Transportation from Vancouver airport to downtown Vancouver

First time to Vancouver. Does anyone have any opinions on if Canada line is the best way to get from Vancouver airport to downtown (near cruise port)? Thanks in advance for your help.

It really depends on a few factors.

1) How much luggage do you have - while the train cars were designed to carry luggage how comfortable are you with toting them around.

2) Which hotel are you staying at - some are only a block or two away from the cruise port - others a greater distance.

3) Weather - if it is raining and it does do that occasionally during the cruise season - want to walk the street in the rain?

4) How many in your party - it's a fixed price from the airport to the downtown area - a couple of bucks difference depending on location of the hotel - around $30 -$35 dollars so for a larger party taxis may be the way to go.

Other locals will be around later to offer their thoughts on this.

Hope this helps

Cheers!

Dennis

As Dennis said, 'Best' depends on you and your traveling companions...

Cheapest? Virtually always - but inbound with fixed rate cabs if you can put 4 people in a minivan and pay $31+tip vs. $36 for cash fare on a weekday before 6:30pm on transit it can end up being slightly cheaper by cab.

Fastest? If you're mobile enough with your bags, yes. The three block walk around to Canada Place from Waterfront Station is pretty level, good sidewalks, and the lineup for cabs entering/queue for people boarding cabs leaving Canada Place means it can be quicker to walk than to wait for a cab.

If you're going to a hotel, not straight to the pier, then I'd say if your hotel is within 3 or 4 blocks of a Canada Line station it remains quicker to take transit, but any further and cabs are likely to get you door-to-door faster. Either way though, you're quibbling about a minute or three so financial constraints are more likely to be relevant than time.

There's another active discussion going on right now about exactly this issue on the West Coast departures board, here.

I take Canada Place, along with Vancouver buses and the Sky train. ;) You MUST pack light, and can't be hauling loads of luggage. I travel with a medium quality rolling bag- which works out excellent- for me. (and I'm most always gone for over a month) A great transfer option.

First time to Vancouver. Does anyone have any opinions on if Canada line is the best way to get from Vancouver airport to downtown (near cruise port)? Thanks in advance for your help.

• it's $35 for a taxi carload... door to door service. $31 for the taxi to hotels South of Pender/Hastings. Where do you want to go downtown???
  
• $9 airport to Canada Place. Train sounds a little faster, but you need to drag your luggage 10 minutes for 3 blocks to the terminal. And possibly more to the hotel. If you need to transfer to a bus with your luggage.... it an get really painful... especially during rush hour.
  
• I love the Canada Line without luggage. With luggage, I prefer the taxi. Once the preferred areas a full (train ends and common area), people will be climbing over your luggage to get from one end of the train to the other. Canada Line is not exclusive to airport passengers.... the general public will be mixing with airport passengers once you leave the airport. Rush hour can be very busy on the trains.
  
• the train is a subway (underground for 2/3rds) of the journey through Vancouver. Taxi is more scenic.
  

Hope you have extra pre-cruise days in Vancouver.... Vancouver is bigger than all the Alaskan ports combined.

I take Canada Place, along with Vancouver buses and the Sky train. ;) You MUST pack light, and can't be hauling loads of luggage. I travel with a medium quality rolling bag- which works out excellent- for me. (and I'm most always gone for over a month) A great transfer option.

Think and writing two different things- Above should be- I take Canada Line to/from Canada Place.

Great, thank you for the feedback. Just my wife and I and we are staying at the Marriott, a few blocks from cruise port. I'll check to see if Canada Line stops near Marriott, otherwise sounds like taxi may be the better option for us.

Take the cab.... The Marriott are about a 12 to 15 minute walk from the Canada Line waterfront station platform with your luggage.

Actually less than 10 minutes on foot unless you are seriously burdened by luggage...

Google Maps excludes the time it takes to exit the train platform and waiting for the elevators to get to the street.

Actually if you check the link I posted you'll see it's from the station interior, not the street outside - Google does have a lot of interior areas factored in these days including both Waterfront station and Canada Place (as opposed to just the Pan Pacific street entrance area). While elevator wait times are of course a random factor, they're never going to add three minutes let alone six and if you can manage luggage on the escalator the extra delay is zero unless it's not working...

As someone who actually lives in Vancouver and walks around on a daily basis, I've found Googles assumptions of walking speed, reductions for uphill slopes, allowances for waiting at street crossings to be extremely accurate. I've provided information on several pedestrian-access only areas to Google personally - they're very responsive to feedback from locals.

We took a Taxi to the Fairmont across from Canada Place and it worked perfect for us. Not only was it very convenient, but the driver was probably the most informative "tour guide" we had on the entire trip. Enjoy