Seattle vs Vancouver - am I missing something?

My wife and I are departing on the Serenade of the Seas June 4th out of Vancouver. All of our arangements have been made. :) (It feels SO GOOD to finally be able to say that!)

However, I keep seeing posts from people riding busses from Seattle to Vancouver, or renting cars, or whatever. Did I miss something - what's wrong with Vancouver? :)

Airfare to Seattle is usually much cheaper than to and from Vancouver.

.... but it's a 3 hour bus ride from Seattle to Vancouver. After a long flight from NYC I would not want to sit on a bus for 3 hrs. I'll bite the bullet and pay the extra $ and fly directly to Vancouver.

Ah, airfare. OK, that makes sense.

Hmm... I just checked and from my airport I'd only save (at the current rates) about $50/person. No way to tell what it would have been when I booked the flights months ago.

I was wondering if I had missed the post about the "Vancouver Warewolves" that eat cruise travellers and how you should never stay there overnight.

Ah, airfare. OK, that makes sense.

 

Hmm... I just checked and from my airport I'd only save (at the current rates) about $50/person. .

Consider yourself lucky. Flying from NYC to Vancouver instead of Seattle is definitely going to cost us more than $50 pp.

Our cruise ends in Vancouver. It would have cost over $400 for the two of us to fly out of Vancouver instead of Seattle. I'll try to sit back & enjoy the bus ride.

There's also a service that transfers you and your luggage directly from the airport to the ship with minimal dealings with customs if you land or depart from Vancouver.

And I think alot of people use miles for their trip and can only use them to Seattle.

Airfare was our rational 2 years ago. I got airfare from SLC to Seattle for $150 pp -- compared to $450 to Vancouver :eek: . That extra $300 per person X 4 people traveling paid for two nights hotel stays -- one before and one after -- as well as a rental van both ways, but the total cost on that was only about $350, leaving me with $850 to apply to the onboard expenses. For $50 pp it wouldn't have been worth it -- for $300, it defnitely was.

If we ever end up sailing out of Vancouver again, hopefully the difference in airfare won't be as much, as I'd really enjoy spending a litte more time in Vancouver. It looked like a beautiful city!

I guess it must all just depend on where you are flying from. Out of my 3 Alaska cruises, 2 of them have started and ended in Vancouver.

Both times I flew directly into Vancouver. I checked out the Seattle option, but it was never cost effective.

The savings from LAX to Seattle, rather than Vancouver for my cruise last year was abuot $10 per person. It would have cost me way more than that to get transportation from Seattle to Vancouver.

Curiously enough, last year, I paid $259 pp to fly from LAX to Vancouver, in 2003 when I took almost the same exact cruise on almost the same exact day, I only paid $206.

I'm flying cross-country literally, from Virginia, so I wonder if Seattle is just more expensive for me so the difference between the two is less.

I'd love to take advantage of the quick transfer option but we are taking some well-placed advice and flying in a day early.

At this point, I'm most nervous about getting there. I've only flown once, my wife not at all, and I'm worried about layovers and connecting flights, June storms, overbooked flights, lost luggage, and lots of other silly things that I shouldn't be worrying about. After all, that's why we're going early and have travel insurance.

So, what's your favorite thing to do with a free night in Vancouver?

I'm flying cross-country literally, from Virginia, so I wonder if Seattle is just more expensive for me so the difference between the two is less.

 

I'd love to take advantage of the quick transfer option but we are taking some well-placed advice and flying in a day early.

 

At this point, I'm most nervous about getting there. I've only flown once, my wife not at all, and I'm worried about layovers and connecting flights, June storms, overbooked flights, lost luggage, and lots of other silly things that I shouldn't be worrying about. After all, that's why we're going early and have travel insurance.

 

So, what's your favorite thing to do with a free night in Vancouver?

take the trolley, if you are there early enough in the day

its a hop on hop off type that hits most of vancouvers major attractions

http://www.vancouvertrolley.com

walk around Robson St and do some shopping or eat at an outdoor cafe. you can also find some good cafes on Denman St.

walk around the sea wall at Stanley Park

go down to Granville Island

take the elevator to the top of the Lookout! at Harbor Centre Tower, great night views of the city. there's a coupon at their website as well for admission.

go over to Chinatown (don't walk from downtown to China town at night though, not the safest)

And I think alot of people use miles for their trip and can only use them to Seattle.

If using frequent-flyer miles, most airlines fly to Vancouver or have a partner airline that does so, and usually for no more miles than a flight within the US.

The first time I looked up airfare from St.Louis to Vancouver I was pretty shocked. The lowest w/ taxes etc. was over $600pp! We are paying $300r/t for flying into Seattle. Plus the flight times to/from Vancouver were horrible,we would have had to stay over an extra night or take a very late flight back.

for us it made since to go from Orlando to Seattle as there are 7 of us and we are saving about 300 a piece and we are actually looking forward to spending the night in seattle and taking the train the next morning. with the hotel at 200 for two rooms and 280 for the train we are still saving over 1,500.