martincath

It's not a 72 hour limit before getting to Canada when you're using the Marine Entry, Cruise option - the clock counts back from when you embark the ship which will bring you (back) to Canada... Without knowing what cruise route you are on OP, I can't help with your exact situation but as a general note here are the possibilities: Boarding an RT cruise in Vancouver, which goes immediately into US waters (i.e. first port of call is US) - you must complete ArrCan before boarding in Vancouver, as it will be checked at the pier by check-in staff Boarding a one-way, with no Canadian ports - no need to complete ArrCan as you never ARRive back in CANada after boarding the ship Boarding a one-way which DOES have Canadian ports - if they are all consecutive, no need to complete ArrCAN but if you go Canada>US>Canada you do need to complete it. Boarding a one-way to AK, no Canadian ports, but then coming back on a second one-way later (e.g. spend time touring Alaska) you would complete ArrCan before boarding the second leg. As to the questions about avoiding porters - you can always hand your bags over directly to the longshoremen at the conveyor belts, that's what we always do as that removes any risk of your bag ending up in a cage that's being loaded onto a different ship! Never common, but every year sees a report or two, usually start of season and when 2 diff ships of the same line are in port. However, since the luggage drop is on the same level as the taxi/bus dropoff, and the porters hang around there as that's where folks need their services, and the pedestrian ramp from the street means you walk right past that area too there's no way to avoid being in proximity to the porters if you are e.g. trying to cut back on how many groups of people you have to hang around with to avoid some Covid risk If you're traveling very light, so all your bags can go through the security scanners (a little bigger than airline carryon probably fits, but a typical big 27"+ roller isn't going through so you'll have to hand it over to longshore) then you could avoid the taxi ranks/bus stops/bag drop area entirely though. If it is a 'minimum interaction with people to avoid infection' then I strongly advise arriving as late as you possibly can - be sensible, be near the pier, so you don't risk getting caught in traffic and missing embarkation of course, but in general if you are among the last folks to board you avoid all of the holding pens for early arrivers and all of the long waits in Security and CBP too. Again - more info needed about your cruise to give specific reccos, as this year we have some really odd times quite regularly (e.g. Royal and Majestic Princess times are based on tide, so the days they are in port might see them plan to leave at 1:30pm while 2 other ships wait until the 'normal' 4-5pm - so if you're boarding those beasts you might have no option but to check in during the worse possible time of day, 11:30ish to 2ish, when the most pax will be clogging all the queues to do everything... OTOH if it's one of the days they leave at 11pm or 1am, you might be able to board after all other vessels have left and it'll be lovely and quiet!)

You're welcome Jim. Don't feel bad yourself about the AirBnB thing - it's your Host not you who's being weaselly if anyone is (and they might be legit - if it's only available to book for short periods it could actually be their primary home rather than a never-legal-to-rent-short-term-here second home). The whole illegal AirBnB issue dropped off the radar during Covid as demand plummeted, many cheap long-term furnished rentals suddenly appeared as Hosts took their apartments off the tourist market, but it's now climbing back up as a priority with housing policies being among the top concerns for upcoming municipal elections... giving you the heads-up at least means you can be ready to dive straight into hotel searching without wasting time complaining at AirbnB if worse comes to worst and your apartment gets flagged before your stay! If you are feeling fit and up for walking to the pier - or just sightseeing on foot pre-cruise - there are some pretty big differences in vibe from street to street and even block to block in that area. While I assume you're not keen to advertise your exact location, if you let slip the name of the building I can give you a heads-up about choice of route from the front door to places you want to go - e.g if you're in one of the Spectrum towers on Citadel Parade sticking to Dunsmuir all the way to Howe is flatter and avoids the less-salubrious sights of Victory Square compared to taking Cambie to Cordova (which Google will always try route you on as Cambie's angle cuts a few yards off the horizontal distance, but then you have to walk downhill and uphill again as well as past a prime street-sleeping area!) There's a large difference in street level right in that area, so whether your building's ground floor is on the lower or higher elevation makes a difference in optimal route too - Costco's free external elevator and the stairs from Georgia viaduct by the Rogers Centre are often the most direct way to change levels, but don't ever seem to get suggested by Google, instead they make you walk the long way around BC Place or Rogers Centre to get to e.g. the nearest ferry stop for getting to Granville Island.

Then despite the name, your AirBnB isn't in Chinatown - and given the options for location, with 6 people I'm fairly certain you're doing a whole-home rental of an apartment... which is about 98% likely to be illegal (the remaining 2% of legit licensees are easily recognized as they only rent for a small part of the year when they themselves are on vacation from their primary home). Be aware that enforcement budget has increased, so there's a far-from-zero chance of your rental disappearing without any advance notice if caught - and zero compensation for you if it does... But that aside, I'd just walk if you are all mobile. I walk through Chinatown to the pier with a big rolling case no problem, about 2 miles, and your total distance is such that by the time you rolled it to the station and paid 6 people fares, you would probably spend as much as taking 2 cabs! Anywhere in the area you're talking about would be <$10 fare on the meter - if it's a 3 ship day, yes, there could be another few bucks crawling along the last block or so but you can always ask to get out. Incidentally, big suitcases are effectively banned on Expo line trains - only the Canada Line has space for luggage, otherwise anything that basically doesn't fit your lap is technically against the rules... but enforcement is very low due to trains being automated, and if you are traveling outside peak hours (say 10am onward) you probably won't annoy other pax by stealing seats/standing room from them. But like I said, cabs are porbably going to be a wash in pricing anyway - SkyTrain is very poor value when you only travel a couple of stops!

Sorry, I thought you were replying to my post #6! I think I'm too late to edit now, and the info is still relevant as a comparison of Orca-focused options, so I won't ask mods to kill it.

I have no doubt you did - but the Southern Alaskan Residents, while a large population of two full clans, coers a significantly larger area than our local Southern Resident group, so the odds of a sighting out of any AK port in their territory is not as high as down here. I believe the in-between population, Northern Residents, have the highest sighting % of all but that requires a visit to seriously out-of-the-way places like Telegraph Cove on Vancouver Island which doesn't fit conveniently with a cruise, except in the sense of 'get on deck during any daylight hours available if your ship is using the BC inside passage' - but sightings from a cruise ship under way don't last long, still definitely better to take a small boat tour. If memory serves there's a surge in Transient orcas as well as AK Residents near Seward (salmon hatchery runs, young seals, lots of food for all!) in May/early June, so companies run Orca-focused tours for about a month from early May, but outside of that period sightings drop a lot. The much-missed BudgetQueen used to spent almost the entire season in AK and took more whalewatching trips in every port offering them then anyone else I've ever come across - IIRC she used to say she'd see orca maybe 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 trips out of Juneau/ISP, and the sheer volume of them she had under her belt means I trusted her opinion frankly more than I do my own! Not that I'm slamming a Juneau whale watch - but since OP specifically flagged Orca as what they're interested in, their chances are greatly increased down here as well as significantly cheaper (AK tours look to be running from US$150 to almost $200pp this season - down here it's CAD$140-180 for adult fares so with the exchange rate almost 30% less).

If orcas are a priority, hands-down your best probability is a tour down here in Vancouver if on a typical one-way cruise, or out of Victoria or Seattle area if you're doing an RT (assuming the port time allows it in Vic!) We have very reliable sightings of the resident orca pods - while they do travel fast and far, most companies across the season (April-October) average 90%+ orca sightings. Choose a fast boat - zodiac if you like an open, spray-in-your-face, exciting experience or one of the enclosed jetboats to maximise the chance of reaching the nearest pod on any given trip (all companies share info, so everybody knows where the are, the question is can the boat you are in get to that location and back within the tour duration?) If you have enough pre/post cruise time such that a 'free trip if you see no whales' guarantee is worthwhile for you, you can keep repeating trips with all the local providers in Vic/Van - but do note that orcas are not guaranteed although they are the 'bread and butter' cetacean of the local operators, so if you see a humpie or gray then you'd need to pay for additional tours.

I'll join you in the crazy then Scott, as I also love A&W root beer - the Diet stuff was nightmarishly hard to find during Covids first year in cans or bottles, so I've been buying gallons of it whenever I see it on a shelf since! Whenever the Granny burger makes a comeback I usually also pop in for a draft frosty mug and a couple of burgers - I'm not much of a fastfood burger guy but I agree that A&W makes the best in the category. I'd guess that lack of buffet has more to do with Covid protocols killing buffets entirely, and even with rules now relaxed the sheer waste of an 'AYCE' with food prices climbing like they are will mean there will have to be strong demand, and willingness for customers to pay quite a lot more than they used to, to bring back any really good buffet meals? Glad to help - their website's a bit clunky and poorly prioritized in searches, so more often than not a Google brings up Steamworks Bathhouse a bit further east which offers a very different vibe indeed so bookmarking the right one will keep you straight;-)

There are several mentions of the buses out there (in general, searching with Google using site:boards.cruisecritic.com to focus on the forum works a lot better than the official CC search does) but it's just as quick to reiterate the available options: Flixbus (limited days and times, but cheap) Quickshuttle (port to airport so often most convenient, most frequent service, but usually the priciest, and even charge extra for suitcases now - and note that one recent poster got completely screwed over when they cut services Mon/Tues at short notice, so depending on your date they might not even be running! Frankly I've never been surprised whenever QS pull a sh*tty customer service move, they've always been weaselly!) Cantrail (book direct, or via Amtrak site, these guys run the scheduled Amtrak thruway buses on the Van-Sea route) Greyhound (only two buses a day these days, pricing can be very good if booked in advance and/or with discounts like Senior, Comoanion fares etc.) Otherwise it's flying, or a very indirect ferry to Victoria then another ferry from there to Seattle!

^This. I know plenty of Americans who have used their DD, Ubereats, Skip accounts to order delivery to hotels here so the platforms do work for out-of-towners here. Since Covid, with all the quarantining, some hotel policies on delivery services have relaxed considerably - but it's definitely best to check with your hotel and ask what their rules are about lobby or to-the-room-door deliveries... Personally though I'd be asking the hotel which local restos they recommend that deliver independently, so your cash stays local, or using one of the local fairly-priced independent delivery services like from:to or fantuan (if you want Asian food delivered, this is the bees knees!)

In TheBeforeTimes I'd have recommended Five Sails inside the PP hotel if what you're looking for is fine dining OP - but they've been taken over by a local chain of fine-dining-lite restos and all top staff were replaced (it used to be a husband and wife Chef/FoH team so phenomenally consistent in both food and service quality). These days for the price it would be much safer to go elsewhere - Glowbal Group are just too inconsistent in their staff retention, quality goes up and down all the time. The Coal Harbour bar in the PP is well worth being in at sunset for the views though! Across the street in the Fairmont Waterfront, as mentioned above, ARC offers more reliable fairly high-end cuisine - but far and away the best resto on the street is just a couple of blocks down in the other even-fancier Fairmont, the Pacific Rim. Botanist here is about as good as it gets in Vancouver, definitely top tier cuisine. If your tastes run to simpler food, all the prior advice stands up just fine - the pub RKA is thinking of is likely Steamworks, one of the oldest brewpubs in the city. Caveat - it's an odd-shaped space in a historic building, with several steps between levels on the main floor, so might be more hassle than its worth for DH - the outdoor covered tables that popped up during Covid are still there, on nice flat ground, but can't be reserved... this is common to most patios in Vancouver, first-come, first-served rather than bookable. West of the hotel, just following the Seawall takes you past a couple of cafes and an Irish bar (as a Brit, I think Mahony's hits the 'Twee Oirish Craic' a bit too hard, but a lot of folks like it) - outside seating here is covered as it's on the lower level below the convention centre west. There's also an elevator to the upper level if you want to hit up Cactus or Tap - the patio of the latter is huge but open, on a nice day it's extremely popular so the advice to try booking in advance is good!

Sorry for the delay in replying - I only found out about PorterGenie closing after I'd posted that note and another on a different thread later. Didn't think to search for past posts and update once I found out! If you've gone through the booking process to hit the 'closed for covid' message, they're definitely still not operating - but the other 'leave them, come back for them' services all seem to be available.

You're both right in this case 😉 WHTI rules are shared travel rules, covering US/Canada as well as some other countries. But while Canada will allow a short Victoria stop without proof of citizenship for US citizens (the famous 'RT Loop exception') the US has no such exemption for Canadians entering the US. So whether we drive or fly or arrive by boat, us Canadians need proof of our citizenship - not just identity - on a single government-issued document with a picture. EDLs and NEXUS fit the bill - regular DL does not as there is no citizenship check to get one. US CBP pre-clear folks bound for Alaska at the pier before boarding in Vancouver, and they would most definitely NOT allow boarding without US-acceptable documentation!

Since you're entering the US and then re-entering Canada, you definitely need something compliant with WHTI rules. That means an Enhanced Driving License, a NEXUS card, or a Passport for Canadian citizens. If you don't already have NEXUS, it's a lengthy first time process as an interview by both US and Canadian border agents is required so if you have a passport renewal under way already that will likely be quicker despite the current delays. Application for this and all the other Trusted Traveler Programs is here. You can probably find the most up-to-date chat about current application delays, interview locations with closest availability etc. on the FlyerTalk forums, which are far more active than Cruise Critic on all things Trusted Traveler... Depending which province you live in, you may or may not be able to get an EDL - details on this page, including links to the provincial licensing authorities. No idea what sort of delay is involved in processing these.

Edit - whoops, you did actually specify an eMed test so it's opbviously Antigen - deleted the redundant info about the 72hr timeline for Molecular testing! For Antigen tests our Federal Canadian Cruise-specific testing rules seem to align with most US cruiseline rules - any time of day as long as it's not more than 2 calendar days earlier - so as long as your test is some time on Wed (or Thu or even Friday if results come back before than you board), it's valid. Arguably a test taken at 2am local time was taken at 11pm the day before here in PST land though, so although for Antigen I strongly doubt that anyone at the pier will check anything other than the date you could either play it safe and do it before you head to the airport or even just bring the tests with you to Vancouver and remote test in your hotel room during your pre-cruise time.

The entire Royal Class remains unable to traverse the 'BC Inside Passage' due to their lack of maneuverability - it's mandatory to have a pilot on the bridge for most of it, and the local pilots association flat-out refuses to take responsibility for this class of vessel in those waters. The only good part of the whole mess is that Princess finally started to admit that the routing is different. If you check on their website - NB: not a third party site! - you will clearly see that whether it is a one-way or a round-trip the Royal class are routed outside the Island from Vancouver in both directions. Examples: 7-day RT, 7-day Northbound (the latter actually has a separate dotted line pointing out that while all the other ships do sail inside, Royal and Majestic go outside!) Unless the rudders are replaced this class will never sail Inside - and even has trouble getting into Ketchikan due to approach angles and wind conditions. Between this and the lack of good viewing areas the Royal class basically sucks for Alaskan cruising!

Well that sucks. Greyhound do offer a workable bus - 7:20pm departure from Bellingham arriving Vancouver 9:15pm - which does mean a lot of wasted time, but it's dirt cheap at $14pp! Add on cab fare to the bus station from the airport and you're still probably looking at less total than a single ticket on QuickShuttle with a suitcase was... and while an on-time flight would see you facing a long wait for the bus, if you think of it as padding in case of delays it's effectively free insurance.Flying these days, even the reliable airlines are struggling to maintain service levels, and if you are flying (God forbid) on Allegiant then a couple of days padding might not be enough! And Amtrak does offer buses even though the trains are not running - checking their schedule that particular day though it looks like an annoyingly long and indirect trip (for some reason heading south toward Seattle, then waiting around for 3 hours in Everett to board the late Seattle-Vancouver bus which arrives just after midnight, so into Aug 10th - at the very least I would have expected them to let you board the northbound bus at Bellingham!) You'd also have to get a cab to Bellingham train station from the airport on top of the $70 fare...

Lounge? No - the L in that particular location stands for Int'l Arrival Lobby - it is useful, you'll find the Greencoats (volunteers) for in-person help as well as phones, leaflets for tourist attractions etc. Actually, not sure whether physical leaflets will be back since TheBeforeTimes or not! It's more of an info hub than a 'hang out' - no food, no comfy chairs. Personally I'd recommend the Observation area - it's small enough that there's no way you will fail to find each other, it's definitely outside security, it's the only public spot on the 4th floor so it's easy to find, there are comfy chairs (it's an indoor plane spotting room basically) and if either of you miss the signs to it the Greencoats will all know where it is and can point you the right way.

Celebrity, and all the other lines who offer this, do the following: buy you a 1-day ticket for one of the local HOHO companies - exactly the same as if you bought one yourself directly; buy you 1 ticket for use on SkyTrain to get out to YVR (a 2 zone fare - but if you do this yourself, on a weekend or after 6:30pm weekdays you actually only need a $3.45 1 zone ticket and Seniors pay even less) transfer your bags from the pier to the airport, where they will be held for you until you arrive The last part of the list can no longer be replicated exactly as CDS lost the franchise for luggage storage at the pier so no longer offer bag transfers to the public, but there are many bag storage places downtown that run between $5 and $13 a bag for the day - a metered cab to the airport is approx. $35+tip per vehicle, but SkyTrain handles luggage just fine on the Airport line so if you're mobile you can still ride the rails even with your suitcases. So compare the price of a HOHO day pass ($59pp), SkyTrain ticket ($4.45 or less pp), and bag storage - and remember, this is all in Canadian dollars not USD! - to see how much they are jacking up the price... Also bear in mind that the only convenience aspect is moving your bag for you; but that they are also adding a new risk of somebody involved in the bag move screwing it up - someone posted just last week about their bag being lost while doing this and Celebrity taking zero responsibility for it...

You may have an out-of-date download - the website and the schedule PDF confirms Summer Schedule runs until Sep 30 this year. After that it doesn't stop - just cuts back to less frequent service and an earlier stop time that continues until May next year. No differences on weekends I'm aware of - although THIS weekend just gone, since Canada Day was Friday, they changed the service routing to avoid Canada Place due to the extravaganza of events!

You're welcome - and I definitely concur with @cruiseryycthat a trip to the island is a very poor choice given your limited time. Our first visit to Vancouver we had a whole week, spent one day in Victoria (floatplane both ways, so as efficient a trip as possible) and one up in Whistler and while we enjoyed both we felt like we would have probably been better just sticking to Vancouver instead of either! Stanley Park and the Seawall are pretty much the most Vancouvery things about Vancouver, so in terms of must-do sights they do deserve to be right at the top of the list - but even assuming a fairly whistle-stop visit is done that only eats up your half day, the two full days still need some careful curating to maximise your enjoyment. However much I might know as a local, our tastes could still be widely disparate - so my optimal two days might not overlap at all with your own. Rather than say 'do not miss X' or 'avoid Y' the best advice I can give, hands down, is to point you at TripAdvisor rankings. You know you - so I'm confident that you have a reasonable idea of where your own tastes run compared to 'Joe Public', which means if you read through the list of top-ranked activities you should pretty quickly be able to cull the items which are not your cup of tea. Yes, there are a lot of fake reviews - but for the popular sites with thousands of reviews the relative ranking of each can be safely assumed to be correct. There are also a lot of suggested itineraries for one day and two day visits that might spur some ideas. Once you have a curated list (add a few more than you think you have time for as you might need to cull it further) that's when us locals can be really useful - you might want to visit places where the time of day makes a real difference to e.g. traffic for getting there, or places which are on all of the Pre- & Post-cruise ~4 hours in a bus excursions so get slammed by coachloads of cruisers during specific hours. Plus, if you're a family or even a couple it's unlikely your tastes align perfectly with all your travel companions. If you each make your own list of say top five things to see and do and only compare them when they're done you'll immediately see which sites overlap and which don't - maybe doing a different thing at the same time then meeting up again for lunch/dinner after will work, just like folks tend to do while on cruise ships (especially with how close together many of our downtown sites are). Plus, free city WiFi network (#VanWiFi broadcasts all over downtown and many other spots too) means you can message each other to keep in touch if you don't have free data or voice over here. Given your lack of Chinese food availability it does make sense to grab it while the going is good - so a few more spots, especially local chains, for you to maybe try and get lunch in while out and about: Peaceful is a chain with three locations in Vancouver proper. Hand-pulled noodles are a draw for many, and it's likely you won't even have heard of many of the dishes - lots of lamb, some Middle Eastern influence via the Silk Road and China's native Muslim population the Uighurs are part of this 'Northern' cuisine, which has a lot more wheat and less rice than the Cantonese you are likely most familiar with. ChongQing has two branches - one on Robson in the core, another on Commercial Drive - and is one of our popular local Szechuan restos. A specific-to-Canada dish is Ginger Beef, invented in Alberta - if you have any British Expat places near you in Spain, you might know 'deep fried crispy beef with chilli or garlic sauce' already - if so, this is a similar preparation but in a sweet & spicy ginger sauce. While it would be a dang pricey lunch, you could have even have 'Peking Duck' at one of China's top restos Quan Ju De (Vancouver is quite often the first location for a Western branch of an Asian chain). Dinesty only has one Vancouver branch, but it's conveniently downtown on Robson so might work well on any given day of pootling around downtown. Dumplings are the big winner here. Lastly, a dinner only option but one of the few really good restos in Chinatown that is actually Chinese, Bao Bei remains extremely popular - Shanghai and Taiwan are the flavour inspirations, but the vibe is very modern almost Tapas-esque, with either small nibbly plates or big ones to share. Custom cocktails are well worth indulging in. Several other places have tried (and mostly failed) since they opened to offer a 'modern Chinese cocktail bar' experience but BB was the first to make it work and the most successful.

Then I'll give you a few nicer and more interesting spots to check out, things that might be very hard or even impossible to find elsewhere. For a top-notch breakfast, I still think that Medina remains the place to beat - a vaguely 'Middle East meets Belgium' vibe overall with the best waffles and accompanying sauces in the city, and one of the very few good things to come out of Covid is that they finally take reservations - otherwise you'd be joining a block long queue they consistently had since they opened over a decade ago. For dinner, a truly unique dining opportunity - at a remarkably good price - can be had at Salmon & Bannock. It's the only sit-down Indigenous resto in the area, one of only a handful in the country. You won't find better priced bison or a wider variety of salmon dishes - and since they are the only resto with access to several species that can be hunted by our First Nations but not sold to anyone, the 'free samples' that get given out with the main dishes are the only way you'll be able to sample e.g. sea lion. Chinese - some of the best high end restos in the region are actually in Vancouver proper, despite Richmond's justified reputation as the local municipality with the most Chinese restos and population. Dynasty would be my overall pick, swanky dim sum, posh feast menus, but you could do a lot worse than Kirin which is more likely to be walkable from whichever hotel you pick. On the Thai front, I can't say that I have ever found a real standout locally - so I'm going to point you a little sideways to Phnom Penh which has a mostly Vietnamese/Cambodian menu though you'll find quite similar dishes to Thai places. This is one of the seriously longterm local spots, still has queues outside even forty years later. Beef Luc Lac, Chicken Wings, and Butter Beef remain probably the most popular dishes - if you're a couple, one of each is probably enough for a good size meal. Not remotely fancy - shared tables, plastic tablecloths, brusque service - but probably has more celebrity pics & autographed menus than anywhere else in town. Back into the fancier fish & meat menus - if you haven't visited Quebec (or you did and you loved it) St Lawrence is worth making a reso well in advance for. They rotate menus seasonally, changing every month or two, often with a regional French menu as well as their regular Quebecois staples. The pies are just ridiculous - theoretically simple, peasant fare but executed to perfection. L'Abattoir is a Gastown staple for French style food using local produce, and does particularly well on their bar program (a lot of award-winning cocktails and mixologists, wines unique to the resto, that sort of thing). The regular resto is unfussy - but staff know their stuff, you can ask any server for wine reccos to match food. They also offer an occasional seriously high end set menu in their function space Gaoler's Mews - that's probably the hardest ticket to get in town as the seats are few and even at $300+ it sells out in minutes when a meal is advertised. The Mackenzie Room has a constantly-changing, very local menu - it changes so often that even before Covid they rarely bothered with paper menus, it's all on a big chalkboard on the wall. If you can find another couple to go with, this is one of the places where throwing yourself at the Chef's mercy is the way to go - 'I Want It All' brings all 12 daily dishes to your table with plates for sharing! They will do smaller combo menus for couple though, at the same price per head ($69 most recently, a helluva deal for the quality). Barbara is possibly the most pedantically-plated resto in the city - it's a one man show, very few seats, all food prepped and dished by Chef Hennessy himself (and that man does love his tweezers!) Tiny resto, tiny wine list, tiny menu (3 tasting trios of dishes - veggie, meat, fish/seafood but you can pick and mix between them - and a couple of extra dessert options), and pretty tiny portions but absolutely everything is Just So. When they opened at $50 for the tasting menu they were insanely cheap - even now at $70 you can see every dollar on the plate. Sit at the bar rather than the handful of wall tables if you can, as Chef H is happy to chat. The above four are some of the spots I was thinking of when I asked about your tolerance for resto surrounding streets - if you're used to urban grit you should be fine, it's not so much dangerous as perhaps guilt-inducing that you're walking past folks living on the sidewalk when you're going to enjoy a fancy meal... Lunch-wise, dang near impossible to make specific suggestions as so much depends on what you are doing that day - much more efficient to eat anything decent that's in a convenient location. Aside from inside large Parks & Gardens, which have few food franchises operating, you'll generally have a lot of options nearby any of the tourist attractions. One general concept we have a lot of is food trucks - so many that you really need to keep track of who is where on the app! If you are near a Japadog cart, truck, or resto that's worth a definite lunch stop - a local legend and damn tasty. Personally I tend to always come back to the kurobuta pork terimayo dog, but I honestly haven't had a bad option. Hope that's enough to get you going!

That definitely seems like the best option!

About 400 yards away - as David says, the platform right outside Canada Place is for the other line (Expo, heads eastward). If you head for the end of the Canada Line platform that says 'Granville' you can actually walk downhill, a little easier if you have heavy cases than coming up in the main lobby of the historic station building where the walk is a very slight uphill slope along Cordova. Closest Canada Line station is City Centre - <800 yard walk. Google map directions. Stadium-Chinatown is only a couple of blocks away, but on the Expo line - to transfer you need to walk through a mall between City Centre & Granville stations, or else go all the way to Waterfront and change platforms (stairs or escalators up then back down again) so honestly the walk from City Centre is your easiest option...

@gillianspyou may not realise that the cruise pier, with the Pan Pacific on top, is slap bang in the downtown core - and about 90% of the city's hotels and tourist attractions are also within the core (airport hotels are actually in Richmond, a different city, there are only a handful of Vancouver hotels anywhere outside the core and almost all of those are neither boutique nor fancy). There are more central hotels then the PP - obviously since the pier is right on the water, hotels about halfway between it and False Creek on the other side of the core are most central - but the difference is only about half a mile;-) Personally I'd rather have a wider range of restos within a couple of blocks, so I'd be looking along the Robson corridor - nearer the western end if you see yourself spending a lot of time in Stanley Park, the eastern end if you'd rather hang out in Yaletown or Chinatown. Listel or Hotel Blu should cover you for boutiquey at each end - but Blue Horizon has large rooms, all corners, and high floors have stellar views for a more moderate cost very close to the Listel. On the really upmarket side, Shangri-La is slightly more central than the PP with even better service (one of only two 5* hotels in the city, the other is the Fairmont Pacific Rim). As to restos... budget, preferred/detested cuisines, dietary issues, and tolerance levels for, shall we say, less-than-salubrious streets around the resto would really help narrow down what to recommend for you... I could probably give you a different resto for each meal on all three days within five blocks walk of any hotel you choose if you have a wide range of food likes and a big budget, but if you're all gluten-free vegans who want to stay under fifty bucks a day things get trickier!

You're welcome - glad to hear Seasons still has good food & service these days and that you enjoyed your time here!