Victoria help

We are planning on going to the Butchart Gardens during our cruise. We could book with a tour for $67.50 per person but I found you can take the city bus for $2.50 each way and then pay an entrance fee of $30. This would be a significant savings. My question....how do we get from the cruise pier to the city bus? Thanks in advance.

You should only take public transportation out to the Gardens if you are docked in Victoria all day, if you are only there for a few hours take the ship's tour.

There are bus stops right outside the port, I'm sure one of the Victoria experts will be along with the routing.

The bus stops immediately outside the port will get you on a bus that connects to the Butchart Gardens bus. As noted, TIME is the enemy! Unless it's at least a 7+ hour stop in daytime I would not even think about taking transit - bus schedules are much less frequent early and late o'clock, but at best it's an hour or more each way. Link to local transit is here for routing. I would use Helijet on Dallas Road as your starting point (the trip planner likes specific addresses, and the bus stop nearest here is the closest one to the pier).

NB: 2 things - buses are CANADIAN CASH only and you now need to buy a Day pass, $5, if you want to transfer buses (but since you'll need to come back and it's good all day, that's not a problem - in fact one less transaction to worry about).

Another factor in the time.... "sunset". May to July is great as you get sunlight past 9pm..... less so with August to September trips.

Thanks all! We are in port from 10 to 10 pm

There's a great thread on the RC forum about Victoria and BC.. I think its called the best of BC 4 day.. lots of pics and info..

Thanks all! We are in port from 10 to 10 pm

Then you can easily take public transport out to the Gardens. Use the trip planner on the following link:

http://bctransit.com/victoria/schedules-and-maps

Another great option would be CVS Tours, you can catch their bus right in front of the Empress Hotel:

http://www.cvstours.com/butchart-gardens-express-shuttle.html