Your best recommendations: travel from Vancouver to Seattle

[Boo's Mom]

What are your recommendations for travel from the cruise terminal in Vancouver to the Seattle Airport? 

 

Thank you! 

[martincath]

1 hour ago, Boo's Mom said:

What are your recommendations for travel from the cruise terminal in Vancouver to the Seattle Airport? 

 

Thank you! 

While I stumbled onto your post via a Search, most of the folks with advice to give won't be looking here on the East Coast side - the optimal board for this question is West Coast Departures to get plenty eyes on from both locals and past cruisers out of Van/Sea. If you Report it yourself and ask, the Mods will usually move the thread for you!

 

If you are over-nighting after the cruise, I would recommend the train - the timing of the morning one never works for disembarkation day, it's gone before the first pax can get off the ship. The evening train is far too late for even the latest flights out of SEA (if on time, downtown Seattle 11pm means you'd need something well after midnight) so again, an overnight in Van or Sea is needed. Least annoying border crossing (precleared here in Van before boarding), lovely views (track ruins much closer to the ocean than I5 most of the time), you can get up and wander about, bistro car better than airline food.

 

Buses - often the cruiseline will sell you a transfer. Advantage here is no stops other than mandatory border inspection - so it's quicker than any private coach ride. Cost-wise, this season US$79pp is the norm, basically the same as a private transfer with a suitcase on Quickshuttle or an Amtrak bus service. Flixbus only operates some days, but their price starts at about half that.

 

Rental car - potentially the cheapest for even couples, and once you get to the 4-5 people mark even likelier the cheapest per person pricing, but very variable in cost. Biggest advantage is flexibility - take the road you want, the border crossing you want, stop where you want.

 

Fly - the odds of a separately-booked flight now being cheaper than just having booked a flight to YVR instead of SEA are very slim, but you never know. Like rental cars, sometimes a flight is just mad cheap for no apparent reason so there's no harm in a quick check on your travel date.

 

My recommendation is as many nights in Vancouver as you can afford! Plough whatever savings you made by booking flights from SEA instead into staying here! Then you can take the morning train which is extremely reliable (it overnights here, so even if the previous night's train is ridiculously delayed odds are near 100% that the morning train will still leave within 15mins of schedule. Freight trains and bridge openings can add an hour, but the ~4hour schedule is already heavily padded). There's more stuff to see and do here than in all the coastal AK ports combined and our dollar gives you a free bonus ~33% on all spending - take a family of four on a whale-watching trip here for example, and you may save enough compared to one in Juneau that you can pay for a hotel night!

[CruisingIGo]

Rent a car.  There are major car rental companies at the port in VancouverBC.