Hotel Recommendation Vancouver MT Pleasant/Cambia St Area

[suefrankw]

Hello

we are spending several nights pre cruise late August 2023 in Vancouver. Would like to stay in Mt Pleasant/Cambie St area as there are many gluten free eating  options for me.

Hotels/guest houses, etc you can recommend? I can look them all up but would like to have a recommendation.

Is it doable/safe to walk from here to downtown, Gaslight area, etc? we are walkers...

[sunviking90]

I don’t know of any hotels in that area, aside from the Holiday that’s been there for years. You might look at Airbnb in that area. The mount pleasant area is cute and funky, with great food options, but I wouldn’t try to walk downtown from there as you might end up going through the downtown east side, which you do NOT want to see. Closer to Cambie, you could walk across the Cambie street bridge but it’s a fair walk. You could also catch the skytrain at Cambie into town. Or Uber.

 

[martincath]

Sorry, I can't be of any more help on hotels - there used to be a few cheap ones on or just off Main but they're now low-incoming housing/slated to teardown & condo building/both, so it's pretty much the Holiday Inn or B&Bs.

 

Personally I'd be inclined toward just off Main St (to avoid traffic noise) rather than Cambie, as Mt Pleasant is a far more interesting neighbourhood; despite losing those hotels it's still a relative bastion of independent shops & restos and low-rise, historic-for-a-city-this-young buildings. It's also ground zero for our Mural Fest that's been running several years, so there is a ton of interesting public art all over the buildings on and near Main St, keep your eyes up!

 

In terms of walking, yes it's perfectly safe to pootle around either of these 'hoods. If you come straight down Main Street you will arrive in Chinatown and then the DTES, so if you're not comfortable with less-than-salubrious urban areas just peel off to the left at Science World (big glass golfball, like a mini EPCOT) and follow the Seawall or Pacific Blvd around the curve to the left. If you aim for BC Place (huge stadium with a retractable roof, looks sort of like it has a crown on with lots of spikey-bits that the cables run through) you're heading toward the pier and downtown core; head north up Carrall St instead and you will pass Dr Sun Yat-Sen garden (a fantastic urban oasis - if unsure about the price, the free city park nextdoor shares the same pond and a similar vibe without the authenticity) and then arrive in Gastown (NB: it might be the biggest tourist zone but it's also chock full of beggars, and I've seen more passed-out junkies in the alleys here than anywhere else around downtown...)

 

Coming back it's a bit of an uphill slog - with two people frankly hopping in a cab for a few blocks is cheaper than bus tickets, so unless you plan to get a Day Pass and ride transit a lot I would only strategically make use of transit in either of these locations (e.g. the 19 bus runs down Main, through the core, and right into Stanley Park - that's well worth paying for a ticket in the morning, then returning from the park on foot, maybe via False Creek ferries to Granville Island).

[suefrankw]

great info thanks so much everyone

[kayehall]

Looking at Pan Pacific or Marriott or Delta by Marriott hotels.  Are these properties in a safe walking area?

[martincath]

15 hours ago, kayehall said:

Looking at Pan Pacific or Marriott or Delta by Marriott hotels.  Are these properties in a safe walking area?

Yes, very much so - in fact based on the crime stats of your home town, you'll be safer here!

 

All three of these are close to the pier (PP right on top), so you will see beggars (who go where folks with money are - Waterfront Station is the prime commuter station for folks arriving by SkyTrain, local rail, and Seabus and there are plenty of tourist hotels and sites like the pier in the vicinity too) and  walking around the prime tourist areas of the city you will definitely see street people all over but the risk of any thing beyond being asked for cash is low.

 

In general the notable criminal activity here is casual property theft, especially vehicular - leave a bag, or even spare change for meters/tolls, visible in a car and you can expect your window to be smashed just about anywhere downtown; organized gangs target cars parked at visitor spots outside town too every now and again.

 

My wife walks around the area of your possible hotels on her lunchtime rambles and has done for over a decade; my elderly mother and her friend came to visit us this summer and I had no fear letting them wander about downtown unaccompanied; technically where we live just outside Chinatown is 'crimier' than the downtown core and that's where I'm puttering around for groceries etc. regularly.