martincath

Fixed fare cabs are up again - $37 to almost every downtown hotel now except the fancy ones by the pier like the PP which now run $41. No hotels with both airport and port shuttles, never have been. No hotels with port shuttles at all unless you include a couple of hotels fancy enough to have towncars that will drive you anywhere you like for 'free' - the Hampton Inn was the only budget one with a bus, it did not return after Covid. Given how close every downtown hotel is to the pier though, allow US$10 per cab (assume worst case that 3 adults and lots of suitcases will fit - we do have some vans that handle a ton of luggage but 80%+ of all cab fleets are Priuses that may fit 4 bums on seats but might struggle to handle cruise bags for 4) and that should cover the meter AND a tip easily from most hotels! YWCA Hotel is always my recco for anyone who doesn't want to blow a fortune on a hotel - great location, designed as a hotel from day 1 so good soundproofing, an entire new wing added and the original one renovated right about when Covid hit so it's in better condition than most hotels in the city at any price. No dorms - they do have 5 bed family rooms and single rooms, as well as regular en suite and paired 'Jack & Jill' rooms that share a bathroom which makes it probably the most efficient hotel for groups that may or may not include couples, kids, friends as you can have a variety of room formats to suit, and large shared kitchens can save even more cash compared to dining out (laundries too, but if you've just flown in iI doubt you'll need to do a wash before boarding!) But for folks who just can't bring themselves to 'stay at the Y' regardless of how well-reviewed it is, the Condo hotels usually work well for groups - as well as Times Sq mentioned above look at Sunset and Rosedale, all of which have at least 1 and 2 bedroom units.

Flyover is a whopping 8 minutes ride time - but there's a whole program that shuffles you from room to room, so the total experience is at least 30mins (plus wait time if you don't make a reso). I'd consider prebooking a timeslot an hour before you plan to go check in, that way if all goes smoothly you'll have a bit of extra padding (booking 45mins before really doesn't allow for anything to go wrong!) Bag drop you might be able to do at 9am - I've never been earlier than 9:30 myself, but the longshoremen did look bored out of their gourds already as if they'd been guarding the luggage cages for quite a while! Just look for signage, and it will help you greatly if you print bag tags at home and bring them with you, then swap them out for the plane tags on the SkyTrain ride into town to save pfaffing around with blank tags and no pens available to write on them with! The Aquarium is pretty quick to get to or from by bus - the 19 has a stop only three blocks from the pier, maybe 700metres, and goes right into the park (the bus loop is an even shorter walk to the Aquarium). Depending how many 'speak to the keeper at Xam' shows you do, and how much reading of bumph at exhibits, you might kill anywhere from an hour to three at the Aquarium - so you probably have time to walk one way along the Seawall (budget an hour - it's silly not to at least go as far out as the Totem Poles if you're already at the Aquarium!) rather than bussing both ways. I would not prebook tickets for the Aquarium though, in case your flight is delayed and you need to change plans on the fly!

I think you've got just about every possible option listed (other than even more expensive ones like a one-way Whalewatch or chartering your own floatplane)! In short - if you schlep your own bags onto SkyTrain, then 620 transit bus to the ferry, then another transit bus on the other end into Victoria you'll pay only <$30 each and in theory because you can leave immediately you will be at the ferry terminal earlier than the BCFConnector coach service... ditto if you rent a car quickly (some offices downtown open 8am, you could be on the road by 8:30 and at the ferry terminal maybe an hour later - except that morning traffic flow through the tunnel is ALWAYS 3 lanes into town, 1 lane out and delays can get ridiculous). All-in-all there's a decent chance, but no guarantees, than you could make the 10am ferry going DIY - which does run on Sunday Aug 4th assuming no staffing or repair issues, both of which have been impacting BC Ferries ever since Covid - so transiting or rental car-driving to it would get you into Vic maybe an hour earlier than the coach... but I agree with Andy that all things considered, best to just book Wilsons unless you have Island plans which involve your own car. If you do need a rental, there's a LOT more competition here than in Vic so odds are you'll find a better rental price if you're returning to the mainland to fly home...

Too slow to edit, curses. Just to reiterate that it was good of OP to provide a warning, in case my overly-detailed response comes across as snarky in any way! TL;DR - the decals have been normal for 2 full seasons now, no reports of major issues in '22/23, so folks going later in the season should expect an easier time getting cabs... but walking the short distance out onto Dallas Road or even over to Helijet will open up more options, especially rideshare drivers for whom the decals are more personal hassle to acquire.

The 'empty' cruises can be filled with employees without any CBP/PVSA issues, I think also professional 'freebies' for travel agents to let them experience the ship. Plus there might have been a bunch of new crew flown into YVR to start their contracts. So seeing even quite a large number of people going up the gangplank, it could still easily be a 'non revenue' cruise. As Dennis says, persuading people to pay for a one night cruise is probably tricky if tide timings prevent port (in/e)gress during civilized hours, but employees and freebie-getters won't complain!!!! 😉

While it's good to get a 'boots on the ground' report, your cabbie is just confused about the details of the Terminal Training decals! They have applied since 2022 (when it was $305+tax; not sure whether $200 is correct this year or not) and the rules do apply to every For Hire vehicle, from pedicabs to Ubers to horse trolleys to boats to buses - primarily it's about educating the drivers to minimise the dangers of them harming themselves or others while at the pier, and secondarily ensure efficient flow of the various vehicle types by giving them designated zones (the guide first issued 2 seasons back has a very detailed map breaking down where each flavour of vehicle is supposed to be, which roads to come in and leave by, and even separates the horsey-cycley vehicles from the motorized ones - it's pretty well thought out!) Unlike a permanent operation Ogden Point is just a big slab of tarmac with painted lines and some temporary barriers, so folks not paying attention can very easily end up driving the wrong way, mowing down pedestrians etc. in a worst case - or more likely just causing delays by e.g. parking their Uber where tour buses are supposed to be! Ensuring that all the folks who will be driving in and out throughout the season know where to go really helps with efficiency and safety. The requirements are that you complete a form each season (April-October) confirming that your business is licensed and properly insured, list your drivers for each registered vehicle, and a short bit of online training to complete for those drivers to ensure that folks driving around the pier during working hours don't do anything stupid or dangerous to harm themselves or others... this early in the season, it's very likely that the cab firms just need to get their paperwork in order for 2024 season is all. This applies to all vehicular entry to the pier area except private vehicles (although it doesn't include the Helijet part of the pier right nextdoor, as that is a year-round operation - so if there's ever a long cab queue, walking about the same distance from the giftshop building to Helijet as you already did from the gangplank to the giftshop gets you to somewhere that's staffed all day and will even call you a cab if there's none waiting). The cab and coach companies won't want to miss out on lucrative rides, so the proverbial ducks should be in a row soon enough, but I'm not at all surprised that this early in April some still don't have the new season paperwork in order - for the UberLyfters the admin burden will be on them individually as 'private contractors' so any new ones of those who aren't moonlighting cabbies might be rudely surprised when turned away from the pier...

If we wanted to Do Stuff in Seattle on the way to/from Portland we might consider doing the same; lots more train options on the PDX-SEA part of the route!

A couple of other things sprang to mind, since this sounds like perhaps a first time driving up to Vancouver: first, gas prices - even in a super efficient vehicle you'll be refilling your tank at least once each way and you don't ever want to buy gas in BC! We do have a fair few charging stations around Vancouver if you're all-electric, but also a crapton of electric car owners so the wait time gets very annoying if you're road-tripping and have to top up rather than being able to do so off-peak, but the extra gas taxes here are hefty - I have literally filled my tank in Vancouver once (during Covid), we get 98% of our gas in Bellingham, Lacey, and Portland Costcos as I pretty much walk or transit everywhere here. If you're Costco members, hitting up the I5 corridor Costcos for gas on the way works well - but sometimes the Angel of the Winds casino (exit 210) is even cheaper than Costco in Bellingham (non-members of their gambling program paying by credit can even save, as the base cash price for regular gas often runs 15c less than Costco). Be sure to top up before you hit the border regardless, it's a ~hundred mile round trip to Richmond from Bellingham, more into downtown Vancouver (and local 87 Octane gas price works out almost US$6 per gallon!) Secondly, if you are just blowing through Seattle rather than stopping to do something, check WSDOT for roadworks especially on weekends (there's been some majorly inconvenient roadwork, e.g. shutting I5 down to a single lane overnight near Seatac then 2 lanes for another night and all the weekend after), and even if there's no major hassles timing your trip so you can use the Express lanes can help a lot. Lots of less frequent visitors also seem unaware that the pay lanes on I405 are free for anyone on weekends, so it's often faster than I5 when the express lanes are not going in your direction... highway signs give some advance warning to compare I405 and I5 times, but not enough to give much thinking time (or lane changing time if you're over in the HOV!) so it's best to check for known issues in advance, and even better also have passenger check WSDOT for accidents, or Waze if you use it, as you drive. Thirdly, the border - again, get your passenger to check their smartphone for border wait times as you get close to the junctions where you have a choice about which to take - there are also signs above the highway as you approach the key decision points. I5 compared to the 'truck crossing' at Pacific highway/543 are close to each other, - just don't peel off I5 unless you can save at least 10mins at Pacific, as it's at least an extra 10mins drive time if you're heading to YVR or downtown! Opting for the always-temptingly-quiet Lynden or Sumas crossings though add at least 40mins drive time, so savings really need to be more like an hour to be definitely worth the extra drive time and gas and you need to make that call before leaving Bellingham or waste even more time on backroads to get to them. For folks staying east of Vancouver these crossings might make a lot of sense, maybe even parts of Surrey, but anywhere in Richmond or Vancouver stick to I5 unless you see warnings of a total closure or 2+ hour tailbacks... With 6 hours to Seattle I'm guessing you guys are well south, east, or west of Eugene - maybe Reedsport, Roseburg, Bend neck of the woods @Southpaw97470? From Portland the Amtrak Cascades is a very enticing alternative, but now that the PDX-Eugene legs are only done by trains from Seattle, never the full ride from Vancouver, you'd have the pfaff of connecting Thruway buses or very long transfers between Coast Starlight and Cascades services even if you can conveniently get into Eugene - so unless you have friends who could drop you in Portland I'd stick to driving (but the train ride is very nice - especially the 'private' immigration processing at the station just for folks on the train!)

As long as you're comfortable with all the walking distances involved (could be several hundred yards from gate to bag claim; maybe 500 yards or so from bag claim to SkyTrain now carrying the big case; then about 600 yards from City Centre Station to hotel; on embarkation day almost 3/4ths of a mile to bag drop, then several hundred yards more in shorter chunks to actually board) then you'd be fine with the train - platform to train tolerances are very tight, so little suitcase wheels clunk a little but roll on without getting stuck, which means your rollator wheels won't have a problem. Boarding at a terminus means nobody to fight with for a seat - and obvious walking aid users won't have a problem scoring sideways seats. At CAD$8.10pp (daytime weekdays; ~$2 less evenings & weekend; use a ticjet vending machine to get your Senior Concession rate!) you would pay less than half the price of a cab, but still only ~US$20 total difference so it really comes down to how far you can comfortably walk with your suitcases... If you're used to navigating large airports by yourselves, without asking for a golf cart/wheelchair and pusher or porter for bags, you'll probably be OK - personally though I'd be taking a fixed-price cab in from YVR (CAD$37 + tip as you would at home) and probably also a metered cab from hotel to pier (without any traffic, maybe $6 - with typical slow-as-molasses bottleneck at the pier I'd assume $10) so that at least you only have to schlep bags around at the airport where you can use a luggage cart. As long as the Rollator folds you won't be restricted in any transport method while sightseeing (HOHOs do not accept big bags or wheelchairs, but do take folding strollers and the like; not all coaches for tours can handle big chairs, but their fleets do have at least one vehicle with a lift so if you book in advance they should accommodate even a fixed frame; most taxis are Prius, so if it's a rigid frame you'd be best to call and ask for an Accessible van which make up about 17% of local cab fleets; none of the rideshare fleets have any accessible vehicles - users instead pay an extra fee to make up for them for not adhering to transportation legislation, but again if it folds you'll fit fine in the assorted Teslas and even sportscars some local Uber drivers use(!); all transit vehicles handle large scooters & wheelchairs so no worries with a walking frame).

Well, the good news is @Stevepcb64 Steve, that given how compact downtown is most of our restos are conveniently close to a HOHO stop - the bad news is that means it doesn't narrow down your options much! Fortunately you gave some other criteria too, which does help! Personally I still think that the best downtown brunch option remains Medina - and while it sounds fancy on paper, the dress code is Shirt & Shoes (literally everywhere in Vancouver, even super high-falutin' joints, lack any kind of formal dress code - besuited finance bros sit at tables next to people in hiking boots just about anywhere that isn't a private club). Pricing is frankly comparable, sometimes even cheaper than vastly inferior chain restos - there really isn't anything much decent downtown that sits in the gap between fastfood and $20+ a plate for anything eggy. The only downside is popularity - on a Sunday, brunch for even a two top you can easily wait an hour if you don't make a reso and if you need 4+ seats it only gets worse. A charitable donation of $10pp though secures a reso! Water views for something more in the lunch/dinner vein you have several options - Tap & Barrel is a local-only minichain, loads of local beers and wines, and pub grub that considering how good their patios are could easily have the price increased at least 25% and people would still happily pay it (it's almost certainly your cheapest HOHO convenient waterside dining). Multiple locations - the huge one at the convention centre and Bridges on Granville Island are probably the busiest because lots of tourists stumble across both easily, but even the more-for-locals Athletes Village and Shipyards locations still get packed outdoors with mostly-locals (however, if you don't mind sitting inside you can usually get a seat immediately!) A bit fancier - consider Cactus Club, who have 2 Seawall locations. A very late dinner in June needed for sunset views, but possible! Both English Bay and Convention Centre look over the water, one each side of downtown core, but note that HOHO no longer visits English Bay at all, so you'd have to walk down Denman from stop 4 (which is a really good street to eat on, packed with one-off restos mostly casual to midrange pricing - just avoid anything Mexican or BBQ, even though Buckstop on Denman is one of our least-bad Southern BBQ joints it still sucks compared to Sonny's, let alone your favourite local pitmaster!) From stop 4 you could also walk up to the Seawall, where Lift is my pick for fancy local one-off right-on-the-water resto (excellent local wines by the glass list). Very different - zero views, a dank basement basically, but for downtown probably the best atmosphere of any pub - would be Moose's Down Under, an Aussie expat bar, just along the street from Stop 2 on W Pender. They do sell various kangaroo options, but the best thing on the menu are the Parms (if you've ever eaten veal or chicken parmigiano at an Italian place, for some reason the Aussies - and the northeast of England - just really rolled with the 'breadcrumbed pounded white meat layered with cheese, sauce etc.' concept, and now you can try a dozen different kinds!) On Granville Island, a multitude of food options abound - a lot of very casual options in the food court (if you eat outdoors to be entertained by buskers, watch out for the gulls - they will literally swoop down on your table and snag food from right in front of you) but also several pubs & restos. On the cheaper, local, casual front, Tony's is good for a big pile of fried stuff; my family really enjoys the Fish Company (they have dockside outdoor seating, from which you can sometimes see the local seal family who enjoy a lazy life feasting on fish guts from the small fleet of vessels that dock nearby) and weirdly enough this branch of The Keg (a Canadian steakhouse chain) is among the easiest to get a good dinner time reso in - it's booked a lot by folks going to the theatres, so they tend to get a lot of tables freed up by 7pm!) At lunc, there's also great value at the student-run cafe/bistro you'll walk right past from the bus stop onto GI. Stop 13 is in Chinatown - and while it's much less Chinese these days, there are still some great dinner options. Phnom Penh would be my suggestion (Viet-Cambodian) as the most unique option, with stellar beef and chicken wings - dinner only, service is brusque, tables are big and plastic covered and shared unless you have a large group, but there are still queues outside every day even after almost 40 years! Chinatown BBQ is my go-to lunch spot - hella cheap, deliberately discounted so the local Chinese seniors can still afford it, and if you're a brisket guy do not hesitate to try their curry brisket... very different from barky southern style, but delish. Not on HOHO, but otherwise though very much in line with your asks, is Salmon'n'Bannock - short cab ride (or a mile and a bit uphill walk) from Granville Island, definitely better known than it used to be thanks to Tripadvisor, but still the only way to taste local First Nations cuisine other than as a snacky food truck item. Some of the best value game meat and nice fish in town, still owned by the same lady although they've hired more professional staff these days from outside the family but still indigenous folks (even an actual maitre d'/somm who can give solid wine pairing info as well as a rundown on native culture). Might be open at lunch over summer, but early June prob still dinner only - cheap transit bus ride back downtown after, maybe $15-20 by cabuber depending where you're staying. There's a ridiculously large list of possible options, hopefully some other locals and past visitors will contribute some further suggestions Steve.

I agree with Milhouse on the routing - on foot, you can go places that the carriage can't so cutting across at Lumberman's arch is a good shortcut. As to the bike thing, I spent a lot of years on the wrong side of 250lbs which made for some issues when it came to rental bikes - as a suggestion, JV Bikes definitely still stocks adult trikes and they have a weight limit anywhere from 300-400lbs depending on frame as they're designed to carry some cargo as well as a passenger. I'm not sure if they have any motorized trikes for rent though, might need to use your legs (but then, us chubby chaps tend to have strong legs just from carrying ourselves around!) But if you decide to keep it simple and walk, consider taking a cab into the park and getting dropped at Prospect Point - walking downhill from there is much less hassle than up! There are trails down to the seawall (Avison, Chickadee), still a bit loopy and indirect so they aren't ridiculously steep, but you're away from traffic compared to walking next to the roads. I'd ballpark the walk from Prospect down to the Seawall then skirting the outside past the totems and lighthouse back to the entrance as about 3 miles? If the Seawall trail is packed, walking against the flow might be troublesome but the park drive (carriage route) parallels it close by, does have a sidewalk, and rarely sees much foot traffic.

The only suggestion I'd disagree with above is the bus tour - and only because it's far too short, not because Landsea are bad in any way! With a redeye unfortunately there are zero scheduled coach tours that work sensibly - you either get dumped at YVR so early you cannot even check your bags, or if it's the one possible really long day tour (to Victoria and Butchart by ferry and bus) you arrive back at YVR after your flight already left! If you still have to deal with your bags and transpo to the airport after your bus tour so you can kill time downtown, why even bother with a short tour - the HOHO is a far more practical option if you want a bus based tour. The most sensible options are to do it independently, or if you were genuinely considering dropping $150pp look into a custom private tour! We have a ton of local guides with big cars and minivans who will drive you around with your bags for as many hours as you want to pay them for - check ToursByLocals.

Answered in general on another post (you really covered the bases of which board would get traffic!) but specific to this - followup Q, yes it's well worth having bags stored downtown rather than sent to the airport for an extortionate cost. If you use the PP hotel, you may walk less far to SkyTrain then you did coming from your cabin to the curb - it's <400 yards to the Canada Line entrance, downhill too. SkyTrain has no Addfare going to YVR, only coming in, so in the evening costs a maximum of CAD$3.15pp - you don't even have to buy a ticket if you have a VISA/MasterCard with tappable chip, or a Smartphone with NFC payments enabled, you can just tap directly on the fare gates to enter and leave. If you also use transit around town during the day, and end up crossing a fare boundary on a weekday, tapping also gets the system to do the math for you about how many zones you crossed and charge the correct amount - at interbank exchange rates. It really doesn't get any simpler! If you did buy the madly overpriced excursion, it would include a SkyTrain ticket - but with your savings you could splurge for a frickin' LIMO and still save buckets (we have fixed limo and taxi cost bands, a towncar would run you about double cab fare, so a hundred bucks for 3-4 people total including a generous tip for the driver, rather than the $100pp extra from princess...)

Accent Inn by the airport - cheapest longterm parking in the area at $40 per week, as well as being a fairly budget hotel for the room cost. Their airport shuttle will drop you at one of the SkyTrain stations on the Richmond fork - so you save $5pp heading in to cruise or sightsee downtown compared to boarding it at the airport and also a few minutes time saving as you don't have to drive as far on the shuttle. Depending what you plan to see/do post cruise you might want to consider moving to a more central hotel for the post-cruise nights, as so many things are walkable with the downtown core.

I would have zero hesitation booking a flight as early as 10am domestically if I planned to self-disembark and take SkyTrain (I have NEXUS, but for domestic flights with only Security to worry about literally everyone can prebook their slot through security and also join the short queue). 11:40am you'll have sooooo much time to kill make sure you leave a novel in your hand luggage!

Looks like the mods moved it over to West Coast already OP, so you should get plenty of eyes on it now and a few more replies. Personally I think the HOHO is a good idea - and in terms of your bags, simply store them downtown yourself for a fraction of the cost of the cruiseline HOHO excursion! Even if you don't book in advance, you can use the Pan Pacific hotel bell desk to store your bags all day, for less than the official pier storage ($10 per bag vs. up to $15 this year for the official one!); while you do get a discount on storage by booking a tour with West Coast - who run the HOHO as well as various other tours - their hours are useless to you, as you have to come back by 4:30pm to retrieve the bags before they close! Much better to use literally any other service, whether the PP or a prebooked other location (many hotels and stores have signed up with the likes of Bounce, Luggage Hero etc.), so you can do whatever you like all day, have dinner downtown, and only have to get your bags before you head out to YVR in the evening. NB: even if you are very nervous travelers, and headed to the US, it is utterly pointless arriving at YVR more than two hours early - there is no preclearance step for late flights (CBP stop work at 8:30pm) so you only have to drop your bags at check-in like a normal flight, get through Security (which you can prebook for free to avoid queuing, even though this late there's rarely more than a few minutes wait anyway), and most of the restos are shut by 8 or 9pm so there's very little to do post-security to kill time. You do want to be at least a full hour early - bag check has a hard cap of 60mins preflight for every airline I'm aware of flying int'l - but for redeyes anything much more than an hour is gravy. Do pad your timing to get to YVR a little if you plan to take a cab - limited routes, a key bridge or two, roadworks every summer and of course the chance of an accident - can make the 35ish minute drive 15+ mins longer easily enough. But SkyTrain - even with luggage - is always the cheapest (evenings any day are all One Zone, so barely over CAD$3pp!), almost always the fastest, definitely the most consistent in timing (26mins end to end, automated trains, no traffic possible means that time rarely varies by more than seconds), and easy to handle a good amount of baggage per person with (big case and carryon each, no problem).

Assuming you mean Okanagan wine @donaldsc Don, then with a car you might consider actually driving up there Pre or Post cruise! It's a fairly popular area for minibreaks locally, especially for sunworshippers, and for really limited run wines the only way to get some is to deal direct with the producer. In addition to the gov't liquor stores - look for Signature branches, as they have some extra-well-trained staff as well as a wider selection - some of the private stores sell things that BC Liquor don't due to lack of volume (there's a whole weird legal thing here when it comes to anything with 'Sin taxes' so technically BC Liquor are always involved behind the scenes, but fancier stuff that there might only be a few cases of left after direct sales to regular customers almost never make it to the BC Liquor retail shelves). If you have specific wines in mind, check if BC Liquor has stock first (just use Product Search on the homepage, it'll tell you which if any stores have it and how many bottles are in stock) - if they do, they'll be the cheapest as the discounts for retailers are very slim here, only a handful of popular-but-crap brands ever get sold for less than regular gov't retail price with most private stores instead putting prices higher rather than even matching them.

Having the same preference, and having used many UK/US/Euro trains, I find that the choice made for the Canada Line rolling stock is actually the best of any of the airport LRTs and even real trains I've used David - your bags are always with you rather than at the other end of the carriage in a dedicated luggage area, which removes a theft risk; there's no need to lift them into an overhead rack (much harder for most folks with any degree of limited strength than sliding under a seat) or even a middle shelf like in many of the UK trains with dedicated multi-shelf luggage spaces on the ends. The actual reason given for the choice of vehicle layout if I'm remembering the early planning documents correctly (which did have multiple layouts for both the chosen provider and the other competing bids) was simply because every dedicated luggage rack eats enough floor space that at least 4 people could stand there instead - and these are ultimately a people-moving service for the overwhelming majority of folks riding them (even on the airport line, except for the stations on the Sea Island fork, most folks have a briefcase/daypack level of encumbrance as they are commuters). I'm pretty sure the set of 4 sideways seats referenced by @Milhouse above are supposed to be priority 'for folks who need them' seating, so I had discounted the open areas when replying to the folks with 2 big'uns each - but standing in the open area across from them with your cases vertical should enable keeping them under control easily enough if you stand nearer the front of the train (acceleration is more gentle than braking, you want to be bracing them for the slowing down part - and worst case it's you who gets bumped by your own case then, not other folks!) There's really only going to be room for a couple of folks with four big cases to fit in that part of each carriage, but since both YVR and Waterfront are terminus stations you board a basically empty train so it's rarely hard to get a choice of where to be if you're ready when the train pulls in. @dsteinthe new fare system removes the zone calculation, or even using the ticket machines at all, for most folks these days - as long as you have 1 tappable credit card, or smartphone with a loaded card to their NFC app, per person you literally tap them on the gates to enter and leave and the system does the required math of zones traveled and autobills at interbank exchange rates the appropriate Adult fare for that time and day. Kids too old to travel free (13+) do need an adult to have a spare card to let them do this, and for both them and Seniors 65+ who want to save a bit of money may still choose to use a machine so they can get a Concession fare of course!

Only the very first (bag drop, which is split by ship, not line, so do be very careful!) and the very last part (actually boarding) is ship-specific, with Checkin-in desks done by lines and then Security and CBP Preclearance a mixed bag of all pax regardless of ship or line. You won't be able to board the wrong HAL ship - your cruise card will be rejected at the gangway as you're not on their manifest - but you can put your bags into the wrong cage and if you do that it may not be caught (there have been a few reports over the years of folks and their bags both being on the right line but not vessel!)

Luggage drop is reliably available somewhere down in the parking levels by at least 9:30am - look for signs and some guys standing around with big cages on wheels. I'd suggest even later for your return - depends what time HAL departs, but even if they're on the earlier side like 4/4:30pm you can push it to 2 hours predeparture with total safety. If e.g. your Celeb vessel isn't leaving until 5 or later, they may have official boarding slots issued that run later than your new HAL ship, so especially if it's a day with a third or even fourth ship on top of those two it can still be pretty busy through to 2pm. Depending what you want to eat, and if you want a view, outdoor seating, or only care about quality grub Gastown may or may not be the best place to dine; if it's a nice day and you like 'al fresco' the other side of the convention centre from the pier has restos with tons of outdoor seating and big windows, from decent pub grub (Tap & Barrel) to 'fine dining lite' (Cactus Club) for example, among several other food options on or above the Seawall, and these are all even nearer than pier than most Gastown restos.

A whole buck less! 😉 My concern with a mid-September date is that this might actually be a 'just for the cruiseline' excursion, with who knows what compromises made to the menu to drive down the value even further... I just checked, because it's been a while, and they have jacked the price up yet again (now CAD$95!) and changed reservation system to SevenRooms from OpenTable - right now, resos only go until 4pm on the September dates I checked so you might want to enquire as to precisely what's included on this excursion and compare it with the detailed list of the included nibbles, types of tea etc. for the regular 'good but pricey' version... which not that long ago had a blatant Summer Tourist Tax added (prices in June-Sep were 50% higher than rest of the year when I first moved out to the west coast ~13 years ago - now they just keep the tourist tax on year round, while other Fairmonts have near identical menus for about two-thirds the price). Note that High Tea is one of those ironic names - it's a real meal, far more casual than Afternoon Tea though slightly-swanked-up compared to the regular 'meat and two veg' Tea (which just means dinner/supper to many folks in Scotland, Ireland, & North of England) by adding some scones & jam, maybe a pastry - an upgrade to us working plebs as a treat but hardly comparable to the froo-froo Afternoon all-luxury version! Coffee (and iced tea) isn't inherently a warning about a bad experience though - that's been offered alongside the classic pot of hot tea for at least my lifetime, very helpful to long-suffering family members dragged along grudgingly to at least be able to drink a familiar beverage (and even Britain was far more of a coffee drinking nation until the Victorian era anyway, when coffee rust decimated the original Indian coffee plantations while not impacting tea production). Even if you're still keen to go I'd check out the options around OK City first - this website does a great job at listing locations offering teas, even just seasonal/special occasion ones rather than regular menu offerings, although I've found that the prices can often be well out of date. Even if there's nothing as fancy as the Empress, you'll at least have some baseline expecations set so you'll be able to assess how good the surroundings/service/baking was without also trying to process the whole concept for the first time.

If it's Vancouver to Seattle, am I correct in assuming that this is a post-cruise shuttle to get you to a flight out of Seatac? If not, please clarify! Unfortunately even if you get accurate feedback, there's no guarantee your experience will be the same as folks last year had, or even folks the day before you - Princess (and the other lines too) do not have a singular process, or a singular local charter bus line they always use, or even a constant legal framework to operate the service within, so at times the experience literally varies day to day not just season to season. Given I live in Vancouver, I've never taken a cruiseline transfer to Seatac - but I've crossed the border in every remotely sensible way you can and seen enough reports from folks who complained when something went screwy with their transfers to be aware of how the local logistics work. I can therefore talk you through the theoretical options - from the simplest (and least likely, as it requires buy-in from port authority and both Canadian and US border control agencies) to the most-annoying (where the line, despite taking your money, has no bus booked at all and just buys you a seat on the 9:10am scheduled QuickCoach that leaves from the pier at least 5 days a week in summer). Which you will get you likely until the day before when your Disembarkation docs appear under the cabin door; you may even find out at the pier who's going on which bus! Best case is a Sealed Bus Transfer - legally you never leave US territory, boarding inside the pier without going through Canadian customs, the bus door literally sealed with a sticker, drive to the border where CBP just check that the seal remains intact and if it is wave you through. This is the fastest possible drive, as literally no stops in Canada (illegal to do so!) and probably not even a toilet stop between US border and SEA, and 3 hours end to end is possible if there's not much traffic in Seattle. These trips however need so many people to agree that they're happening it's best to assume you will NOT get this treatment - even pre-Covid the shorter rides just to YVR's US controlled wing failed to happen more seasons than they managed to get all their ducks in a row and make happen, so the odds are against you. If this is an option, it should be advertised as such - names like a 'US Direct Transfer' have been used in the past. Next-easiest, and the most likely if you are cruising in Summer rather than close to the beginning or end of the season, is a direct transfer by charter coach - you'll have to disembark, go through Canadian customs (this may happen onboard depending on cruise route - if you are asked to hand in a customs form aboard you probably will not see CNSA at all in the pier), then walk over to the bus (inside the pier, many buses, be sure to get the correct one!) and leave your bags next to the trunk hatch. Get driven to the border, park, get off and retrieve your bags from next to the bus, head inside to drop them on the x-ray scanner belt (no trolleys, no porters!), be processed by CBP for entry to the US, collect your bags and take them back outside next to the bus again, reboard. With processing time at the border, expect at least a 4hr trip - they might also add a toilet break stop. NB: the bag schlepping thing is the default - but CBP can choose not to ask for it, leaving bags onboard the bus instead, or even go so far as to let you all stay aboard the bus holding up your passports and have an agent walk the aisle, comparing faces to IDs. As a charterbus full of cruisers, in US waters until yesterday, with basically no time to have gone shopping in Canada before boarding the bus, and probably almost all US citizens and greencard holders, there is no official statistic but common sense indicates your coachload is more likely to benefit from a 'light' inspection due to being low-risk compared to a random bus-ticket buying person... but always assume you will go through the whole rigamarole! Least-easy is when instead of a charter, you are added to an existing QuickCoach departure - basically it's the same process as a charter in terms of border crossing, but because your fellow pax could be literally anyone the odds of nicer-than-they-need-to-be CBP treatment diminish! QuickCoach express service does also stop a few times, so their official timing is ~4h50m to SEA from downtown Vancouver. Why won't you know in advance what will happen? Because until the last night of the cruise anyone aboard can buy a seat on a transfer... so Princess literally don't know how many seats are needed. If it's less than a coachload, but they had enough advance sales to have already chartered a bus, great - it's when the number of seats sold exceeds the capacity of the booked vehicles that things get messy, with perhaps a minibus hired at short notice or seats booked on QuickCoach depending how many extra bums need seats to sit on. Honestly, short of finding an advertised sealed-bus transfer in advance you should at least consider booking your own transport independently - renting a car for the day will very likely be both cheaper and much more flexible in timing and routing, since you mentioned kids that means at least three or more of you and those per-person tickets really add up. If you don't have a flight to catch same day, the evening train is both much more pleasant and significantly cheaper than any bus (adults $34, kids even less, some ages even free with Amtrak Saver tix). Even booking QuickCoach direct you can probably spend less to get basically the same experience - direct from pier to airport - and at least know you have a seat reserved on a QC coach rather than a random factor to worry about. Only if you have Princess flights booked would letting them do it for you be worth giving up control of timing and pricing of your transpo IMO - since if they fail to get you to the flight in time they'll be on the hook for all the rebooking costs.

Honestly, the best question isn't so much 'how early can I check-in?' as 'how efficiently can I check in?' As already mentioned, you can drop bags before check-in begins - but you can then leave and enjoy yourself for hours before coming back after the queues have died down! The first people aboard will have waited maybe two hours for that privilege; even folks unlucky enough to roll in on Amtrak or a late morning flight who arrive in the peak 11am-1pm hours probably spend less time on average in the terminal than those early-arrivers do, although they may spend 90+minutes slowly shuffling through the queues rather than sitting down in a waiting room for 90mins then moving quickly through the security and CBP. But show up late, when most folks are already aboard? It's easy to spent only 20 minutes curb to cabin, literally never stopping moving except when interacting with staff or kiosks at the various stages. Well worth the price of missing one 'free' sitdown lunch IMO! Even us locals can find things to do around town that are much more worthwhile than sitting in a cavernous room with a horde of other pax for hours, and folks who don't live here or visit often will find more things to do for tourists than in every Alaskan port put together! The risk of showing up too late to be allowed to board is also basically zero unless you make a poor decision, like sightseeing over on the north shore (in theory it's a half hour drive back from Capilano bridge for example, but due to very limited bridge routes it can easily double just because of traffic, let alone if there's an accident). Sightsee around downtown, leaving the spots an easy walk back to the pier for last (Gastown, Harbour Centre are <10mins away on foot; FlyOverCanada ride is literally on the pier!) and you can shave the margins to maximise sightseeing time very safely - aim for 2 hours before your ship departs and you should hit the sweet-spot of as few other people around as possible but no chance of missing the ship.

Just checked Accent Inns - a small local BC chain - and they still offer 'stay & park' deals at their airport location that work out to $40 per week on top of room rate with up to 4 weeks parking allowed to be booked. That's as cheap as it's going to get for parking, and if you are driving all the way from the 'peg @jenquist I imagine you'll be planning at least one local night in case of delays en route (fire season plus limited routes makes for incredibly lengthy detours occasionally in summer on top of the inevitable roadworks, idiots renting RVs who have no idea how to drive them well causing massive tailbacks on all single-lane roads through the mountains, occasional accidnts etc.) Not a great location for sightseeing - but the hotel's airport shuttle should be able to drop you at Aberdeen or Bridgeport SkyTrain stations, saving you the $5pp Addfare compared to riding it from the airport station downtown, and they'll obviously pick you up at YVR on the way back.

To the best of my knowledge it's the same experience regardless of the time of day - and cruise seasons for the prior 5+ years have seen OpenTable bookings available until 9pm, at least until Canadian Summer ends on Labour Day! This is very likely going to save you some money, as the cruiselines jack up the laready outrageous CAD$90pp to cover a shuttle bus into town which you could either walk in about 20min or pay $10 for a cab full of people to do instead. Honestly less money does buy better elsewhere - but if you only have a PVSA compliance evening stop none of the better value tearooms have followed the Fairmont down the path of evil that is Afternoon Tea In The Evening! At least book it directly yourself though and cab or walk it, US$100 = $130ish Canadian, so you could hire a cab both ways yourself, tip the cabbie 100% of the fare, and still break even!