martincath

I'd disembark earlier myself, just in case. Much better to be off the ship at 8ish, bags dropped by 8:30, find a cab and get to GI an hour early - where you can easily pootle around a bit and check out various stores, grab some snacks etc. if you need to kill time - than worry about not getting there in time to check-in for the required safety briefing pre-whalewatch. If you haven't booked yet, you are asked to be 30mins early - while you won't have to get fitted for a survival suit like on the Zodiac rides, there is a waiver form to complete that has a fair bit of small print if you're the kind of person who actually reads things before signing, and with your sis having limited mobility you'll want a bit of extra time to actually board (the boats are docked at the end of the street the office is on, another hundred yards or so to walk). YVR from the PP should not take much more than 35mins driving in the evening - even if you're trying to get there for 8pm, rush hour will have tamped down, but if you want to pad that to 45mins assumed travel time that's sensible enough to cover unexpected traffic issues. I thought I'd already linked the free security 'express pass' booking page further up the page, but in case I didn't it's right here. You will have to wait until no more than 72hrs in advance to be able to book.

Bring your ID card - there are actually a handful of member discounts! The local chapter got special dispensation from CAMRA to allow pushing 'unreal' ales as there were literally none outside homebrewing when it began. Even when I first moved here in 2011, you could only drink cask ale two or three days a week (several local brewpubs did a cask one night a week, but with some overlap) and it took a couple of years for cask to be available somewhere in the city on a daily basis. Yaletown Brewing was our regular when we first moved - we'd call ahead every Thursday ro preorder our first round then show up 30 mins later to start drinking because nowhere outside Victoria offers proper temperature beer cellars! They're definitely kid-friendly in the Resto side - that's where we drank because it doesn't get as many sloppy drunk fratboys and sportsball fans as in the bar proper. But if you want to sample as many different good beers as possible in one place, The Alibi Room remains the spiritual home of beer lovers in Vancouver - I'm not sure what their deal is with kids, and you might want to cab it rather than walk with the kiddo as several blocks on the walk are a bit sketchy. Tap & Barrel do have a pretty wide selection, several covenient downtown locations and almost all have a big patio; Craft in theory have even more beers on tap but unless you are a huge fan of lagers forget them - when they first opened with 150 beers over 120 of them were lagers and of the rest not a single one was deemed hoppy enough to please my missus!!! If you have any really specific beer styles that you like, I can try to point you to a local brewery that does them well.

Ding! It's always been the best card (all benefits of TSA Pre and Global Entry, plus Canadian airport quick Security even on domestic flights on top of Canada-bound expedited air entry; but the land borders are where the time savings rack up for most of us...) If you apply within the next few months it's also the cheapest TT card... but even when pricing goes up to match GE cost in October, it's still the winner unless you never cross the Canadian border. Even folks who live far from the border and only think they'll visit Canada a single time during their 5 year card life should consider it instead of GE - interviews can be done during a layover at the many Prescreening airports, so it's literally just a few minutes extra compared to your CBP only chat for GE and I have lost count of how many times I have saved more than 30mins at a border or airport by having it; on several occasions it's been in excess of two hours!

Canada Day in recent years hasn't made a massive impact - and even if we get a firework show, in the morning it will have virtually no impact at all (as the afternoon goes on, it's common to see folks start staking out good viewing spots along the Seawall for fireworks many hours in advance of the ~10pm show). So basically Canada Place itself will be hoaching all day (entertainment schedule should appear here once firmed up, check the 2023 one currently still there to give you an idea of the sort of stuff that happens) and traffic annoyances from street closure basically just between the pier and Olympic cauldron. Since it's a Monday this year, transit schedules will drop to Weekend levels which might add a few minutes if you try and go places, but generally all the touristy things are exempt from closures on public holidays, so as long as you don't want to spend a day shopping it should pretty much feel like a regular Saturday anywhere that isn't very close next to the pier, except that there will probably be a lot more flags displayed around town. Back to the core of your question - you seem to have already noticed we are not a town of early opening attractions! Assuming you dined onboard well enough to last you for a few hours at least, I'd suggest hitting parks - very few are gated, so if the suns up you can enjoy them. Especially if you wanted to go for a lengthy loop around Stanley on the Seawall, right after dropping your bags at your hotel is ideal - it's at least 5 miles plus getting to the entrance from your hotel, so doing that before the day warms up too much is a good idea. Your hotel might have free bikes - quite a few do, and not just the superfancy ones - and as checked-in guests you should be able to borrow them even if your room isn't ready yet. If not, consider renting a bike - they're especially handy for the Seawall, basically tripling your travel speed for less calories expended! Other than 'do parks first' it really comes down to your taste in what to do - you know you and those you're travelling with a lot better than I ever could! We've got so many options - and like I said, virtually nothing touristy will be closed for the holiday - that it's all about prioritising the things which are most likely to be popular for you. TripAdvisor is a great starting point to see what Joe Q Public mostly thinks are the best things to do overall.

Some cabbies will even happily take USD cash as payment (at a not-even-close-to-Interbank rate!), but since you will literally be prompted to tip on the handheld unit the driver gives you to pay by credit card simply add on your preferred amount when prompted instead of also pfaffing around with notes as well as your card.

I think the issue is because this year a couple of tweaks are being trialled - asking cruiselines to stagger boarding times more, and ADDING an extra opportunity to hand luggage over as you enter the convention hall! So folks who get dropped off by cab etc. downstairs don't need to schlep bags up any levels, nor do folks who walk in from street level have to schlep bags down any levels... everybody wins! NB: can't guarantee the convention centre level bag drop is every day; all season; only busy days; or gets stopped because it's not working as well as hoped! But for OP @dces1 to ensure you get wheelchair assistance in the right place you are supposed to do that via your cruise line - in case you get the runaround from CSRs going by scripts with no local knowledge of the Vancouver terminal, you could try contacting their shoreside agency (last year Princess used Destination North America who you can contact by phone: +1 (604) 641 1221) or reach out to the port directly about accessibility services by email: cruiseservices@portvancouver.com Hope that helps!

@gottagoacruzn I'll remind you again that, like most of your prior questions about Vancouver so far, you could have found this yourself via Google in about thirty seconds instead of having to wait a day for a reply... but here's a link to a walking route with all three points on it. Fire up Streetview at each end of the route and pics will appear too - if you check multiple pics around the cauldron, I believe there are even some of it lit up that have been posted by folks (they'll be among the wee circles that indicate a private pic taken at that spot, rather than from the solid lines where Google camerapacks have moved through).

I think that you might want to rethink the entire setup to be honest - even if there's a Disabled spot available in Long Term YVR parking, which are nearest the station, there's a bunch of bus loops and restricted roads (no stopping) around there. Uberlyfts are not going to enter the car park to pick you up - so you might have to schlep your bags quite a distance to find somewhere that is a legal pickup spot... The basic concept of this longterm lot is that everyone uses SkyTrain - it's optimised for folks leaving their cars before a flight and not designed with pickups by vehicle in mind. Also, depending what DHs mobility issues are, if he needs an Accessible vehicle be aware that there are zero accessible Uberlyfts locally, they pay a fee rather than becoming compliant with the legal requirement of minimum % of accessible vehicles in the fleet (all taxi firms maintain ~17% of their fleet as Accessible vans which scooters or wheelchairs can be secured safely inside). Considering you can afford the Pan Pacific, I would look at instead finding a cheaper hotel! All-in-all a night at the Accent Inn near YVR, plus parking at $40 a week on top of room rate, plus potentially $40 each way in a cab from the hotel to pier and the reverse post-cruise, will undoubtedly cost less than a night in the PP and long-term parking - heck, it might be cheaper than just the hotel given some of the horror stories about pricing this year! Whether cab or rideshare, everyone drops at the same spot under the pier - which is where luggage drop is unless you arrive too early for it to have started. There are elevators, stairs, escalators for you to get up to Check-in level - and there should be porters around too, able to take bags right from the car, but worst-case you can shuttle your bags over to the drop point, it's not far at all. Leaving again, rideshares do have to pick up down the street, maybe a couple of hundred yards extra walking compared to the cab pickup under the pier, so cabbing is definitely easier with even 'walking stick' level mobility issues that don't need a modified van.

Indeed there will - nightshift cabbies with an airport medallion make bank from late night trips, as the fixed rate fare zone prices are set to several dollars higher than what the meter would have been when there's no traffic to worry about. If you have Uber/Lyft apps, then as long as there's no Surge in effect you should save a fair bit on a latenight ride. Glad you enjoyed BH last time; those nice corner view rooms might be a bit wasted on you rolling in c.1am, but if you can get a good price at least you know the 'hood!

Honestly, unless you've got the budget for the Fairmont every other airport hotel could take you as long or longer to get to than heading downtown - no traffic at night whereas no hotel has more than a single shuttle vehicle and none I'm aware of have a shuttle driver with no other jobs. So when you call your hotel from the courtesy phones, the delay is at best "Good news, someone called before you, the bus should be outside in a couple of minutes!" plus drive time to the hotel of anywhere from 7 to 30+ minutes (some Surrey hotels cheekily call themselves 'airport' even though they're further away than downtown is!) and at worst is "I just need to go find the driver, he should be on his way in a few minutes" with 20mins+ wait time until you get to the hotel. Whereas if the cab queue is minimal, you could be checking in at a downtown hotel in 30mins... and then when you wake up next morning you could be within walking distance of the pier and multiple things to do instead of facing commuter traffic inbound etc. Oh, and if budget is tight then the YWCA Hotel downtown is usually cheaper than airport hotels anyway, despite being one of the best-reviewed hotels at any price in the region.

Cabs will be lined up as soon as the train arrives - you might need to wait a few minutes if you aren't in Business Class (who get off first) but more cabs will keep rolling in regularly. If you've got Uber/Lyft etc. apps installed, no harm in checking to see how far away the nearest car is of course!

Yup, you got it, and thanks for reporting back on your experience - may I ask what time you traveled at? That rate seems remarkably low with yesterday being our local Marathon! Street access to the pier was more limited than usual so us locals had been warning folks to expect higher fares (well, not for the fixed rate cabs from YVR obviously, but for all other car based travel yesterday morning at least!)

Concur, this really comes down to 'which boat do you want to be on?' rather than 'is any company better than another at finding whales?' As to Orcas, unlike the visiting baleen whales our Resident pods are struggling to maintain population - so between that and more humpies and grays deciding to hang out locally all summer, our local operators now also primarily visit the latter groups and leave the Orcas alone unless they just happen to be passing (there's also a legal issue of giving Orcas significantly more space than other species - folks onboard have anecdotally been complaining that at 400metres they can 'hardly see' the Orcas... while they can still approach to within 100m of other species - 200m if they have calves, or for Sustainable whalewatch certified companies once they confirm Orcas are Biggs' or Northern Residents rather than the Southern pods. Happy pax tip more, so the closer the experience the more cash the folks aboard make...)

We run booze rules provincially rather than country-wide here, and compared to most of the rest of Canada and the US BC is frankly insane when it comes to booze laws. Even when I moved here from Ontario I was floored by how ludicrous the rules were - and while a few of them have been relaxed since (enabling you to actually drink beer in a brewery for example, which wasn't legal until less than a decade ago!!!) licensing remains absolutely brutal. Speaking as an expat who was a CAMRA member at 18, tended bar for years, has various qualifications that require at least a basic understanding of the booze laws of multiple jurisdictions, I can say hands-down that even the most ridiculous rules of Scots law as applied to Public Houses are trivial compared to how BC operates all of its 'Sindustries'! The good news on the kids angle is that there are very few bars in Vancouver, legally-speaking. The overwhelming majority operate under a Restaurant license, which means that management can choose to allow kids (during limited hours and only in certain seats) - so the short answer is that if you want to bring your kids anywhere for lunch or dinner, there's a very good chance it will be allowed... but you literally have to check with every establishment, since just because they can allow kids doesn't mean they have to or will. Folks with a resto license must make a certain % of their income from food/soft drinks or else they are heavily penalized right up to potentially losing their license - so it's actually a good thing for them when kids come in because they only consume stuff that counts toward the minimum % to retain their license! But some management feel like if they let kids in it puts off the boozehounds who want to get sloppy drunk and swear at sportsball on TV - so they may be happy to see kids for lunch, but set an early cutoff for when families have to mosey on home... Basically, if you're out and about rather than booking in advance the most efficient tool at your disposal is the good old Mark I Eyeball - see another family already seated, enjoying a meal? Kids are probably OK at that time (unless that fam just squeezed in under the 'last orders for kids' line). If you're booking in advance, email or call to verify what the deal is with kids. If you want a patio, then you will never be able to actually book a table on one of those (they are always 'first come, first served' to maximise utilisation) but still, check in advance on the kids policy. I'm fairly certain that all T&B locations use a Restaurant-primary license, allow kids to come in with adults for lunch or dinner (IIRC 9pm is the latest legal cutoff time for Minors), and only ban them from sitting at the bar (which usually includes high-top tables near the bar - if there's a room divider separating high and low seat areas that is almost always a good indicator of the 'no kids' zone) but I don't have kids so it's honestly not a thing I pay much attention to.

FROM the airport, fixed rates zones to literally everywhere in Vancouver - if your hotel is one of the ones right next to the pier, same price; virtually all other downtown hotels, including all on Robson, are in the $37 zone. Every cab has to have a copy available, but you can peruse in advance on YVRs website (rates should remain in place this summer, as they last went up Oct '23). The fixed rate to go from the pier TO the airport is a relatively recent change, and only applies from the pier itself. Taxifarefinder is generally pretty accurate in Vancouver outside rush hour - but note that a) it does not factor in fixed fare zones here, and b) the 'sticker price' also includes a 15% assumed tip.