Vancouver port question

[hikergirl]

We have arranged a bus transfer, through HAL, from Vancouver terminal to airport.  We will be self carrying our bags from the ship.  Has anyone done this and how long do you have to wait for the bus to fill up?  Is there only one bus?  Looks like a taxi would be about the same cost. Are taxis readily available? When arriving at the airport, do busses get priority over taxis? I have read the taxi arriving area could be a nightmare.  We are trying to beat the mad rush at the airport. Which would you recommend, taxi or bus shuttle?

[Essiesmom]

You might get more answers if you ask on the West Coast Departures. Oard, under North American Homeports.  EM

[OlsSalt]

Have you looked at  the Sky Train to the Vancouver airport from the Canada Place Waterfront Station - pretty easy with  lots of walk through videos to show you what to do. But you do have to cross the busy street in front of the cruise terminal to get to the Waterfront station. 

[Susanmaz]

The cab fare is about $38 from pier to YVR. The ships transfer is $29. We are doing the transfer.

[d9704011]

18 minutes ago, Susanmaz said:

The cab fare is about $38 from pier to YVR. The ships transfer is $29. We are doing the transfer.

Careful.... $40 Canadian for the taxi works out to about $30 US, which is what your transfer will cost.  Considering all the time you might spend waiting on the transfer, you may wish to reconsider your plan.  And you only pay a single taxi fare.

Edited May 2, 2023 by d9704011

[Alberta Quilter]

10 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

Careful.... $40 Canadian for the taxi works out to about $30 US, which is what your transfer will cost.  Considering all the time you might spend waiting on the transfer, you may wish to reconsider your plan.

And, the ship transfer is per person, so US$29 ($58/couple) compared to C$38 for the entire cab; usually up to four people.

[PNWcruzin]

We have done the Vancouver cruise several times, each time by sky train. Only two blocks away from cruise terminal, and cost less than $5 bucks to airport. 

[dawnvip]

Disembarking the cruise ships at Vancouver is right at Canada Place. Self-carrying bags is pretty easy and not very far to reach the taxi stop available right in front at street level or also one level down.

 

Taxis are notoriously hard to get depending how many ships are in port and how many people are in the queue! Uber is also available and usually cheaper than taxis. You can order on the app as soon as you are ready to disembark! Both taxis and ubers availability depend how early you are planning on disembarking.

 

A third option is the skytrain which you can take directly to the airport. The waterfront station is also very close to the cruiseport and trains leave every 6 or 8 minutes. Trip takes about a half hour and costs $10 Cad. each

 

[martincath]

If you can self-disembark, odds are that even if you take a cab rather than SkyTrain you will beat all the bus transfer people who pay a ridiculous premium. The local private shuttle company charges CAD$19pp rather than US$29, and even that costs as much or more than a cab for anyone but solos!

 

Personally, I would plan to use SkyTrain (even more trivially-easy now that the US has joined the rest of the world with tappable-chip credit cards becoming normal - if you have one of those each, or a phone with Apple/Samsung Pay on it, you don't even have to spend time at the ticket machines figuring out how many Zones you need to travel on which day of the week... tap your card, gates open. Tap again at the airport, gates open and your card is auto-billed the correct fare - at interbank exchange rates!) because it's consistently fast and the price cannot be beat (at most, a smidge over US$3pp - there's no extra fee on the way TO the airport, only coming FROM it).

 

But, since you walk past the cab line on the way to SkyTrain, you can easily adapt on the day - taxis waiting, short queue of people? Price is variable due to metering, but always against commuter flow so rarely varies too much, CAD$35-40. Even if you're a couple or solo, you'll be waling along between the same folks from your ship through the pier so why not open conversation, see if someone wants to split a cab with you? 4 bums on seats at US$10pp incl tip might feel worth saving the extra ~400 yards to the Canada Line platform...

 

Historically cruiseline-booked flights are never before noon, 12:30pm, or even 1pm, so transfer buses work around that schedule trying to get you to the airport 2-3 hours early - the first one will probably leave by 9am, but anything earlier than that is very lucky. If you're self-disembarking at 7:30am that means you could literally wait an hour to get in a cab and still beat the first cruisebus! And that is what you want to do, as the lines at YVR only get really long when the buses start rolling in and dumping batches of 50pax simultaneously to wend their way through check-in, bag drop, security and CBP preclearance for US-bound flights. Get there by 9am and you basically guarantee beating ALL the folks who overpaid for the cruisebuses...

[martincath]

5 hours ago, OlsSalt said:

Have you looked at  the Sky Train to the Vancouver airport from the Canada Place Waterfront Station - pretty easy with  lots of walk through videos to show you what to do. But you do have to cross the busy street in front of the cruise terminal to get to the Waterfront station. 

No street-crossing required - all you have to do is follow the sidewalk! Turn left when you hit the street - crossing only the pier-traffic ramp, which has cops and pier staff ensuring that pedestrians and cabs and regular cars all get their turns - and keep going as it curves from Canada Place becoming Howe St; ignore the first SkyTrain entrance here, wrong platform below and a rabbit-warren of multiple level changes to get to the correct one; easier instead to turn left again onto Cordova on same sidewalk all the way along to the station entrances with zero intersections (there is one busy garage entrance right before the station building, but it even has pedestrian crossing lights for safety!)

 

You COULD instead go to the Hastings entrance, which involves a light-controlled street crossing - but that's uphill so why not go the easier, downhill way instead...? There's even an all-underground route, but that's tricky to navigate unless you're a local commuter who pootles around in the underground malls and tunnels all the time.

 

Currently Google might insanely suggest that you should walk out into traffic twice to cut the corner of Canada Place/Howe via the angled side of the Fairmont Waterfront, saving maybe five yards but flagrantly breaching jaywalking laws - they'll get round to fixing it like they have done other such oddities I've reported over the years like walking on the cars-only lanes of the viaducts, but between the massive staff culls and being a US company minor fixes to routing here can take quite a while to be updated...

[DaveOKC]

8 hours ago, PNWcruzin said:

We have done the Vancouver cruise several times, each time by sky train. Only two blocks away from cruise terminal, and cost less than $5 bucks to airport. 

Plus $5 more FROM the airport.  Per person.

[BobbiSox]

Can you imagine the nightmare you will encounter if you should miss you flight due to traffic or any other reason, and you're in a taxi or some other non-HAL related transportation? If that happens and you're on a HAL transfer, HAL will take good care of you. HAL takes full responsibility for getting you to your flight on time, and when that's impossible, HAL takes care of getting you into a hotel, and booking you another flight. I can't stress often enough that if you're sailing will HAL, do ALL  things through HAL. Booking, transportation, hotels, excursions, all of it. The extra cost is well worth it. Being stranded in a foreign country where I don't speak the language is something I try to avoid at all costs. 

[d9704011]

29 minutes ago, BobbiSox said:

Can you imagine the nightmare you will encounter if you should miss you flight due to traffic or any other reason, and you're in a taxi or some other non-HAL related transportation? If that happens and you're on a HAL transfer, HAL will take good care of you. HAL takes full responsibility for getting you to your flight on time, and when that's impossible, HAL takes care of getting you into a hotel, and booking you another flight. I can't stress often enough that if you're sailing will HAL, do ALL  things through HAL. Booking, transportation, hotels, excursions, all of it. The extra cost is well worth it. Being stranded in a foreign country where I don't speak the language is something I try to avoid at all costs. 

Gawd.... just imagine.  Fortunately, English is widely spoken in Vancouver.  If, for some reason, the taxi gets stranded and cannot make it to the airport (this seldom happens to the tens of thousands of other travelers who get to the airport this way), the OP ought to be able to get by.

[DaveOKC]

50 minutes ago, BobbiSox said:

Can you imagine the nightmare you will encounter if you should miss you flight due to traffic or any other reason, and you're in a taxi or some other non-HAL related transportation? If that happens and you're on a HAL transfer, HAL will take good care of you. HAL takes full responsibility for getting you to your flight on time, and when that's impossible, HAL takes care of getting you into a hotel, and booking you another flight. I can't stress often enough that if you're sailing will HAL, do ALL  things through HAL. Booking, transportation, hotels, excursions, all of it. The extra cost is well worth it. Being stranded in a foreign country where I don't speak the language is something I try to avoid at all costs. 

On the other hand..... One time we were on a HAL transfer to the Vancouver airport and we waited so long for the bus to depart that we almost missed the plane (I know of another couple on the bus that did miss their's).  HAL booked the flights also, so not our fault.  We had to RUN through the long airport process and as soon as we boarded the plane the door behind us closed.  Never again will I rely on HAL to set up this type of transfer.

[OlsSalt]

Thank you martincath, for your updated details getting from Canada Place (Pan Pacific Hotel) cruise terminal to Waterfront Station (blue train symbol) and link to airport Skytrain.

[newbe4]

Hello Hikergirl. 
 

we disembarked on May 1 off the Koningsdam with an airport transfer with Holland America. IT WAS A DISASTER!  
 

i have never experienced such a disorganized, chaotic mad house ever.

 

We were Yellow group #1 our scheduled time to disembark was 8:20-8:30. We were called at 9 am.

 

the Yellow group #1 luggage was scattered in three different places. But no one from the port told you that. Passengers were left to find it on their own.  The luggage was not grouped according to color or number. There was no Holland America representative in the cruise terminal to help in any way. 
 

there were three cruise ships disembarking at once. 
 

holland America did not tell passengers that they would be on a bus with people from other cruise lines. The pier staff had no control of the crowd, the port staff were rude, clueless and disorganized.

The cruise terminal has been the business of moving passengers for decades, I would think they would know what they are doing. They do not. Staff was yelling passengers were yelling. It was terrible 

. 

 it took us 1 and 1/2 HOURS to catch a buss transfer we paid for. We missed our flight out on Monday.  Therefor we did not get home Tuesday morning.  We live in Philadelphia

 

Holland America needs to accept some responsibility for the debacle that occur at the Canada Place Cruise Terminal in Vancouver.  There was no checking of tickets, no time or segment priority once you left the ship. It was a free for all. 
 

I would not count on Holland America ti help you 

it was a disturbing way to end a trip. 
 

good luck. 
HP

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

I  would take a cab.

[hikergirl]

1 hour ago, newbe4 said:

Hello Hikergirl. 
 

we disembarked on May 1 off the Koningsdam with an airport transfer with Holland America. IT WAS A DISASTER!  
 

i have never experienced such a disorganized, chaotic mad house ever.

 

 

Thank you so much for this information!   I am sorry to hear that the last day of your trip turned into a nightmare.  This is exactly what I was afraid of.  At first I thought we would be on a little shuttle, like they use at airport parking lots. But when I found out it was a bus with 50 other people, this made me think about it a bit more. I think there will be 3 ships in port that day. We will take the suggestions of other posters. We will walk by the cab queue, and if it's not too long, will take a cab. If that doesn't work, we will take the light rail.  We definitely will self-carry our bags off the ship.

Edited May 2, 2023 by hikergirl
updated some info

[robotpony]

Uber works very well in Vancouver as well, and we just walk 1 block to the convention centre and catch it there. It's about $75 to home for us, likely a bit less to the Airport. We've never waited more than 10 minutes, and getting out of Canada place is pretty easy if you stick to the right of that huge mass of people.

[hikergirl]

18 hours ago, martincath said:

No street-crossing required - all you have to do is follow the sidewalk! Turn left when you hit the street - crossing only the pier-traffic ramp, which has cops and pier staff ensuring that pedestrians and cabs and regular cars all get their turns - and keep going as it curves from Canada Place becoming Howe St; ignore the first SkyTrain entrance here, wrong platform below and a rabbit-warren of multiple level changes to get to the correct one; easier instead to turn left again onto Cordova on same sidewalk all the way along to the station entrances with zero intersections (there is one busy garage entrance right before the station building, but it even has pedestrian crossing lights for safety!)

 

 

Thank you so much for the detailed walking instructions! 

[hikergirl]

We ended up cancelling the Cruise ship bus transfer and hand carried our luggage off the ship. Easily grabbed a taxi at 8:00 am and was at the airport by 8:30. Thanks to everyone for their tips!