NCL Vancouver Tour

[pbenjamin]

I'm going to try this in both the Alaska and NCL forums in hopes somebody has any experience with it.  NCL has a 2 hour city tour that ends at the airport.  It is essentially an airport transfer with a bit of tour in it.  Since CDS Baggage won't be operating at Canada Place yet at the time and place of our disembarkation we're stuck with luggage and nothing to do.  Our flight is not until 4:50.  The tour is more expensive than the airport transfer but we're thinking the $50 excursion credit and unused OBC might help.  There is only one review of the tour on NCL's website and it suggests that it is an expensive waste of time.  "The tour consisted of driving through city park (nice park), twice around cruise ship pier and to the air port"  Any thoughts?  I realize that we can just walk with our bags to Waterfront Station and take the train to the airport.

[martincath]

A two hour tour is very poor - all the independent tours run four hours, then if you head out to YVR it's another half hour on top, so that review sounds not too far off the money (although driving 'around' the cruise pier would require an aquatic bus as it only touches land on one end!) Given how much of a ripoff a cruiseline airport transfer alone is, you're probably paying MUCH more than a cab to the airport AND an indy tour for the privilege of feeding the NCL profit machine. All the lines are just as bad value to be fair - they charge as much per person as an entire cab; 3 or more people will find a LIMO to be cheaper! Even if that $50 credit is per port so it will be lost if you don't use it in Vancouver, you'll find going independent saves plenty more for a couple let alone a family, so I'd find literally anything else to spend your OBC on instead.

 

If your flight is at just before 5pm, you should aim to be at YVR a little before 3pm - which means you could easily take any of the independent four hour city tours, which take your luggage in the bus you're riding in. General format for these is a 10am pickup at the pier, 2pm end of tour downtown, and 2:30pm dropoff for folks who want to go to YVR. If you can find one starting at 9am you'd have more than enough padding to beat the recommended 3 hours preflight for US/Int'l flights - but frankly that's to ensure you waste time shopping in the airport, not because you actually need three hours to get to your plane...

 

Your other option would be a HOHO tour and storing bags in the Pan Pacific hotel - one go around without getting off is ~2.5 hours on the new LandSea 'short' HOHO which does one loop with 15 stops. The other HOHO has twice as many stops on two loops, though there are a few overlapping ones - call it ~25 unique stops. If you ride one loop, then get straight on the next it would take about 3.5 hours to see it all. Bags can't ride on the HOHO, so budget $5 per bag for storage. The advantage to that over regular tour is of course you can choose which stops to get off at and for how long - with your timing, if you are on the first bus (before 9am in summer) you could be doing both loops completely and still have at least 90mins of 'off the bus' time wherever you like. Cost would be a little less - now there are two competing HOHOs again, prices have dropped from ~CAD$80 (same price as a four hour Post-cruise tour) to ~CAD$60 per person.

 

If you don't want to run the risk of getting off the HOHO (sometimes the next bus is full so it takes longer to get back on), I think your sweet spot for maximal touring efficiency would be to self-disembark the ship, or take an early slot for assisted disembarkation. You should be on the sidewalk before 9am either way, which gives you time to ride FlyOverCanada (at the pier, and they hold suitcases while you ride) before then boarding a 10am post-cruise tour - and you could even use the free city WiFi to check-in for your flight while you're waiting so you can choose seats before getting to the airport.