Suggestions for hotels in Vancouver prior to Alaska cruise

[junebug61]

We are planning on arriving a couple of days early for our Alaska cruise and our looking for a place to stay. We would like to do some sightseeing before the cruise.

Do any of the hotels offer transportation to the cruise port?

[Ex-Airbalancer]

You may want to check out this section

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/315-west-coast-departures/

[bebe08]

We love the Pan Pacific hotel.  It is in the same building as the cruise port so no transportation is required.  We are booked to stay there again for an Oct Pacific coastal cruise. It is pricy but worth it IMO. It is walking distance to Stanley Park which has lots to offer, as well as other sites and public transportation.    There are quite a few other hotels right near the cruise port...less than a 5 minute walk. 

 

I just received an email Pan Pacific are having a sale that starts in a few days so will check to see if rates have gone down.

  https://www.panpacific.com/en/offers/save-more-to-explore.html?utm_source=responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20230421_PPHG_Save_More_To_Explore_Teaser

 

Vancouver is a beautiful city!

[neeuqdrazil]

I stayed in the Auberge last spring the night before my Alaska cruise, and it was lovely. A couple of blocks from the cruise port, so no need for transport. 

[everbeentoseabilly]

35 minutes ago, neeuqdrazil said:

I stayed in the Auberge last spring the night before my Alaska cruise, and it was lovely. A couple of blocks from the cruise port, so no need for transport. 

Thanks. Good to hear since we will be there this June! 
we have also stayed at the fairmont waterfront and the paradox. Both of those were very close to the port and very nice 

I don’t think any of the hotels offer a shuttle to the port 

it is really easy to take the sky train to the downtown area from the airport, even with luggage!

[neeuqdrazil]

 

7 minutes ago, everbeentoseabilly said:

I don’t think any of the hotels offer a shuttle to the port 

 

I can't imagine that a shuttle to the port from any of the downtown hotels would be faster than walking. 

[Fouremco]

We've stayed at the Pan Pacific and the Fairmont Waterfront a number of times and enjoyed both. On our last visit, we stayed at the Auberge and enjoyed it too. All three are excellent choices for a pre- or post-cruise stay, and no shuttle is required.

[patlarry1976]

19 hours ago, junebug61 said:

We are planning on arriving a couple of days early for our Alaska cruise and our looking for a place to stay. We would like to do some sightseeing before the cruise.

Do any of the hotels offer transportation to the cruise port?

you really don't need it. The subway system, works brilliantly since the Olympics were hosted here in 2010. You just get on the Canada line and take it to the last stop, Canada place. Most hotels are a couple of block s from the line. Other than that, and uber or taxi will get you there. Vancouver  not that big if you stay right downtown.

[patlarry1976]

I just saw the Pan Pacific is suspending their free breakfast until June. Just as heads up for those staying there before the cruise.

[psuboater]

I've stayed at The Douglas, which was wonderful. It shares a building with the JW Marriott and a casino. Kind of feels like a cruise before a cruise 🙂

 

Most recently I stayed at the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown. While the rooms were a bit outdated, the lobby and restaurant were modern and great. The rooms were clean and comfortable and the location is in walking distance to where you need to go. 

[gottagoacruzn]

On 4/20/2023 at 10:07 PM, junebug61 said:

We are planning on arriving a couple of days early for our Alaska cruise and our looking for a place to stay. We would like to do some sightseeing before the cruise.

Do any of the hotels offer transportation to the cruise port?

Hi, take a princess cruise, they offer transfers to the hotel, ship & back to the airport. Thats all folks!!

[libtrek]

We are going in June. Staying at the Atrium the night before. Free breakfast and shuttle to Canada Place.

[junebug61]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I am concerned about trying to use the train or bus as my husband uses a uses a walker so I have to handle all the luggage. 

[oakridger]

34 minutes ago, junebug61 said:

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I am concerned about trying to use the train or bus as my husband uses a uses a walker so I have to handle all the luggage. 

 

The taxis from YVR are on a set cost by zone.  The taxi stand is right outside of the luggage arrival area.  Current price for taxi to Zone 9 (Canada Place/Pan Pacific/Fairmont Waterfront, etc.) is $38 CAD. They take credit cards but ask your driver first just to confirm. The return trip to the airport will be by the meter but should be similar.

 

Cost of Taxi from Vancouver Airport to Cruise Terminal in 2023 - Vancouver Planner

 

~Nancy

 

 

[oakridger]

1 hour ago, libtrek said:

We are going in June. Staying at the Atrium the night before. Free breakfast and shuttle to Canada Place.

 

It's 3.5 miles from Canada Place

[oakridger]

Airport Taxi zone map is below:

 

20220415_YVR_2197_Fare_stanchion_top-ENG.pdf

 

Taxis | YVR

[libtrek]

Thanks. I remember fondly a time when I could have walked 3 miles with a suitcase. Alas, that time, along with the glorious 60s music, has passed. LOL

[martincath]

13 hours ago, junebug61 said:

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I am concerned about trying to use the train or bus as my husband uses a uses a walker so I have to handle all the luggage. 

The last remaining hotel downtown with a shuttle was the Hampton Inn - and it is no longer listed as an amenity on their website since Covid. A handful of seriously high end hotels have towncars that will take you anywhere - so if you have the budget for $500+ a night, you'll get a 'free' ride to the pier... but a metered cab from any downtown hotel to the pier will be somewhere in the CAD$10-15 range, even with traffic! You definitely want to be downtown if you're here early for sightseeing - the downtown core has about 90% of our hotels and popular tourist sites, so every hotel is an easy walk to at least a few things to see and do.

14 hours ago, libtrek said:

We are going in June. Staying at the Atrium the night before. Free breakfast and shuttle to Canada Place.

The Atrium OTOH, is one of few Vancouver hotels I would specifically recommend against. If you're literally just arriving late, want a bed, then head to the pier with no sightseeing planned - stay out by the airport. SkyTrain works great if you're able-bodied; there's a 'milk run' shuttle that picks up in a loop and brings you to the pier; but since it costs the same for 2 people as a cab from the airport... I'd be doing the cabuber thing if I wasn't willing or able to SkyTrain. Free shuttles from YVR to all of the airport hotels - and you can take the free shuttle back to YVR for a fixed-rate cab next day if you don't want to risk a metered ride, and since there are very limited access points to Sea Island every hotel shuttle also drives very near a SkyTrain station, and a polite request should get you dropped at Aberdeen or Bridgeport if you don't book a hotel you can just walk from.

 

Atrium is in a great location for one thing - the PNE. So if your cruise timing is when it's on, and you had a day free and wanted to spend it at the big farm show/eat ridiculous fried stuff/ride midway and a famously-clunky old wooden coaster, or a 60s/70s band you had always wanted to see just happens to be part of the entertainment on your precruise night, I'd say that the many downsides of the Atrium might be overcome... in those specific circumstances.

 

But otherwise you're looking at having to traverse the dodgiest of dodgy parts of the entire country every time you head downtown (and with zero walkable touristy sites you'll want to go downtown constantly - even if that shuttle is on-demand to anywhere 24/7, other guests will also want it so you'll have the choice of pricey cabuber rides or scary bus trips or standing around waiting). Even with the local press going wild over claimed increased crime rates, the skeeviest bits of town are far more tragic than actually dangerous for folks who don't live there - but it's genuinely depressing to see the tents, open drug use, prostitution etc. unless you're inured to that sort of thing already.

 

There are individual restos, bars, breweries etc. around that part of East Van that are absolutely worth visiting, and as a local I'm fine with heading out that way - heck, I've even taken folks on foot around there to show off some of the public art - but I would strenuously encourage any tourist not to stay there unless they are a many-times repeat visitor and really, really want to get off the beaten track! Plus, the hotel itself has been rebadged yet again to try and lose its ever-longer trail of crappy reviews of all the prior iterations - I haven't stayed or even been inside since it became the Atrium so maybe this time around the reno is actually classy, but even the best case scenario is a nice-looking skin on top of old and crappy bones in a seriously inconvenient location.

[libtrek]

Yikes, I am thinking we need to ditch this reservation pronto. Thanks Martincath for your candor. The hotel looks so nice on their website. We are taking a FLIX bus from Seattle arriving in Vancouver late afternoon at the pacific central station. We need a hotel close enough to taxi or walk to. After breakfast next morning. We will head to the ship. Not much time to play tourist, just dinner. Any suggestions? Mary Lou

[em-sk]

43 minutes ago, libtrek said:

Yikes, I am thinking we need to ditch this reservation pronto. Thanks Martincath for your candor. The hotel looks so nice on their website. We are taking a FLIX bus from Seattle arriving in Vancouver late afternoon at the pacific central station. We need a hotel close enough to taxi or walk to. After breakfast next morning. We will head to the ship. Not much time to play tourist, just dinner. Any suggestions? Mary Lou

 

I have stayed at Atrium a few times.  There is nothing wrong with the hotel.  The immediate neighborhood around the hotel is fine.  It just does not have much in the way of tourist attractions.  If you walk out of the hotel there is a Tim Hortons, Starbucks and Dairy Queen next door. It is safe.  It has a very suburban residential feeling to it. 

 

The other direction is a park that for two weeks a year houses the main agriculture show in the province.  The rest of the time it houses other events.  It also has an amusement park.

 

As Martincath indicated the area along Hastings near the downtown is basically skid row.  That said, your not going to walk that distance.  You will be in a taxi or a shuttle.  It is safe driving down Hastings but not pleasant to look at.  

 

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by em-sk

[martincath]

2 hours ago, libtrek said:

Yikes, I am thinking we need to ditch this reservation pronto. Thanks Martincath for your candor. The hotel looks so nice on their website. We are taking a FLIX bus from Seattle arriving in Vancouver late afternoon at the pacific central station. We need a hotel close enough to taxi or walk to. After breakfast next morning. We will head to the ship. Not much time to play tourist, just dinner. Any suggestions? Mary Lou

From Pac Central you could walk to the YWCA Hotel if you're in remotely good shape, or spend about $6 on a cab - if they have a room for you it's the best deal in the region, the only hotel that is both budget AND modern, rather than a reno of a really old building (the new wing was built right before Covid hit, the old one renovated just this year, and it's a modern concrete tower building). If you can handle schlepping bags upstairs, then the Barclay is in a nice, quiet West End location and even cheaper than the Y but lacking the mod cons; say $15 cab from Pac Central, $10 to pier next day.

 

Glad to hear a review of the actual hotel for the Atrium; em-sk is correct that the blocks immediately around it are fine, it's really just traversing the space between it and downtown that sucks - buses along Hastings are among the worst in the city for 'binners' bringing their haul aboard, which makes for an often-loud and sometimes-stinky journey. And if you're cabubering everywhere because you don't like taking the bus, whatever you might save at the Atrium compared to a downtown budget hotel would be frittered away fast! From Pac Central or Chinatown I'd guess $20 on the meter each way; downtown core ~$25; so easily a $50-60 round trip with tips if you checked in and dropped bags then decided to hit up a nice resto for dinner.

 

But if you're going to be hit with a cancellation fee or just can't find any rooms downtown that are remotely comparable in price for your date, for just dinner the Atrium's location could be worse: there are some good casual spots for dinner that are walkable from the Atrium; personally I'd be comfortable walking quite a bit west to at least Nanaimo St: the likes of Tamam (Palestinian), Petit Saigon (Vietnamese), James (Chinese), and several decent Pho joints are all closer than that, within a quarter mile and right on Hastings so easily found. Just shut your eyes on the shuttle next morning! Getting to the Atrium from Pac Central on arrival, tell the cabbie to take Terminal to Renfrew - this loops you well outside the most tragic bits of the DownTown EastSide, as well as hinting to the cabbie you're familiar with town as it may not look it but thanks to some roadworks, one-ways, and central dividers it's almost the shortest and definitely fastest unless you get stuck in commuter traffic; ***** about the road closure at Prior making you go the long way if you want to sound hyper-local!

 

 

[Milhouse]

I pass by or near the Atrium Inn a few times a week while walking one of my regular circuits and getting a Starbucks and can concur that the area is generally fine during the day and even very late night.  At worst, there's occasional theft from the stores and the odd begging on the Hastings but nothing in terms of risk to personal safety.  But agree that there's really not much in the area for a tourist other than for the events that occur at Hastings Park.

 

If taking a bus downtown for some sightseeing during the day before, one slight mitigation strategy might be to take the R5 express bus that has limited stops but does have a stop right in front of the Atrium (and somewhat kitty corner on the return).

 

+1 to Petit Saigon.  Maybe check out Italian Bakery/Canoli King across the street for a snack.   

[challahmom]

On 4/24/2023 at 1:07 AM, martincath said:

From Pac Central you could walk to the YWCA Hotel if you're in remotely good shape, or spend about $6 on a cab - if they have a room for you it's the best deal in the region, the only hotel that is both budget AND modern, rather than a reno of a really old building (the new wing was built right before Covid hit, the old one renovated just this year, and it's a modern concrete tower building). If you can handle schlepping bags upstairs, then the Barclay is in a nice, quiet West End location and even cheaper than the Y but lacking the mod cons; say $15 cab from Pac Central, $10 to pier next day.

 

Glad to hear a review of the actual hotel for the Atrium; em-sk is correct that the blocks immediately around it are fine, it's really just traversing the space between it and downtown that sucks - buses along Hastings are among the worst in the city for 'binners' bringing their haul aboard, which makes for an often-loud and sometimes-stinky journey. And if you're cabubering everywhere because you don't like taking the bus, whatever you might save at the Atrium compared to a downtown budget hotel would be frittered away fast! From Pac Central or Chinatown I'd guess $20 on the meter each way; downtown core ~$25; so easily a $50-60 round trip with tips if you checked in and dropped bags then decided to hit up a nice resto for dinner.

 

But if you're going to be hit with a cancellation fee or just can't find any rooms downtown that are remotely comparable in price for your date, for just dinner the Atrium's location could be worse: there are some good casual spots for dinner that are walkable from the Atrium; personally I'd be comfortable walking quite a bit west to at least Nanaimo St: the likes of Tamam (Palestinian), Petit Saigon (Vietnamese), James (Chinese), and several decent Pho joints are all closer than that, within a quarter mile and right on Hastings so easily found. Just shut your eyes on the shuttle next morning! Getting to the Atrium from Pac Central on arrival, tell the cabbie to take Terminal to Renfrew - this loops you well outside the most tragic bits of the DownTown EastSide, as well as hinting to the cabbie you're familiar with town as it may not look it but thanks to some roadworks, one-ways, and central dividers it's almost the shortest and definitely fastest unless you get stuck in commuter traffic; ***** about the road closure at Prior making you go the long way if you want to sound hyper-local!

 

 

I have 2 questions about the Pan Pacific:

1.  If we book a Club level room, do we need to book the cruise package or can we just tip the bellman to take our luggage to the port?

and

2.  Is the lounge breakfast sufficient or do we need a rate with breakfast in the dining room too?

AAA has a better rate for the Club level room, but it doesn’t come with any extra amenities.

Thank you,

Joanne

[martincath]

Sorry @challahmom, never stayed in the PP so can't commend on how generous the Club Room nibbles are - but there was a rumour floating around that they were suspending free breakfasts until June. As to the cruise package, I really don't understand why they even offer it given how many folks have reported being able to get their bags taken to the ship without it, from all classes of rooms; while the 'officialness' of the process seems to have varied a little over time I haven't heard of a single person being refused the service!

[challahmom]

1 hour ago, martincath said:

Sorry @challahmom, never stayed in the PP so can't commend on how generous the Club Room nibbles are - but there was a rumour floating around that they were suspending free breakfasts until June. As to the cruise package, I really don't understand why they even offer it given how many folks have reported being able to get their bags taken to the ship without it, from all classes of rooms; while the 'officialness' of the process seems to have varied a little over time I haven't heard of a single person being refused the service!

Thank you!  I may post on the general Vancouver/West Coast board.