martincath

There are a couple of other websites specializing in day rooms to check, but every one I've looked at only turns up the Hyatt downtown consistently (and the Fairmont YVR, which is even more kaching and not at all convenient for sightseeing!)

If you've got young kids or fogeys who need naptime your options are likely to be Hyatt or nothing; but if everyone is old enough, but not too old, to manage a day on their feet before the redeye you could just store your bags ($10ea at the Pan Pacific hotel right above the pier, even less at some other locations found using luggagehero, bounce and similar) and put the cost of a dayroom toward a HOHO tour, ticketed attractions etc. I find that a movie ticket provides a great place to nap (pick a boring film!) in air-conditioned comfort, with a guarantee of being woken up when the movie ends so you won't sleep too long and miss heading out to YVR 😉 

One outside the box possibility is to rent office space by the hour - while I think all our hotels are now back to capacity enough post-Covid that they are no longer renting their rooms as offices so the odds of getting a room with a real bed are near zero, you might find some with a couch suitable for a couple of wee ones?

Honestly, if it's more about the company than the food I'd keep it simple and stick to Timmies, Mickey Ds, or A&W (who actually do a passable Fried brekky in case anyone is looking for a bit more of a lasting protein/fat hit).

If you want fancier fare though, of the options listed I'd say Bel Cafe is the most practical - while the portion size isn't as good as Medina and the dishes run a bit simpler in flavour profile, Hawksworth runs the tightest kitchen in the city so consistency is as good as it gets and the daily deals up the value quite a bit. It's also a helluvalot easier to walk in and get a four top than Medina!

If Light is the most important aspect of the food, then Tractor would work well - even most locals think of them as just 'that weird salad bowl place full of people in Lululemons!' but they do a very decent range of brekkies at a modest price; $6 for a bacon & egg wrap is not to be sniffed at, and avotoast for single digits of dollars is mad good value for Van! Even big fat carnivores like myself can fill our bellies decently by adding a wrap onto the side of a brekkie bowl or sammich, and still come in at <$20 - the only real issue with them is they're so healthy that they don't sell coffee, just lemonades, kombuchas, and stuff...

Yup - there will be road closures making things a little more annoying, but then there's also way less commuter traffic on a holiday so it might end up being a wash. Cab fares are now fixed from pier to airport, so even if it is a slower drive you ain't paying extra for it (although Uber will undoubtedly Surge the cra*p out of fares if they're busy!) Canada Place will update their website with the event schedule nearer July but you can look at last years for an idea of what's happening

Even if you're the last folks kicked off, don't start waiting for a cab until ~9:30am, wait an hour, take an hour to drive, get caught up in all the cruise bus traffic at YVR so you take another hour plus to get through bag drop, security, preclearance... you'll still be at your gate before boarding starts so I wouldn't worry about missing the flight but I'd still prebook a timeslot for Security!

Personally though I'd much rather get going earlier, take SkyTrain if you can manage (if you can self-disembark you are 100% capable of schlepping your bags to, on, and off the train - and unlike cars, no traffic issues!), then chill at the airport for a couple of hours longer. Treat yourself to lounge access with what you save taking SkyTrain (<US$3pp!) 😉 

22 hours ago, Stevepcb64 said:

... Any recomendations on what the must do's are in Stanley Park and an itenerary of what and how to do it? TIA

First, read through the official website which lists all the assorted subsections within the park. Then fire up Google Maps, which has had official drive-throughs along the entire Seawall, all the roads, and even some trails. On top of that, tons of uploaded personal photos including the rotable 'photospheres' let you put yourself into the picture - for the vast majority of the park, pretty much all of it except the ticketed Aquarium and the sporting activities really, the crux of whether or not you'll find it worthwhile to visit is to look at the views!

Unfortunately the park-specific HOHO died years ago, so the only way to actually VISIT each section rather than getting a driveby on the not-cheap, very limited loop horse trolley is to buy your way around - with either sweat or money... the park website still mentions trolleybuses and coach tours here and there (our Park Board is the epitome of inefficient when it comes to anything managerial or technological!) but aside from a token stop on some city bus tours there really isn't any non-private tour that gives even close to as much as the horse trolley does, and that only sees a fraction of one part of the park.

If you can ride a bike, rent a bike - if at least some of you can ride a bike, consider a Tandem or eBike (if it's someone lacking strength/endurance, let younger legs or a motor provide the power!) or a Tricycle (if it's a balance issue). Bikes can get basically anywhere that folks on foot can, but with a significant speed improvement - crucial if you want to see sites that are not all close together as efficiently as possible.

A car is actually a fairly efficient way to move folks who don't or can't walk far or bike - if you have any other suburban attractions you would like to visit (e.g. Queen Lizzie Park or UBC Campus) then renting a car for one day may work out very well for you even if you don't get out of town proper with it. Parking in Stanley is 'pay once by plate number, park anywhere for the time paid' which means you can drive inside to e.g. near the totem poles, park and wander a bit; then move the car onward to Prospect Point, Rose Garden, Tearoom etc. Not every bit of the park is superconvenient to a parking lot, but there are several spread throughout (the link above has detailed maps), so as long as folks can walk or others can push them even a couple of hundred yards you can visit many of the popular parts.

Hiring a cabbie to drive you around will add up - official wait time runs just over $30 an hour these days, cost while moving usually works out at least double that, so it doesn't take too long for the meter to run up higher than a rental car + parking but you could take the risk of calling cabs/ubers etc. for each leg... I do occasionally see a cab sitting in the parking lot at Prospect Point, and once you're around the far side where the restos are folks obviously cab to and from those for lunch & dinner, so you might not have to wait too long provided you only make a small number of stops to look at stuff.

Hiring a private guide for the day with a vehicle would be pricier than the cab or rental option, but might get you some good tales as well as transport. If memory serves there are GPS-based cheap downloadable 'tours' that you can follow, and at least one guy literally selling a live virtual tour so whether you walk or bike or cab around somebody will talk to you on your phone about what you're looking at. Some First Nations run tours will walk you around with a focus on art, medicinal plants, etc., and if you get lucky and visit on a day when there's something happening locally there might be specific event stuff related to Canada Day or whatnot.

As a local, nine times out of ten if I'm in the park myself rather than bringing visitors I'm doing the whole seawall loop on foot or bike - the only bit of the park I never, ever miss on those visits is the totem pole display, which is very close to the seawall so a trivial amount of extra sweat involved. Everything else is nice in varying degrees, but some parts are seasonal (roses!) and others too much effort if you've already done them (Prospect Point - yes, the views are nice BUT not nice enough to schlep up that hill on foot or bike for the umpteenth time!) so it's all about 'is this a great day for X?' but if you're a first timer you should get your butt up the hill for those views 😉 

The only 'landmark' that I would give a caveat to in cruise season is Beaver Lake - if you expect to see Beavers! There's other stuff to see on the loop around it, it's certainly interesting, but even our pretty-chill-about-people local beavers rarely make an appearance except pretty early or late in the day (the ten-cent word is Crepuscular; they like to be out around both dawn and dusk) and that's when also when you get into potential issues with coyotes, homeless campers, and the practical matter that to be at the lake at a good beaver-spotting time means either arriving or leaving the park when it's pretty damn dark (not much artificial lighting in the park). The Seawall and the main vehicular roadways are easy enough to navigate even at dark o'clock, but among the trees? Lots of potential ouchies.

Everywhere else depends on you and yours for its relative value - maybe you love Rhododendrons but hate Roses, love Burns but hate Shakespeare, so you fine-tune which garden areas and statues to visit accordingly! There's all sorts of quirky little things around, like our local copy of Copenhagen's Little Mermaid with far more clothes on, bits of grass with interesting signs, an island that is geographically a peninsula but officially a ship, a lagoon named as its literal opposite, and while we don't have a tree you can actually drive a car through any more you can still stand inside the cyborgian remnants of it and imagine you're in a Model T.

Something for just about everyone in other words - what's best for you unfortunately can only really be answered by you, but at least these days Streetview is a massive help enabling you to do homework long in advance.

Assuming you have all three options already OP, broken in and comfy, then I'd choose the lightest pair without much wear on the sole which also gives some ankle support - in Alaska there's a good chance you'll be staring off at a distant animal, glacier, peak or whatnot, and it just takes a second of not paying attention to your footing to turn an ankle. Big risk? No - and if forced to choose between a grippy sole and ankle support I'd go for the former as rain and wet decks are pretty much a given, but if you can have both that's best.

If your suitcase is getting full, wear the boots on the plane!

14 hours ago, Milhouse said:

Some great options.  One update though:  Daisy Garden I believe is permanently closed.  Google Maps shows temporarily closed but I think there's a For Sale or For Lease sign up now.  

Well buggeration - I think I'm conflating a couple of different stories about people who resurrected restos, turns out Carol Lee didn't buy DG she just hired a bunch of the staff after the fire ~8(?) years back. I assumed when DG reopened that was also her, given she'd been trying to reopen Foo's HoHo for years I figured she'd pivoted to DG instead but some press tales indicate a completely different lady owns it... I was in with my mum when she last visited, as Chinatown BBQ was packed with people, not long before they closed due to difficulty staffing... somewhat embarrassing as that was a year ago!

Sorry for the mislead, thanks for the catch M, and I'll throw out the Not Chinese But Excellent Phnom Penh as an alternative great value joint because Yelp thought they were closed forever last week thanks to idiot posters claiming so, despite the usual hand-written sign in the window about this time of year that they are closed for family vacation fun... Viet-Cambodian, outstanding beef and the best wings in the city!

12 minutes ago, jlawrence01 said:

Thank you for your replies.  What we would like to do is to walk over to Chinatown and stop at T&T Supermarket which is one of our favorites.  We really love different supermarkets and that one is one of the best.  They are now in the US but nowhere close to us at this point

T&T is a great spot for a cheap hot lunch (takeout) as well as whatever interesting Canadian/Chinese candies and other dry goods you might want to stock up on - walking there though might be a bit of a gritty, urban experience if you follow Googles suggested routing!

The simplest (and only an extra couple of hundred yards, just over instead of just under a mile) route to avoid the most unpleasant views is to follow Howe St from the pier, hang a left on Dunsmuir for several blocks, and then take the stairs down to T&Ts front door behind Chinatown-Stadium SkyTrain station. Or just SkyTrain it - without your luggage the older Expo line works just fine, and the platform access right outside the the pier on Howe takes you to that line. You can even ride it there and back without paying twice - fares are good for another boarding within 90mins of your first, any direction, and if you have a Visa or MC credit card with a tappable chip you don't even have to waste time figuring out the machines, just tap on the fare gates when you enter and leave and all the math gets done for you...

Even if you visited multiple branches, you'd be hard-pressed to fill one of your days at T&T let alone three different embarkation days! It would be a safe 'last place before embarking' spot to visit, given the choice of SkyTrain (<10mins) or walking (depends how fast you can walk a mile) which are both independent of any traffic jams.

19 minutes ago, jlawrence01 said:

We are on three straight cruises. The first is a seven day inside passage cruise on the Celebrity Solstice.  The second is a a 14 day RT cruise on HAL Niuew Amsterdam to Seward.  The third is a nine day cruise to Honolulu again on the Solstice.  ...

If it's this year, then that last Solstice one-way will go through Preclearance - it's straight to Hawaii with no other Canadian stops - so it should be an exact repeat of the first Solstice embarkation. The HAL one in-between likewise, except of course you'll have different check-in desks and bag drop - but Security and CBP you should become very familiar with after running through the same rooms three times in a month!

Personally, even if you have a bunch of pre-cruise-one time here, I'd suggest only doing bag drop when you disembark then getting out of the pier to do some stuff for the day. It's more efficient to board late - that whole 'two different countries have to agree the vessel is clear from a customs and immigration perspective' always causes a big delay, so unless you enjoy sitting on plastic chairs in a huge room for 2 hours it's much better to get out and about then come back as close to the 2 hours pre-departure limit as you feel comfortable with. If it was 2 Solstice then a Nieuw Amst or vice versa so you could get the quicky B2B pax clearance, heading right back onboard would be efficient - but since you're changing ships both times even if you wait until they kick you off at about 9am, you'll likely sit and wait until almost 11am before you're even allowed to leave the big holding room to go to Security...

Be strategic with your pre-cruise time and do the furthest away stuff you are interested in, leaving downtown core attractions for the embarkation mornings and the really-close-to-the-pier attractions for your three embarkation afternoons - Harbour Centre, Fly Over Canada, wandering Gastown, that sort of thing - so you're walking distance to the pier during the last couple of hours before you plan to embark and your risk of any problems making you late is removed; this way you can both maximise and optimise your time in town as efficiently as possible!

14 hours ago, bbqoug said:

Thank you. I will do some research on these before our visit in September.

From the PP, if it's walkable dim sum you're after I'd go with Kirin - or if money is no object, Mott32. If you don't mind a fairly short transit or cab ride, Dynasty on Broadway has racked up as many or more awards as the top-end Richmond joints - Dynasty was actually the first of the newest wave of fancy Chinese restos, with almost everything since then also opening in Vancouver proper including the only Michelin-starred Chinese place in the country, Quanjude.

Once you move into more budget, 'mom & pop' level reliably-good restos it's pretty much all about Richmond - but in Chinatown proper there are still a handful of tasty bargains e.g. Chinatown BBQ and Daisy Garden (same owner, a local gal made good, who 'rescued' these businesses and keeps prices artificially low so the local Seniors can still afford to dine where they live), or for Dim Sum the factory kitchen that makes most of the dim sum dishes reheated by anywhere that isn't supes fancy will actually sell takeout food direct to the public (Kam Wai) - there are some small tables you can even eat at if you get lucky!

The already-mentioned Jade Dynasty is probably the best balance of a dim sum focused joint that is decently priced, has plenty of tables that don't involve sharing with strangers, a nice clean space, and service that doesn't feel rude to Westerners... but I don't think many PP guests would enjoy the walk, unless you're familiar with Vancouver it's hard to avoid walking past some pretty dodgy blocks on any remotely-direct route, so I'd be inclined to take a cab even though it's barely a mile.

100% they will be in the same building - the only other pier closed several years ago and is now part of a secure cargo terminal - but your walk won't just be across the pier since check-in, security, and CBP preclearance are all centralized so when you swap ships you must reenter Canada legally and go through the entire embarkation process just like folks who showed up in a cab from the airport!.

Your actual B2B on same vessel, whichever pair of the three cruises those are, you will need to get off to be cleared by both Canadian CBSA and American CBP but unless you choose to leave the pier you and the other B2B pax will do that as a group and are then able to walk right back onboard again; but when you switch ship you will have to walk back out and re-enter (well, technically you won't have to go outside-outside, you can just wander through the non-secure internal space to bag drop for the second ship, but you will do a lot of back & forth plus up and down several levels.

Worst case if it's a 3+ ship day and you start in the furthest berth you might rack up close to half a mile in total, but in various smaller chunks with the possibility of sitting down at some points; including at least 200 yards where you'll have to schlep your checked bags again or else find a porter. If you can handle major airports without wheelchair assistance, you'll be fine.

When you say 'out of Vancouver' if your very first cruise starts here then all the things you do when you first arrive are the exact same things you'll repeat when you swap ships - neither you nor your bags can skip any of those steps legally. The only complication would be if this is start/end of season and one of the cruises is a Repo coastal - some of those visit a Canadian port after Vancouver, so US Preclearance doesn't happen... if your combo includes one like this you may not do exactly the same steps both times!

1 hour ago, DCThunder said:

...Or are there tours that would be able to take me and my stuff along for the day and drop me off at the airport?

Edit - should have thought to mention that this is Canada Day! There will be Stuff Happening at the pier - family friendly entertainment, bands, performers, and the like which may mean the usual bus stops for HOHO and other tours are shifted a block or two away...

Unless something odd happens, there won't be much in the way of road closures, just the block or two immediately next to the pier becomes pedestrianized (so crowds can flow between the pier and the other side of the convention centre, where the olympic flame is). Fireworks may or may not happen - after Covid we expected them to come back, the Port claimed too expensive despite making record profits with all the extra shipping, and the first attempt to use a drone show instead of fireworks failed miserably... but your flight times means even if there is a firework/drone show it'll start too late...

Original post below remains as I typed it!

There are day tours that will take you and your bags, but for a late flight none of them last long enough except a trip to Victoria, which is TOO long!

Unless you've visited before, for first-timers I feel like the ideal choice is stash bags, ride HOHO all day (it might be very busy in the morning, since it stops right outside the pier so a lot of folks without plans may be tempted to jump on - if you hop off at some of the early stops you may not find a seat waiting to hop back on then next bus, but the later it gets the easier it becomes to get back on without delay), eat dinner downtown, retrieve bags, head to YVR for no earlier than 2 hours before your flight.

HOHO tix cost less than post-cruise coach tours and go to basically the same places as the city tours do - so even if all you do is ride it around the loop rather than hopping on and off it's still decent value. City coach tours will drop you at YVR around 1:30pm; North Shore tours (Capilano, Grouse) maybe 3pm, and even a Whistler day tour perhaps 5pm - none of these are much use for a late flight as you won't even be allowed to check your bags that early, and while YVR is among the nicest airports on the continent to kill time in more than an hour or two there is really stretching things. Better to keep it simple, do a little research to see which city attractions seem most enticing to you, and then fill your day with the best stuff for you - you could even skip the HOHO and just walk, take transit, or short Cabuber rides from site to site if you don't feel the need for a guided spiel while driving around.

Crowds at YVR are way down in the evening, and any flight that does not Preclear avoids one of the steps so takes less time - CBP stop work at 8:30pm, so a 10ish flight will not be Precleared. With a suitcase that needs checked you still must arrive at least an hour early (even without CBP examining bags, airlines at YVR have a 60min deadline preflight to check bags headed to US or Int'l) and given the lighter queues you should waltz through Security even if you don't prebook a timeslot, so depending how nervous a traveler you are leaving downtown 7:30 to 8pm should give you ample padding, especially if you take SkyTrain (very consistent 26min ride time, unlike cabs no traffic issues).

43 minutes ago, DCThunder said:

Will they hold my luggage for the day when I disembark from a cruise in the morning and don't have to be at the airport until the evening for a redeye home?

Yup - even if you are not a guest, you can pay them $10 a bag (cheaper than the official pier storage as well as much longer hours, so it's far more practical - you can sightsee unencumbered, have dinner, then collect bags and head to YVR)

Agree that since this will be dark o'clock, the only interior spaces to visit are pubs - every ticketed attraction, except possibly the IMAX theater at the museum, will be long closed and even the Fairmont's egregiously overpriced 'Afternoon' Tea (which notoriously takes bookings as late as 9pm in peak summer) is unlikely to be on offer beyond 5pm once Labour Day has rolled around.

Wander into town by going left or straight ahead instead of right toward the park; enjoy looking at parliament and other buildings around the inner harbour all lit up nice, visit a pub (personally it's always Swans for us, up next to Chinatown) and then wander back to the pier.

In terms of actual excursions I wouldn't bother personally, but there will almost certainly be some options available both indy and through NCL - if you're horsey people and want to blow a wodge of cash rent a carriage (don't take the trolley, they have rows of bench seats with poor sightlines unless you sit on the outside, anything costing less than $75pp is almost certainly a trolley!); if you're small boat fans, then there's a chance the pickleboats might be running for tours of the harbour from the water for a much more modest price; NCL might package a coach tour pub crawl - much cheaper to just take a cab between pubs yourself if you don't want to walk. 

If your visit is in the first half of Sep, NCL will almost certainly sell you a far-too-short and overpriced visit to Butchart Gardens. If they are selling one that means the gardens are open, so you could split a cab with a couple of friends each way will give you more time at the gardens than the cruise bus will and also save a pretty hefty chunk of cash (assume about $120 for a cab that seats at least 4 and $40 per adult ticket, all in CAD - compare that to price of NCL excursion to see what the saving is). Butchart is a great garden, but I'm not a fan of doing it all in the dark even though they do light it up - even early in Sep you're unlikely to arrive with much in the way of daylight!

7 hours ago, Jcol5786 said:

...arriving 3 to 4 hours before checkin time. Does anyone know if the Pan Pacific will store our luggage till checkin time so we can do some exploring?...

Yes, they will - they have a real bell staff (desk on ground floor right by the doors) who can hold bags (which should be free for you as a guest checking in that day), call a cab etc.

1 hour ago, Hev1128 said:

We are doing a Princess Northbound from Vancouver to Whittier.

Our hope is to arrive into Vancouver 2 days before departure.. I will have a 4 and 8 year old. 

I know we don't need car seats on the plane...but how does ground transport work in Vancouver?

Will have the same question for the Alaska end, but I can post that on that board separately unless somewhere here knows.

My plan was just to bring backless boosters for both to be safe...but would LOVE less luggage if possible.

Locally, ICBC have a very nice Plain English brochure - if your 4yr old is over 40lbs, a booster would be OK but if not a proper seat is required if any seat is required. Professional drivers - taxis as well as buses - are exempt, so if you're willing to risk your kids' safety in an accident, you can legally toss 'em in the back seat with an adult belt on(!)

Technically only Canadian-spec seats should be used here, but from speaking to local car seat experts (long story short, my sister came to visit with our not-quite-1-year-old nephew, and as I was driving them around I studied many reviews before buying one and then found the best-rated professional car seat installer to get lessons on doing it right) taking your Canadian seat over the border/bringing a US seat up here is deemed fine by police on both sides for visitors, it's just residents who get slapped with tickets to stop us buying much cheaper and only marginally different US spec seats.

But considering how walkable Vancouver is, you really won't be crimped much by sticking to transit including coming in from the airport (free for under 13s too, so only the two adults need buy tix).

If memory serves, AK rules are tighter though - even schoolbuses with all their enhanced safety features need seats/boosters strapped in and used if there is a seatbelt installed on the seat, which is certainly often the case on a chartered excursion coach or schoolbus rather than transit buses - so honestly, given that airlines are not allowed to charge for child car seats I'd suck it up and bring the ones you use at home and know how to install.. or else buy brand-new ones on arrival and donate them before you fly home (I would not rent one - even a week of rental is more than an excellently rated budget seat can be bought for, it was all of CAD$50 for me to acquire one recommended by multiple agencies, though that was several years ago now so I'd budget for more like $80-100)

21 hours ago, Vagabond Knight said:

...A little about what we like to do on vacation in a new place... We haven't selected a place to stay yet (wow, Vancouver is pretty expensive when it comes to lodging!)...

A useful summary of your tastes! Enough that I'm confident in making several specific recommendations right off the bat which should check off your boxes, as well as some more general suggestions.

First - see if the YWCA Hotel has a room left on your dates. Given your desire to walk around, it's the only high quality, remotely modern, value option downtown -although a couple of legit cheaper options are very old properties, no elevator, no AC like the Buchan that might work for you as you may be able to sleep in warmth and humidity being from FL and of course being lowrise your hubby won't be feart to go near the windows! Avoid AirBnB - a provincewide crackdown begins May 1st, with decent enforcement budget at last, so any Vancouver 'whole home' AirBnB still on the system is likely to disappear at short notice as they cannot be licensed legally. If you don't mind booking just a room within someones home, those will remain legal though.

Second - church-wise there are two really nice and rather different downtown cathedrals, plus another architecturally and culturally interesting church, that are very easily visited. The Anglican cathedral is basically unique - no belltower which is highly unusual for a cathedral (well, they have built one now, but it's a separate metal thing that just looks weird as heck!), but it was also built by ships carpenters mostly of wood and the interior is reminiscent of an upside down hull. Great acoustics, between the gently-curving shapes and the wood - I know someone on the choir and everyone who sings in there loves the place - plus it's specifically welcoming to visitors, 10-4 daily. The Catholic one is a much more traditional shape, brickbuilt French gothic, but does have slightly unusual shiny aluminum roofing rather than copper-plated - my wife's office looks over the roof and it always reminds me of NYCs iconic Chrysler building when I see those bright, steeply-pointed silvery tower tops! Lastly, the St Andrews-Wesley United Church (a very broad-brush Protestant group) has a wide array of stained glass, a pretty nice Gothic tower with a vaguely Scottish style general layout, and if you're actually church-going types they've been running Jazz Vespers services weekly for years and years which are pretty unusual!

Basically everything @Milhouse said gets a thumbs-up from me - my only disagreement is Granville Island, and then only about the timing! I avoid it like the proverbial plague anywhere around lunchtime from May to September because of the tourist volumes, moving around inside the Public Market becomes really annoying. That said, since you're staying over you can avoid the crowds simply by going early or late - all the stalls and shops open by 9am, some as early as 8am, so if you head over for breakfast and a wander then get off the island before 11am things remain pretty sane even in peak summer. The empty campus of Emily Carr college is also interesting to wander and photograph - they're now elsewhere but nobody has moved in to the old buildings yet, so it gives you an idea of what GI would have been like back in the day post-WWII when the industrial tenants mostly all left. The floating homes in the little marina are also fun.

General walking tour recommendations - go sign up with AIBC right away, as they hope to return their superb architectural walks this summer, so they'll email you with dates once plans firm up. Also put a request in with Stroll Buddy listing your interests - there may not be any available Buddies on your dates, but if there are you'll get an off-the-beaten track custom private tour for free (not even an expectation of tips) so your worst case is wasting a few minutes filling out the request form. Full disclosure, I'm a local Buddy myself, but since the program is entirely free I see no ethical compromise by suggesting it! There's also big group, free ('tip what you like') daily tours in summer from Toonie Tours - usually there's three slots to begin with, but if the morning or afternoon sell out they pop an extra one into the schedule maybe 30mins before or after the sellout. Their guides trend young & fun, use mostly scripts but often have a degree in History or similar (local college kids make decent cash at this in summer) to personalise it a little, and while they are variable in quality for first-timers it's well worth the three hour time investment IMO (unless you've already booked a more specific tour).

Foodwise, you should try Salmon & Bannock - truly unique, every other First Nations food option is a very limited menu food truck affair, mostly bannocks plus toppings. The sablefish here is particularly superb, as are the game meats. If you walk from downtown it's a bit of a schlep with potentially lots of up & down (I strongly advise against Cambie and Granville Bridges for anyone with height issues - but even Burrard, which looks more substantial and has slightly-less-see-through sides, is probably best avoided unless DH would be constantly looking at the nice stonework!) Ride a bus - unlike almost everywhere in Florida, we have frequent, reliable, clean, safe public transit and it's all nicely integrated with Google Maps - for the best value transpo to and from. If you have an early dinner at S&B, walking downhill to GI for a wander is easy - late summer evenings GI is very nice, and the empty industrial parts become really atmospheric.

Also hit up some regional Chinese food - not sure what you have easy access to in Leesburg or other places you visit regularly, but here we've got the gamut from western and northern styles (lamb and wheat, rather than pork and rice) through the more commonly-found Szechuan, Shanghainese, Taiwanese as well as the usual Cantonese fare found everywhere.

Don't waste your time with any local Mexican, BBQ or Southern food - even the least bad local options are expensive and suck compared to what you'll have access to at home. Only possible exception is Machete - a really tiny joint on Main St that does pre-European-contact cuisine which is goshdurn delicious and as different from any modern regional Mexican food as Tex-Mex is but in a really different way (I am an unabashed carnivore, but my usual order is their 'five different veggie & vegan stews in a Machete' - an extra-long tortilla just in case you're not familiar, wrapped in foil so you can eat on the go without spilling on yourself, so it kinda looks like a blunt machete hence the name - I still couldn't tell you which stew is best because they're all great and the range of tastes is the big sell; it's like a grownup version of a multi-coloured icepop made with different fruit juice!)

UBC Campus might also be worth a half-day or more to you - in theory MOA reopens before you arrive, there are also some other good museums on campus, a hyperauthentic Japanese garden with tea ceremonies sometimes, a botanic garden (DH should avoid the tree walk!), and just a ton of green space with relatively low numbers of people as summer school is nowhere near as busy compared to regular term so even the bus ride out should be easy to get a seat.

Personally I'd say that even if you don't want to hit the whole of Stanley Park, the Rose Garden and the Totem Poles justify walking a loop with a bit of the Seawall to get views back toward Canada Place - but if you do visit UBC they have a ton of poles out there at MOA and also a rose garden (very small, perched on top of a carpark of all places, but it has a really nice view out over the water) so you might even consider skipping the park entirely without feeling bad about it!

12 hours ago, Kevin&#x27;s girl said:

Okay, I called Flights by Celebrity and they got our flight changed to the next day.

Yay! A flight that early you'll have much less traffic whether you go by cabuber or SkyTrain, and airport queues are minimal compared to when the cruise buses roll in. Personally I would advise against being the full 3 hours early unless you enjoy pointless queueing - while CBP in theory will have started work (4:30am), their shift briefing adds anywhere up to 15mins before they actually begin processing the several hundred people unware of the Prescreening hours who showed up 3+ hours ahead of 6/7/8am flights only to find the doors locked! Even once they actually open, it can take a good half hour to process the big queue of TooEarlies but after that things go pretty fast until at least 9am, so the sweetspot is hitting CBP no earlier than 5:15am - at 5:30am and you might walk right to a kiosk, bu 5am probably means still waiting 10-15mins in a queue!

Since everyone can book fasttrack Security now thanks to YVR Express, 90mins is actually a pretty safe margin to aim for with your flight time even without NEXUS/Global Entry... padding that to 2 hours since you're unfamiliar is more than adequate, so that means leaving downtown around 5am whether you cabuber or SkyTrain. You'll most likely end up with time to eat a sit-down breakfast and a couple of coffees before heading to your gate, which you might feel the need of with a ~4:30 alarmcall... but that's still an hour extra sleep compared to the official advice!

3 hours ago, regan3 said:

... How far is the airport SkyTrain station to the airline check in counters?

Dagnabbit - I had to run out to the dentist, remembered I didn't actually answer this part, too late to Edit my first note now...

Definitely much shorter than the walk you made earlier from cabin to SkyTrain - exact distance will depend which desks your airline is allocated, plus an extra walk to bag drop that again varies depending on desk location, but worst case is still ~a quarter mile. If your ship is in the furthest berth and airline the furthest desk and plane the furthest gate you might rack up not far off a mile in total, but more like half a mile max while encumbered by big suitcases.

5 minutes ago, regan3 said:

Thank you.

 

What is the process at the airport?

How far is the airport SkyTrain station to the airline check in counters?

When do you drop off your bags, at airline counter, or at U.S. customs (before or after)?

I'm assuming you check in at airline, go through airport security then U.S. customs?

That's the right order - but if time is in any way pressing, you should check-in online (literally on the way to the airport if you can't manage to to it aboard, there's WiFi on SkyTrain now!) so you can avoid the sometimes-long lineup for the desks to check-in the old way.

Pretty much everything you want to know is available on the YVR website - right down to which steps you do, in which order, literally for your exact flight(!), via the Departing Flights page... just find your flight and click 'My Journey' at the far right of the row. You can even see it in advance just by selecting your same flight but today/tomorrow, e.g. this link will probably stop working tomorrow once the Seattle-bound flight disappears off the screens but if you click it right now you'll be walked through an example of everything from how to get to YVR, to which check-in desks are for your flight, bag drop, security, Preclearance, all with reminders about Express and MPC and checking in online first, plus some Food options that you'll pass both Pre- and Post-Security! There are even links throughout to give you more details on what to expect from CATSA, CBP etc.

Just in case, since everyone and their granny seems to have TSA Precheck, you won't find it any use here (no TSA!) - only Global Entry and NEXUS programs will count you as a Trusted Traveler here for the shorter lines (although as I mentioned before, YVR Express does let you choose a timeslot in advance for Security - and you don't need anything special to use that, with zero downside if you make a reservation and fail to get there within the +/-15mins (if you're too early, worst case is join the regular long queue; too late and they might let you through anyway if you're close to missing your flight... nobody wants people to miss a flight!)

16 hours ago, regan3 said:

Thank you. 

 

Approx. how long would it take to get from Canada Place to the airport?

Sunday in July, three ships in port, would self disembark, take SkyTrain and flying to U.S.?

 

First folks off ship probably around 7:30am; unless you have been naughty or get very unlucky, CBSA aren't really interested in Customs duty for folks heading straight to the US, and all Immigration happens 'offscreen' before the ship even arrives in port - so if you don't hear your name announced to report to room X for a chat with CBSA, you will probably find that customs form handover takes seconds with perhaps a brief "How long are you staying in Canada?" type question. In fact, depending what the cruise route was, you might not even see CBSA at all (e.g. if you stopped in Victoria the day before, customs forms are usually handed it to reception aboard and ship staff given them all to CBSA).

From front door of pier to SkyTrain entrance is maybe 7 minutes on foot; worst case on Sunday you just miss an airport train you might have to wait another 20 mins; travel time as mentioned above is 26mins and almost never varies as trains are 100% automated; the other variable is distance from ship to curb, as depending which berth you are in you might have to walk almost a quarter mile with some zigzagging, so lets say worst case an hour from ship to airport unless CBSA want to chat with you.

Noon is certainly a safe timeframe for a same-day flight, but for self-disembarkers regardless of other ship volumes you can usually reach YVR within 90mins of docking time if you take SkyTrain, and by doing so you immediately avoid the worst queues (which happens when all those cruise transfer buses start disgorging hordes en masse around 9:30am, building for the next hour or so as YVR cannot process that number of people mostly all hammering a selection of noon to 2pm US-bound flights so all using the same bag drop, security, and of course CBP prescreening).

If you have Global Entry, I'd have no concerns about you making a 10am flight - even without it, thanks to YVR Express you can at least guarantee a quicker Security experience so a 10:30am flight remains very low risk for self-disembarking SkyTrainers.

But my recommendation is always to spend as many post-cruise nights as your time and money budgets allow! We've got more stuff here that you can do on foot or by dirt-cheap public transit than every port in Alaska put together even if you include their lengthy bus and train rides, and every thing here is discounted about a third for folks used to greenbacks!

Plus, you can book a ludicrously early flight if you stay overnight, which IMO are always the best flights - rested crews who overnighted here, usually cheaper fares than the noonish flights, and as long as you remember that CBP don't start work until 4:30am (and the start-of-shift briefing means they don't actually do any processing for another 10-15mins) and avoid turning up much before 5am because '3 hours before my flight is 3/4am!' you won't even have to wait in line much for anything - as long as you meet the bag check threshold (minimum 1 hour preflight for any checked bags), you WILL get through security and Prescreening in time to make your flight unless you've been naughty by US standards and CBP want to give you the rubber glove treatment!

10 hours ago, BeachFamily1989 said:

We will be ending our cruise on the Norwegian Jewel in Vancouver.  Our plane home doesn't leave until 11:57 pm.  I have read about a lot of things to do in Vancouver but can anyone give some advice on what we can do in just a few hours.  I don't want to plan on traveling all over town. I heard there was a section right off of the cruise ship area? Is this true? Thank you!

Your problem is that most of our tourist sites are walkable from the pier, or have a shuttle bus that leaves from right outside! So even if you discount the things you need to get in a vehicle to go visit you still have to cut a list of dozens of possiblities down to maybe 3 or so...

So I'll provide my standard answer - get everyone in your group (well, probably not the youngsters who don't read well yet!) to hit up TripAdvisor. Given your single day, you shouldn't need to dig beyond the Top Ten listings to figure out at least three that sound really good to you - compare everyone's lists and see where they overlap, negotiate a little (or just split up for part of the day, free city WiFi #VanWiFi enables messaging and maps even without a dataplan) to help firm up your short-tlist.

Then if you don't want to wait just fire up Google Maps; with the pier (Canada Place) as your starting point, you can easily find all your sites and how close they are on foot, by bike, by transit (full schedule datasets are provided to Google, they now power our official transit website so the data on G-maps literally is the same as on Translink) or by car (cabuberlyft). You can even check pricing on the latter, although in general if you don't leave the core it's pretty hard to get a cab fare into double digits.

Or you can come back and tap local expertise - sometimes it's not just absolute distances and directions, but e.g. time of day because of commuter traffic, so we might be able to suggest doing your top three in the most efficient order and putting you somewhere that you have have good food options at the appropriate times of day, that sort of thing, so even if you have pre-Googled yourself we might be able to add some extra value.

If still in doubt, just book the HOHO for the day and store your bags at or near the pier (e.g. Pan Pacific hotel inside the building, $10ea last year) - transpo between many popular sites, flexible schedule so you can get off for as long as you want, and a handy spiel about what you're seeing from the bus - and get off at the places it stops at that seem interesting.

While the last run is usually done by 6pm even in summer, that's good enough for your purposes as you'll want time to get some dinner and collect your bags before heading out to YVR (<30mins and <US$3pp by SkyTrain, not much longer by cab but about US$30 on the meter, Uber might save a couple of bucks) for about 10pm. You won't Preclear on your flight, CBP stop work at 8:30pm, so you only have bag drop and security which should both be quick at that time, so the official 3 hour preflight timeline really is a waste of time for redeyes.

On 3/18/2024 at 11:17 AM, Milhouse said:

...Didn't disappoint but didn't align with our memories of them. 

I think that the current Hons may not actually be connected to the original Hons except in name - I can't recall offhand the details of the minor scandals around ownership changes, but we always felt that Olympic Village was more like a food court version of the original, shorter menu and everything just tasted a little more meh. Enough so that we only tried it twice - and it seemed the same, not bad but not as good as it was (so for OP, if you enjoyed it last time it will probably taste the same again this time, consistency doesn't seem to be an issue!)

Man, it must have been three years that Congee Noodle House was closed, between the collapse of the parking lot and 'vid related delays- dark times indeed! I guess you must be closer to King than we are - I haven't been there for years, since they closed Carleton school; King and Jambo were the staple 'go for lunch with the teachers' choices because they were both tasty and quick (your mention of King made me check what's still open over there - still a lot of good options on those last few blocks of Kingsway before Boundary that tourists never get out to - and I was very excited to see that Jambo is back to buffets at least during Ramadan, for what looks like the best-priced Iftar meal in the city at $25 a head! So thanks for the very random chain of co-inky-dinks your post set off, cheap and hopefully tasty blast from the past dinner for me on Friday!)

19 hours ago, NavyVeteran said:

I've changed my plans completely. I booked the Princess transfer from the ship to SEA and a flight leaving SEA at 6:07 pm. The information on the Princess Travel Summary on TRANSFER VANCOUVER TO SEATTLE AIRPORT says "Passengers making their own arrangements out of Seattle must depart no earlier than 4:00 P.M." so I should be OK with a 6:07 pm domestic flight. The total cost of the flight and transfer is less than the cost of a flight from Vancouver. We do have a five hour bus ride however.

Your timing should be fine - just be aware that unless you get lucky and they start offering 'sealed bus transfers' again (where you technically never enter Canada, boarding a bus within the pier while still under US jurisdiction, literally having a sticker placed over the closed door, then only the sticker needs checked at the border to ensure it remains intact and nobody needs to get off) expect that you will need to get off at the border, schlep your own bags inside to be scanned then back out to the bus again after you've been processed - with no trolleys or porters available, and if anyone gets secondary questions/owes duty the lot of you wait and wait until CBP make their mind up about letting foreigners in/figure out how much duty is owed for US residents etc.

It's not a long distance, usually about a bus length to the door and a similar distance inside to the scanners; and sometimes you get lucky with CBP only wanting to see people not bags, or even having an officer board the bus and walk the aisle having a quick shufty at everyones passports (especially if it's reeeeaaalllly busy the rules get relaxed - but only for Yanks & Canucks; one time we had a South African couple aboard so that meant everyone had to go inside while other buses got to drive past us... man, were those folks unpopular!!!)

So I'd say that if you have minimal border wait, you might be at Seatac within 3.5 hours; 4hrs is a realistic estimate for midweek; but if you assume 5hrs and some bag-schlepping you should only be pleasantly surprised!

On 3/18/2024 at 9:31 PM, julia said:

We will be embarking our cruise on the Noordam on Sunday, May 5th. Arriving YVR at 11am, and taking SkyTrain to Waterfront Station...  hoping to arrive Canada Place around 1:00-1-30 (after immigration and such, only carry-on luggage).  It doesn't appear that the marathon will affect these plans.... correct?  Not correct?

In theory the marathon shouldn't impact you in the slightest - all the road closures are west of Canada Place, and whether you disembark at the back of the train and pop out at Granville & Hastings, or the front and come up through Waterfront station itself on Cordova, you should be able to walk without anything preventing you accessing the direct routes... but there will be many people walking from the finish toward SkyTrain, or just to go for brunch somewhere in Gastown, so the sidewalks will be unusually full of sweaty, tired people with medals on! Feel free to congratulate any of the finishers you pass, and try not to trip anyone up with a wheely bag! 😉

Hopefully your inbound flight is on time and your passage through CBSA is smooth - I would consider precompleting ArriveCAN if I were you (it's no longer required, BUT it allows you to predeclare your customs paperwork and skip to head of that line - when scanned at the kiosk, instead of answering all the questions you should just see 'You already completed this - any changes or still the same?') It's not a big time saving, you answer the same couple of minutes worth of questions as at the kiosks, but literally every second might make the difference if your flight ends up delayed so doing that preflight, on your own phone at home, is one less worry for the airport as the clock counts down toward "Oh crap, the ship sailed already!" o'clock...

1 hour ago, maggiev said:

THANK YOU gentlemen - I will take your advice & look at a few options first.
Party of 4, 60 - 67.  Walking around town is an option but biking & hiking are out.  We would not be opposed to renting a car to see the “outskirts”. 
I’ll be back with questions I’m sure

If you're considering a car rental, then with four bums on seats the cost of parking becomes far more reasonable - in particular, check Lynn Canyon park (inconvenient on transit for visitors, but with a car the free-except-parking cost compared to almost US$200 for 4 senior tickets is a helluva steal) and consider doing Stanley Park piecemeal by car - parking rates are for the entire park, you can move spots as often as you like within the time you buy, which greatly cuts down on walking distances... totem poles and prospect point have parking right next to them, most other popular spots like the rose garden are a short walk from the nearest lot).

I'd also look into the Squamish sites - Britannia Mining Museum, waterfall, gondola ride all work out much more convenient with your own car and you can drive through Stanley on the way out or back - and Steveston village in south Richmond, Burnaby Village Museum, Fort Langley.

Heading out of town southward, or coming back, Queen Elizabeth Park is another spot that's easier to do by car (transit is frequent, but you have to walk uphill!) even though it's in the city - likewise, UBC campus museums and gardens are worth paying parking for compared to bus fares, as campus itself is pretty big!