martincath

You're confusing both the country of the agency concerned and the location! CBSA = Canadian border folks, who screen at the pier because most ships cruising in have arrived from US waters; CBP = US border folks, who prescreen US-bound flights at YVR starting at 4:30am (with a shift briefing, so no actual work for at least 10mins, and a huge queue of folks on those 6am, 7am, even 8am flights who have no idea about CBP hours so showed up to check-in only to find locked doors after they'd gone past Security... it usually takes until 5am to clear that first backlog, which is why I like taking the first SkyTrain - arriving 5:09am - to YVR for a flight before 7am)

Loads - basically any seafoody resto, any time of the year, as we have 7 different zones in BC with differing availability so there's almost always some around. If you want a resto that's very likely to have fresh seafood in general, try Fanny Bay Oysters near the central library. They've got their own boat for true 'tide to table' cusine as they term it, a Michelin Guide 'recommended' nod, are very convenient for most downtown core hotels, and will also sell you seafood To Go as they operate a marketplace as well as resto in the same location.

Gangway off the ship is a 'stacked ramp' job, no stairs; inside the terminal building you have elevators, escalators, and stairs that need used (you will not be allowed onto the escalator, or I believe the stairs, unless you have a hand free - staff guard the top for health & safety reasons). Elevator queues can get bad because every wheelchair and scooter user as well as folks with too many bags have to use them.

I might already have written this info on one of the links Bruce suppied above, but just in case: if by crab you mean e.g. Dungeoness, then anywhere you can see them live and watch them get cooked is fine (I doubt there's going to be much variance in price/lb anywhere convenient to the pier) If you're expecting fresh King crab though, you won't find it in Tracy's! Like everywhere else in Alaska, it's 'steamed then frozen at sea, reheated ashore' when it comes to Kings in cruise season - cruise season does not overlap with fresh availability, so you eat the same frozen precooked crabs as literally anywhere on the planet... except Vancouver, where live Kings are shipped in and kept in tanks. If you have at least half a dozen big eaters, or up to 10 regular appetites, an AKC Feast here might be just the thing for you - you do need to order a whole crab (~10lbs) but it comes served three ways, with plenty of side dishes, family style at several of our larger Chinese restos. While pricing varies a lot each season, I have one specific pricepoint this year already - a local resto offered 90mins of AYCE King Crab for CAD$198pp a few weeks back, but given that factored in still making money on folks guzzling as much crab as possible, $100pp remains plausible for a more normal 8-10 folks split one crab as part of a feast. If you're happy with dungies, which despite being a lot cheaper are frankly also a better tasting crab anyway if you ask me, they're almost certainly also cheaper here than anywhere in AK thanks to USD vs CAD let alone the tourist premium in AK ports - for maximum crab, minimum frippery, I'd go with The Lobster Man on Granville Island. Pick your crab out of the tank, have it steamed or boiled for you, they'll do you a 'picnic pack' with bread, butter, lemons etc., even crackers and picks (although if you're visiting the public market anyway, it's cheaper to buy your own bread, lemons etc. over there as the Lobster Man adds a wee premium for the convenience, and dollar store tools work fine for a 'one and done' rather than something nicer you want to take home and use again in future).

Safe as houses compared to any US large town let alone city; very short; not much longer and downhill; and if you check this map you can virtually walk the entire route by Streetview to see exactly how ludicrously easy it is (very close to a straight line, Howe is the only street you'll need to walk more than part of a block on!)

Taxi is CAD$41 now to the pier - but unless you get lucky and a van rolls in, as mentioned you will struggle to get 4 bums on seats and luggage in the boot of the Priuses which make up ~83% of local cabs! Carryons on knees during the 35ish min drive would not be fun, especially since fixed rate fares mean cabbies put their foot down as much as possible! Savings on SkyTrain are not huge in comparison inbound though, with the extra $5pp AddFare. Senior Fares, if on a weekday, will be a little over $32 total (weekends all one zone, so closer to $28). Consider an UberXL for this trip if you all want to go in one vehicle - it'll likely be a little higher than cab fare even without Surge but you'll definitely get a big enough vehicle to fit you all - or split up between a cab and SkyTrain. Maybe send all the big bags with the cab folks though, so save schlepping two bags each from the station (although the trains do have plenty room for baggae under every seat, and as YVR and WaterFront are both terminus stations it's easy to get a seat and maneuver yourself and bags oyut at the far end).

I honestly can't recommend any Chinese restos in Victoria - but then, my baseline for tastiness is here in Vancouver! If you're on a Vancouver RT don't waste your time eating in Victoria when more and better is available pre/post cruise - Victoria has some good locavore western options, classic fish & chips, and several poutineries if you're looking for something different that might be another hard to find thing in your home area, but the Chinatown there is so tiny that all the restos are basically tourist traps. Probably 90% of folks in that neck of the woods probably rank Jam Cafe as the best resto in the blocks immediately around Chinatown (personally I think it's extremely overrated and never worth the wait, so Swans brewpub would be where you'd find me dining nearby - although the food is very much a secondary concern compared to the beer, which is superb... their perfectly serviceable pub grub does help soak up the booze though!!!!)

Cabs should be lined up waiting. Cheapest I've seen anyone mention for an Uber fare was still over CAD$30, depending on hotel location Cab fare will most likely be $37 ($41 for the few fancy hotels right by the pier). I'd be inclined to walk out and see how many folks are waiting in the cab line - if lots, fire up Uber app and check how long nearest car is and whether Surge applies, then decide at the time what looks the best combo of time vs. money!

YYZ has a handy guide to all the steps - for an Air Canada flight from RDU, connecting to a YVR-bound flight, here you go! Specific expectations for Immigration/Customs here (Kiosk info, Advance Declarations - your connection time should be enough, but I would recommend always doing all things in advance that you can to expedite your way through the steps in case your incoming flight is running late and your Enough Time becomes Worryingly Short)

I just found a definitely-fancy Brunch option for you, with availability, on Mothers Day! Bacchus (the Wedgewood's in house resto) has always been on our secondary rotation - it's one of the very few quiet fine restos in Vancouver, off the radar enough to be always bookable and also literally quiet with lots of heavy fabric - but I only just found out that the normal far-too-overpriced hotel breakfast has been supplemented by a Bavarian Brunch starting this weekend, helmed by ex-Michelin Star winning Chef Stefan Hartmann himself for a ludicrously low price considering (as in, half the price of the hotel's regular 'bacon/sausage/2 eggs' American brekkie plate!!!) They're also offering specific extra-fancy Mother's Day Brunch and Afternoon Tea service - and actually have availability right now for both! They're way pricier than the regular brunch menu, but the same ballpark as the PP/Fairmont brunches. If you haven't already decided on something else to do, go have a shufty at menus on the Events page and get booked ASAP if they look good. Ordinarily I'd never recommend a resto experience I have not had myself at least a couple of times, but the combination of the impossible timing to sample before your visit and my total faith in any Hartmann kitchen he's actually working in make me feel this is worth the risk for once (long story short, our first Hartmann meal was in Berlin almost 20 years ago before he got his first Star; we were super pumped when he got hired by Uwe Boll of all people to come head up Bauhaus in Vancouver in 2015; he's not just a good cook, he runs a super-tight kitchen - I fully expect Bacchus to move up from the Recommended list to an actual star in the next edition of the Michelin guide this Fall, and when it does I'll be annoyed because getting a table will be much harder!!!)

Elon Musk has extended his project to Alaska and hired whales now...!? 😉

In the context of a Juneau whalewatch it probably was a bit silly of me to mention Grays given how few of them would be near that port, with just a handful of sightings over the years, but they're a lot more common in SE Alaskan waters - especially April/May - than you seem to think. As soon as they hit the tip of Vancouver Island it's back in toward the mainland, all the info on Grays out of Haida Gwaii I've seen has them being consistently east of the islands there, and Chatham Sound is a major feeding ground for them with their preferred shallow, muddy bottomed terrain. Prince Rupert based tours see Grays regularly, and it's hard to head north from Prince Rupert without crossing into SE Alaskan waters; the AMHS isn't visiting this year for some sort of issue related to a lack of internationally-licensed crew, but whales don't need to worry about legislation! 😉 Even if we're talking US ports regularly visited by cruise ships, rather than just general SE Alaskan water, Sitka has seen their Gray numbers spike massively in the last 7 or 8 years - a mainstream news article last year indicated 700 Grays hanging out in Sitka Sound last May, not just feeding but even breeding - up from the typically-still-over-a-hundred of the prior few years. Mostly I'm familiar with the Coastal Pacific Feeding Group though, rather than the ones which continue to follow the full migration up to Bering/Chukchi Seas - and they've been moving both further into Inside waters over the years. Most of these 'summer residents' still hang around on the outside of Vancouver Island, 200+ have been tracked around Pacific Rim park waters between Tofino and Sooke, but right in this neck of the woods Howe Sound is also a regular summer haunt for a small group of them: some of those guys visit Stanley Park - every two or three years since I've been living here, one even made it right up False Creek just after the 2010 Olympics. Other pockets up the BC Inside Passage are also known, all the way to Chatham Sound - indeed, there are even a very small number of year-round sightings out of Prince Rupert now although that's anecdotal, I haven't seen any formal research or long-term 'citizen science' pics to confirm the same whale(s) are remaining consistently local.

No worries - well, except having added more stuff to your shortlist, expanded other areas, and not really told you not to go anywhere you were thinking about doing!!! So sorry for that - but if you do firm up a 'definitely X, Y, Z' and want further 'do this first evening, embarkation morning, possibly a better time on your full middle day' logistical help just ask away. As an example - if you do wake up early, that's a great time to visit New Town as they open at 6:30am and some of the popular pastries sell out by lunchtime! Not a great time to connect it with anything ticketed unfortunately, almost nothing opens before 9am because everyone wants to be up a mountain doing yoga before work... at least, based on most Insta feeds in these parts! 😉

From your other posts @DShier1a you're on Noordam out of Vancouver? If so, you could whalewatch here before boarding - for less money AND a guarantee (local vendors remain May-Sep in this neck of the woods, although it is in the form of 'free rides for life until you see one' rather than 'here's a crisp hundo, never darken our gangplank again'!) Not sure what the issue is with the Juneau trips, as already mentioned they have resident whales, I know for a fact the Gray migration looks to be already long underway as usual (there's an active whale count along coastal oregon sites at Xmas and easter for south and northbound respectively) and the Mexican humpies tend to head up about the same time as the Grays. Unless someone's heard about issues with the Hawaiian population not leaving until later, I can't imagine May not already having ample whales to go look at...

If memory serves there are the same literal handful of six-seater vans in Vic as there are here in Van - for the same reason (taxi rules that mandate a minimum % of Accessible vehicles per fleet, much higher cost to run those vans, so virtually every van has had middle seats removed and wheelchair/scooter strapdown points installed to meet their legal requirements while every other car is a Prius). This would be a situation where I'd be looking at Uberlyfts big vehicles to ensure you can fit 6 pax! As to the shuttle - if you want to just burn money, sure, book it! Per person it's more expensive than a cab if they charged in CAD - but in fact they already price it in USD so it's even worse value at nearly double cab fare... only a solo who would otherwise take a cab both ways to and from the drop point saves money, 2+ people are already throwing money away and 6? As a Scotsman I'm virtually in tears here just thinking about all the beer you could buy instead if you like to p*ss money down the drain!!! 😉