would like help planning 2 days in Vancouver

[reeinaz]

Hi.

I will be in Vancouver pre-cruise, arriving 11AM 6/22 and my cruise departs 6/24. I'm staying at the St Regis hotel. I would love some assistance from those familiar with Vancouver to help me plan my stay since I have never been there before. I'm fine using public transportation, I don't drive, and I would likely need a tricycle if I chose to bike since I haven't been on one in maybe 20 years! I've read threads and visited Trip Advisor for ideas.

So far I have these:

Granville Public Market

Stanley Park Sea Wall

Sun Yat-Sen Garden

UBC Botanical Garden - not sure how out of the way this is.

Experience indigenous art and food

Localvore food (will likely make a reservation at Burdock and Co if there are no other suggestions)

New Town Bakery for fried apple pie

Peaceful hand pulled noodles (or similar. the hand pulled noodle idea grabbed my attention)

 

I guess I need help figuring out the logistics of getting to these places in a way that makes sense. I'm also open to more suggestions. I like my days to be fairly low key and easy going, so I don't need to do a ton of stuff, but I do want to feel like I actually visited Vancouver. 

 

Thanks so much in advance!

 

Cheree

 

 

 

[screwsmcernst]

We sailed out of Vancouver 2 yrs ago.  It is a beautiful city.  We were there 3 days prior to sailing.  Stanley park is beautiful.  We biked around the park.  there are also walking lanes next to the biking lanes so you won't have to worry about getting out of the way of bikers.  

 

If you like nature, you may like the Capilano Suspension Bridge.  it is about 15 mins. away from the St. Regis by car.  

 

Grandville Island is a lot of fun.  If you are going to a bakery for fried apple pie, you should also try a Nanaimo Bar.  They are a wonderful treat.  

 

If you want to see something unique, take a walk down to Gastown at the top of the hour to see   The Gastown Steam clock.  

 

We stayed at the Auberge hotel, and around the block from the hotel is an English pub called the Lion Pub.  We had drinks and snacks there a few times.  It was really fun. We also went to Black & Blue steakhouse and ate on their rooftop.  It was pricey, but the steaks and view were really good. I hope you have a great time discovering Vancouver and have a wonderful cruise.  😃

[martincath]

59 minutes ago, reeinaz said:

Hi.

I will be in Vancouver pre-cruise, arriving 11AM 6/22 and my cruise departs 6/24. I'm staying at the St Regis hotel ...

General logistics - transit is definitely going to be useful, but don't bother with Translinks own app as they now use Google to drive it so it's far better to simply load Google Maps and get ALL the options in one place for walking, transit, bike, and car (to compare speed of Taxi/Uber routing since you won't be driving yourself). Make use of Streetview to 'walk' a route in advance, see the landmarks as you will see them in person - we have had several visits by the google camera car, as well as bike and even 'guy walking with a rididculously big multicamera backpack' so some of the park trails and definitely the Seawall have recorded snaps. For almost all of your locations, buses are the only real transit option - while not as good as SkyTrain as they still have to fight traffic, there are plenty of bus lanes and you can get a decent idea of actual times simply by adjusting the Gmap settings ('Depart At' your specific date and potential time to see how normal traffic patterns impact drive time).

 

The two best 'tourist buses' are the 50 and 19 - the former will get you up to Queen Lizzie Park as well as Granville Island and various parts in between, and the latter runs from literally inside Stanley Park through downtown, Chinatown, and out along Kingsway (get off at the first stop after this turn and you'll be very close to Burdock) for access to some much less touristy pockets of good local dining. It even goes all the way out to Burnaby, in case you wanted to check out Metrotown or Crystal Mall (although SkyTrain is definitely quicker to these!)

 

Also a very handy hint for your travel - whatever you do, no matter how long your travel day has been on the 22nd, stay awake until 9pm local time! The 3 hour time diff from EST is actually pretty easy to overcome if you eat an extra meal at normal PST dinner time and stay up until at least 9 - ideally get outside, watch the sunset (around 9:30pm when you visit!) and only go to bed after that.

 

Locavore Western food - honestly, I'd send you to Burdock myself if you have the budget for it! Andrea is almost criminally unknown, she's not just an excellent chef but one of the hardest-working in the city (she's not one of those a**holes like Gordon Ramsey who owns a ton of places but rarely shows up to cook, often she's running the kitchen in Harvest during the day then up at Burdock for dinner service, even helps in Gobo when staff need vaycay), and the entire concept of the resto is seasonality (except for the fried chicken - that's on all year round, or regulars would burn the place to the ground...)

 

Sun Yat-Sen garden - just walk over, hit up New Town for your pie then maybe come back to the free park side to eat it in the gazebo (the proper garden doesn't like food and drink being consumed within except in their tea room), compare and contrast the less authentic side!

 

Hand-pulled noodles are also available elsewhere (we are a very, very noodley town!) but Peaceful also ticks off a hard-to-find Chinese cuisine box in it's Xi'an food influenced by Uighur and middle eastern flavours. Logistically, now that the downtown branches closed, Broadway is the only practical one to visit (SkyTrain to Broadway-City Hall) from downtown, or Kitsilano (any bus along 4th Avenue) if you are out at UBC. Personally I'd order the (smaller) cumin-lamb-on-noodles as opposed to the full portion versions of both individually, and then depending on your appetite you might also manage to fit in a Beef Roll!

 

Granville Island (not just the market - it's an interesting place, and most of the good craft shops are elsewhere - but for picnic foods, lunch, a great option) you can do by bus most cheaply (the 50 runs around several touristy parts of town) but the wee water taxis are worth the convenience if you are already on the Seawall anywhere near their routes (e.g. Yaletown, English Bay, Athletes Village).

 

Indigenous Art - if it's for purchase, then the gallery on the ground floor of Skwachays Lodge should be your first stop. Just to look at, also worth visiting here as lots on display, and their current artist-in-residence might be working in the studio to meet. There are other galleries, especially along Water St, but this is the only entirely indigenous-owned one. If it's all about seeing rather than buying, MOA will hopefully be open again by your visit - there's an insane number of rooms, packed with all sorts of artefacts from all over the world, but just sticking to local peoples you can still easily fill an hour or more looking without even doing any of the voice recordings or films (and if you are really interested, the firsthand accounts in the audio and video library are where all of the 'normal folks' data lives, rather than work by artists).

 

UBC just for the botanic garden probably isn't a good use of time - it's a bit of a schlep by transit, only buses, absolute minimum an hour from downtown and more likely 75+mins each way even if you take an Express bus to reduce the number of stops. If you're going to do MOA, the Japanese garden, Beaty Museum, etc. then UBC campus is well worth a lot of hours - but if your only interest is the botanic I'd honestly consider Capilano for your Treewalk instead because you also get the bridge itself, the cliffside glass floor walk, and a conveniently-packaged shuttle from downtown; and if you didn't want to do a Treewalk then frankly Stanley Park already has a crapton of trees, Queen Elizabeth another arboretum plus quarry gardens and the best views of Vancouver from inside the city, Van Dusen a better botanic garden (with an actual hedge maze), and only VD even costs anything of this trio!

 

Indigenous Food - realistically you have the choice of either a frankly not-super-interesting food truck Bannock (toppings tend to be very similiar to Beavertail/Elephant Ears for the fried ones, very sugary, or else split and filled with occasionaly something savoury like chili if a traditional baked style) or else a sit-down dinner at Salmon & Bannock. The latter is 100% my recommendation, you'll get some first-hand info from the staff as well as a selection of food that leans heavily toward game meat and fish - not just salmon, the best dishes here IMO are the seasonal fish like oolichan (smelt; by June no fresh ones, but the most interesting preparations are the preserved ones anyway, either smoked like kippers or pressed for their grease which is used like Italians do olive oil, dipping your bannock in) and herring roe (fresh has already been and gone, and that's how I like it best, but again you can have the eggs preserved in brine). A dinner here one of your nights and Burdock the other is definitely a great way to dine for traditional and modern locavore food!

 

The Seawall - without a bike it's a big time commitment unless you're in good enough shape to run it rather than walk. In theory it's also one-way around the park even for pedestrians - and once you are on it there are very few opportunities to leave it, no real shortcuts around the western end. If you can budget for 5 miles of walking time plus photostops, it's definitely a nice experience though! Adult trikes are still available from at least JV rentals, but with eBikes dominating the rental market most places only offer two wheelers - personally I'd say that riding a bike is, well, proverbially like itself in that the skill once learned really does not ever disappear 😉

 

eBikes also have better stability thanks to the weight of the batteries - any chance you have a friend you could borrow a bike from just to make sure you're happy riding? Failing that, Search here and you'll find some recent posts with suggested routes - but long story short if you just walk the first bit to the Totem Poles and lighthouse, then cut back through the middle via Lumberman's Arch you can see the harbour and cruise dock looking back toward the city and the views from English Bay give you a westward ocean, sunsets, big queue of ships waiting for their slot in the industrial port that's not far off what you'd see on out outside of the park (exception, Siwash Rock, this is really only visible from a short bit of Park Drive above and the Seawall itself).

 

In combination with a short walk of the eastern parts, a fairly quick taxi/uberlyft trip that you pay wait time for would let you hit Prospect Point for views over the top of Lions Gate bridge, then another at the viewing point for Siwash, perhaps another at the Hollow Tree, in a single loop around the roadway - maybe $50 depending how long you spend taking pics which isn't bad compared to multiple-hour eBike rental or the carriage ride!

 

Other Things Not Mentioned By You Already - MOA I noted already; since you're already considering a visit to Mount Pleasant for Burdock it's an interesting 'hood in its own right. The oldest Vancouver suburb, Muralfest has packed tons of building walls with art, the return of 'Brewery Creek', the juxtaposition of shiny new mid- and high-rise buildings with heritage homes and even a native longhouse, light industrial businesses, artist studios, bakeries and restos  just yards apart, virtually no chain stores, and right nextdoor on the bottom of the hill is the newest downtown 'hood of the Athletes Village. My most popular 'off the beaten track' half-day walking tour is basically to hit up this neck of the woods for all these reasons, then leave folks at the water taxi pier so they can get to Granville Island.

 

Speaking of - as a solo traveler I would strongly recommend trying to book a free walk with Stroll Buddies here so you have a local to show you around. There aren't many of us Buddies, but since your dates are on a weekend there's a better chance of the ones who still work being available! For a grounding in the more tourist-friendly downtown area, the Toonie Tours freebie covers the bases well (big groups of up to 30, but multiple departures daily in summer, and while these guys do expect a tip it's still a low-cost option to get some entertaining tales of yore). If architecture is of interest, I can't praise AIBCs walks enough but they may not be running yet - but you can send them an email to get on the distro list of when they will begin this summer.

 

There's a lot more stuff to potentially add, but given your limited time and what you've already flagged as things you are interested in I won't throw out any further ideas unless you specifically ask! It's already shaping up to be a potentially long day on the 23rd for you, even if you sensibly delay some walkable downtown stuff to embarkation morning.

[reeinaz]

Thanks so much. This was definitely helpful. One of the reasons I enjoy cruising so much is that I don’t have to do any of this planning. Most times I just stay in my hotel and order room service pre cruise LOL. But I don’t know how often I will get to visit Vancouver. 

[martincath]

4 hours ago, reeinaz said:

Thanks so much. This was definitely helpful. One of the reasons I enjoy cruising so much is that I don’t have to do any of this planning. Most times I just stay in my hotel and order room service pre cruise LOL. But I don’t know how often I will get to visit Vancouver. 

No worries - well, except having added more stuff to your shortlist, expanded other areas, and not really told you not to go anywhere you were thinking about doing!!! So sorry for that - but if you do firm up a 'definitely X, Y, Z' and want further 'do this first evening, embarkation morning, possibly a better time on your full middle day' logistical help just ask away. As an example - if you do wake up early, that's a great time to visit New Town as they open at 6:30am and some of the popular pastries sell out by lunchtime! Not a great time to connect it with anything ticketed unfortunately, almost nothing opens before 9am because everyone wants to be up a mountain doing yoga before work... at least, based on most Insta feeds in these parts! 😉

[GORDONCHICK]

We used the HOHO bus for 2 days and it was great for getting us all around the city.  it helped us cover a lot of ground in a shorter amount of time.  Stanley Park is beautiful, and we loved the aquarium.  We went to so many places and saw so much in 2 days.