Spending 2 days in Vancouver prior to our cruise What to do

[jhenry1]

We have never been to Vancouver and prior to our cruise spending 2-3 days to see as much as we can of Vancouver. Also some of the greatest places to eat. We will be staying at the Fairmount downtown on George Street. There will be 3 adults and will be looking for private tours. Any suggestions will Ben greatly appreciated. If there are areas close to our hotel the Fairmount downtown to walk to to shop or eat let me know. Also is there a unique shopping area with a market and etc to see.

[Urban trekker]

Vancouver native here - where to start.

First of all - welcome to Vancouver - your choice of your hotel on Georgia St is smack in the middle of the downtown core.

You have our largest downtown Mall - Pacific Center a little over a block away. While Nordstrom's is now closed there are many well known American retailers located there.

There is also a food court located there.

As for best places to eat I will leave that topic to my friend MartinCath.

A couple of unique eating and shopping area would be Yaletown and Gastown.

Granville Island Public Market is one of the most popular visited places in the city.

There are free shuttles to both the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain which you can board either at the cruise port or around the corner behind the Hyatt Hotel which is across the street from your hotel.

You are about a dozen blocks to the entrance of Stanley Park - rated one of the best urban parks in North America.

You haven't indicated what time of the year you will be cruising.

Hope this gets you started and I am sure that some more of us locales will be along with more suggestions.

Dennis

 

[jhenry1]

We are arriving at the end of May. Thank you for all the info. We definitely want to go to the market and the bridge.

[brunello22]

On 7/31/2023 at 8:59 PM, Urban trekker said:

Vancouver native here - where to start.

First of all - welcome to Vancouver - your choice of your hotel on Georgia St is smack in the middle of the downtown core.

You have our largest downtown Mall - Pacific Center a little over a block away. While Nordstrom's is now closed there are many well known American retailers located there.

There is also a food court located there.

As for best places to eat I will leave that topic to my friend MartinCath.

A couple of unique eating and shopping area would be Yaletown and Gastown.

Granville Island Public Market is one of the most popular visited places in the city.

There are free shuttles to both the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain which you can board either at the cruise port or around the corner behind the Hyatt Hotel which is across the street from your hotel.

You are about a dozen blocks to the entrance of Stanley Park - rated one of the best urban parks in North America.

You haven't indicated what time of the year you will be cruising.

Hope this gets you started and I am sure that some more of us locales will be along with more suggestions.

Dennis

 

Thanks for the suggestions!  I used to spend a lot of summers in Vancouver for work, but it has been more than 5 years since I have really spent any time there.  All your suggestions are a wonderful reminder of just what a great city it is!  I will be there in 2-1/2 weeks for a full day / overnight, after getting off Seabourn Odyssey.  There will be another couple traveling with us, and we are really looking forward to going back.  We are staying at Moda Hotel (Downtown).

Edited August 2, 2023 by brunello22

[psuboater]

My friend and I found ourselves with an extra day in Vancouver and we did a day tour to the wineries with Lawrence Tours. Michael is the owner and is a Vancouver native who knows all about Vancouver and the areas surrounding it. We went to 3 wineries, stopped in the town where a lot of Hallmark movies are filmed, had a picnic lunch provided, and learned so much about BC and BC wine! Highly recommend. 

[Northern Aurora]

Anyone who loves art galleries should check the Vancouver Art Gallery website.  While I find their Emily Carr gallery an acquired taste they have some very interesting special exhibits.  

[martincath]

Since it's next May @jhenry1 you'd still be best to verify the continued existence/menu similarity of any of these restos say a month or so beforehand; depending on your tastes and budget and willingness to walk far/cab to restos there could be literally hundreds of good options to dine in, but IMO consistently good and easily walkable from your hotel include:

• Notch8, literally inside your hotel - a little more mainstream than Botanist in the Pacific Rim, but still a bit froo-froo with the occasional plate arriving in a fishbowl full of smoke or covered in 'soil' made from nuts, cocoa etc. Afternoon tea is also available here at a pretty big discount compared to the Empress in Victoria - with near-identical tea menus, only the individual hotel blends differ the rest are all bought across the chain.
• Hawksworth, a block up the street inside the Hotel Georgia, is one of the best kitchens in the city despite missing out on a Michelin star; rotating seasonal menu, always stellar service, this is the single most popular resto I know among my peers for special meals like birthdays and anniversaries due to the old-school fine-dining service (nowhere else has such stealthy ninja waitrons - turn your head away for a moment and your water glass will have magically refilled itself); their sister resto Nightingale is a bit further, though <0.5miles, with a much broader menu and a more casual vibe.
• Unless you frequent Quebec, then St Lawrence is probably the table you most want to book - despite jacking their prices up massively it's still great value for a Michelin eatery, and most of that increase went to enhancing staff benefits. The glory days of just showing up ad hoc are long gone, almost every table sells out when each months new menu drops, but the overall package of excellent quality, consistency, generosity of portions, and not-quite-the-same-as-regular-hoity-toity-French-food is a winning combo - do not miss out on the tourtiere! Probably best to CabUber there and back, a little bit sketchy on some surrounding streets, and definitely try for a reso at least 4+ weeks in advance.
• Don't waste your money on the overpriced hotel breakfast - get yourself to Medina, less than 10mins on foot, for what is still the best brekkie in the city (especially if you like waffles). A charitable donation gets you a reso, and unless you are happy to queue for an hour plus (weekend brunch easily gets this busy, even weekday brekkie you could face a wait of 30mins unless you're there before opening time to queue up) worth doing.
• If close to a mile on foot is OK, then Dinesty Dumplings is walkable - the downtown branch is up toward the west end of Robson Street, and if you want top notch but not fancy Chinese food this is your best bet without leaving the core.
• Chinatown proper gets less and less Chinese-y each year in terms of restos and grocery shops - but there are still some holdouts! Many visitors get uncomfortable on the streets these days, especially at night, so CabUbering probably wise (it's <1.5 miles on foot to Chinatown though, so if you're good with some urban grit potentially walkable): Chinatown BBQ is a very reliable old school value spot - and uniquely also super modern as it was gutted and rebuilt but deliberately priced so that local Seniors could still afford to eat there and staff from the just-closed-at-the-time Daisy Garden were hired, the very opposite of the gentrification that's been impacting the area. The same woman has been promising a similar treatment for Foo's Ho Ho, my own favourite, for years now - I heard rumours recently of a 2023 reopening, so by next May you could be in luck! If she managed to secure the family recipe for Foo Yung away from the last owners, I'll be a regular customer again as it was always the best in the city, lighter than air...
• Not Chinese (Viet-Cambodian) but in Chinatown and a stalwart of local dining for almost half a century, Phnom Penh still has queues every night! Very simple space, shared tables, plastic tablecloths, brusque service, but the quality and value of the food remains just insanely high - for first-timers I continue to recommend the wings, butter beef, and beef luc lac (add the fried egg!) as the items to try (and frankly I usually still order all of these myself, plus one other thing to try, although unless at least 3 people are dining you'll probably struggle to eat more than these!)
• Various different Izakayas live in Vancouver, which are rare outside Japan - if you can't decide between Sushi, Noodles, or Pork Chops & beer, these are the places you want to go! All locals have their faves, but the closest to you would be either of two branches of Guu on Seymour or Thurlow - for folks who've never had Japanese food before, or a group including folks who love it and folks who are all "Blech! Raw fish!?" this kind of resto is ideal, as you can order 'western pub grub' like wings and sausages, meat-on-a-stick, pitchers of beer etc. as well as 'weird foreign muck' (although anyone professing the latter view is best ordered for, like a 50s fancy resto lady customer, in case the menu scares them - and don't order Natto for anyone at the table if you're trying to convert a Meat-and-Two-Veg eater!)

 

On the tour front, Toursbylocals started here and there are many guides with private vehicles if you want chauffeured around places; by next spring hopefully the local architectural institute will be running their guided walks again (cheap, small groups, very informative); Toonie Tours survived Covid and while their groups tend to run large on the 'tips only' they also offer private group tours on foot or bike for a fee; but I always like to check out the local Greeters organization, which here in Vancouver is Stroll Buddy - a private, custom walk with an actual local for no money, no tips expected? Hard to beat that (full disclosure, I am one of the local Buddies, but since I don't get paid it's not a conflict of interest!)

 

And in general for 'what to see' I always say that TripAdvisor rankings should be your bread&butter source - there are so many reviews of all the sites that their relative rankings are very trustworthy in terms of how much Joe Q Public enjoys them, you know you much better than I do, so skimming the Top Ten and some of the articles like 'best things to do with One/Two/Three days' lists is an excellent starting point. For groups, have everyone make their own, say, top 5 things they want to do, compare lists, and now you know what everyone wants to do together or if there are subgroups who might be better splitting up to spend the day separately, just like on a cruise! Keep in touch using the free local city provided wifi network (#VanWiFi broadcasts most places) and you don't even have to worry about roaming fees or compatible networks, any web-enabled device can be used for mapping and messaging to make it easy to meet back up again for lunch/dinner etc.