad luck. What I would do in a reader's shoes: price out medevac coverage specifically, not just trip cancellation insurance, before booking a similar Vancouver-to-Alaska sailing. Tens of thousands of dollars for a helicopter lift is not a hypothetical here — it happened three times in a week.