martincath

@rgh2928 What hotel are you coming in from, and have you booked your shuttle independently or through your line or the hotel itself... and last time, was it the same way? Full size coaches can get under Canada Place just fine, so I'm genuinely bemused about any lack of access regardless of who is organizing the vehicle, but while I am generally ill-disposed to cruise line shuttles that's just because of the obscene cost markups, rather than such a strange failure in quality of service. Personally I'd be using an Accessible taxi - perfect size of vehicle, a big van with middle row of seats removed so even if your parents were bringing their own folding wheelchairs rather than renting at the pier there should be room for lots of bags and 4 pax. Have your hotel call the cab firm and specifically ask for a wheelchair-accessible vehicle - by law, all the cab fleets have to supply them when someone who needs them asks (they make up about 17% of the cab fleets) whereas Uber etc. have no such requirement thanks to their 'honest guv we are not a transportation company just an app that hooks up drivers with passengers' operation, but if they can get in and out of normal cars fine then an UberXL should also work fine. You'll spend a fraction of the cost compared to any Per Person shuttle - even metered from a distance hotel, with traffic, the odds of going much over $40 on the meter are slim (pay with credit - while many cabbies happily take USD they do not give close to the official exchange rate, and some even cheekily ask for an At Par $1USD=$1CAD!!!) and since most cruise shuttles charge USD$29pp that's almost CAD$40 per person... without Surge pricing, generally rideshares cost a bit less than cabs on longer trips, so from an airport area hotel expect to save maybe 10-15% with Uber/Lyft compared to a metered cab. If you can make it from your hotel to the airport itself (e.g. on the hotel shuttle), cabs from there are even fixed price - CAD$38 to the pier this year, all taxes included, and size of cab makes no difference.

I agree there's a certain point where the extra hassle will outweigh the extra benefits - from a southern state and only coming to Canada once in a blue moon, NEXUS is unlikely to be a win for you! But other than the geographic issue of getting to a far more limited set of locations the actual interview process for me and every single person I know of with NEXUS involved literally just a few moments extra as the CBP and CBSA agents are generally in the same building - often in the same office, or in not-just-my-case-but-many-other-acquaintances-too literally behind the same counter right next to each other so only one of them actually bothers asking any questions (well, to be fair, the CBSA guy did ask me one question: "Do you have any questions for us?"!)

I also use Firesmoke - they update their predictions multiple times per day, but at most only run a couple of days into the future because they're very rational about how inaccurate even the best models are. Even more so than regular meteorological predictions, smoke is a nightmare to guesstimate so anyone who claims they have a clue how it will be in a week or two is talking utter b*ll*cks! All you can do as a visitor during fire season is pack adequate breathing protection - N95 masks, commonly available thanks to the pandemic, work for the nasty little smoke particles (PM2.5) that are most health-affecting... so even if you're one of those folks who poo-poo the risk of Covid, pack some masks to avoid tasting the smoke. If any of your stops are actually in danger from fire the tour will be altered, but if there's some smoke in the air from distant fires a mask can make all the difference between being able to wander about comfortably or constantly having an irritated nose and throat unless you stay in your hotel room or coach. There's one very small upside - if the coastal air is smokey the sunsets can be absolutely magnificent!

The only changes have been how CATSA operate security - recently there are new protocols with less faffing around removing items from bags for Trusted Travelers, but the basics (TSA Pre worthless, but Global Entry and NEXUS are equally valid for flights to the USA) still work the same. When your renewal comes up for Pre @obecalp look into acquiring NEXUS (if you can conveniently reach the Canadian border or fly through frequently, so that you can be interviewed by CBSA, this gives you the largest set of benefits for the lowest price) or Global Entry (some credit cards will pay for the application and renewal of GE) instead of Pre.

Since Southbound procedures haven't been talked about in this thread yet, note that you will be Precleared by US CBP on-site at the station, so Amtrak's normal 'come an hour early if you want to check bags' becomes 'be at least an hour early because if you cut it too fine CBP may not let you board!' Seats are also allocated at this time - so if you want to be on the good side (right) you also need to beat at least half the other pax, so I'd be aiming for ~90mins pre-departure (~5am) if you want to be certain of getting on your preferred side. You do still stop at the border - CBP don't even trust their own staff! - and a few agents board and walk the train; most often this is just a 'hold up your passport next to your head and they walk right past' thing for US/Canadian citizens, with a random extra question or two directed to folks from elsewhere, but there might be a dog onboard and I always see dogs walking the outside of the train. Usually it's a 10 mins or less stop.

Yes, a safe part of town! Like basically every part of Vancouver, even the scary-LOOKING parts! This is actually where we stayed as tourists 20 years back, when the blocks immediately around it were a lot skeevier than they are now. It's not just reliably the cheapest good hotel, it's freshly renovated this year with a new tower extension only a couple of years old so it's bigger and shinier than ever. Check reviews on the likes of Expedia, where you can only leave a review after a completed stay, and it tracks just as highly as it does on the likes of TripAdvisor - it's one the best-reviewed hotels in the city at any price-point, and very possibly the safest too (as well as profits primarily funding the local Ys women-aiding programs, the hotel is used as immediate shelter for women and kids fleeing abusive homes - so security, especially overnight, is taken seriously. Thanks for the heads-up G!

Pat's is now owned by the province, having been bought a couple of years ago to ultimately become low-cost (but theoretically clean and safe!) housing - ironically this was probably the least bad of its ilk, as the prior owners had tried to turn it into a 'real' hotel rather than an SRO and the pub on the ground floor was actually pretty popular (in theory Hastings Mill Brewing is even still in existence and looking for new premises!), but there's only so much a surface reno can do to bones that have been abused for decades... I recall it being briefly used for housing some quarantining folks during the Pandemic who were NOT happy with the accommodations!

You're just spoiled down in WA, where every pancake place and it's granny has babies on the menu... what a horrific sentence out of context!!!! 😉 De Dutch claims to be authentic - and Babies are like the Germans of Pennsylvania, a corruption of Deutch rather than actually-Dutch. More scandalous given they're in Canada is no maple syrup - just Stroop, a caramelized sugar syrup (I'm also not a fan of their version, it's too burnt compared to anything I ever had in the Netherlands - they claim it's deliberately dark, but then so do Starbucks to excuse their over-roasting of everything except the Timmies-clone Blonde Roast!) When I have visitors we usually end up in De Dutch at least once, but I always go savoury so the stroop's avoidable!

Totally missed this first time around, sorry! Yes - longer tours like the one just mentioned above still exist, and if you want to be at YVR around 5pm you have a couple of options @pmjnh - LandSea's combo of city, Cap, and the Lookout is pretty much bang on for timing (10am pickup, 4:30pm finish back at the pier, extra ~30mins drive out to YVR = arrival there 5pm or a little after) and probably costs a lot less (NB: it's priced in CAD!) than any equivalent booked through your line, who all tend to gouge heftily on the pricing in Vancouver by at the very least charging the same number but in USD... Their longer tour of the mountains unfortunately starts an hour later - 11am to 6pm, then 30mins more to YVR, so depending on your flight time it might be too close. Westcoast offer more tours, though none are specifically post-cruise the pickup options include literally right outside the pier so they may as well be! If all you want to do is the cable car/suspension bridge mentioned above, there is a dedicated shuttle service to Squamish that will drop you off right at the base of the gondola. Personally though, unless you really want to do Sky Pilot, Grouse, Whistler etc. even with a super late flight like @Lance1224 has I'd still recommend a self-organized day in the city. Store luggage at the Pan Pacific hotel bell desk, or prebook in one of the many shops and restos and hotels who have partnered with the various online storage services like luggagehero, usebounce, bagsort etc. (simply Google "luggage storage Vancouver BC" and you'll find all of these and more - all offer a guarantee, prices vary from about $7-10 per bag, and all have both longer lours and lower prices than the craptastic official pier storage which is $12 and makes you come back by 4:30pm!!!!). Never been to Vancouver before? Best value tour by far is the HOHO - even with being back to a single provider, with fewer stops than in TheBeforeTimes, you still get more stops by far than with any fixed route city tour bus for less money, and being able to get off and do stuff then re-board can be looked at as a bonus. Pootle around, have a nice lunch, do the things that interest YOU most for as long as YOU want rather than what conveniently gets lumped together by tour companies who frankly factor traffic routing more than enjoyment when deciding where to stop, how long, and what just gets a drive-by! Transit is also cheap, safe, and reliable - and for everything except buses also reliably fast! A decent book like the most up-to-date Rough Guide and a Day Pass on transit would be about the best ~$20pp (assuming most are couples or families who would share a single book) money can buy! There are also various online apps and services, even a 'live' guide who will talk you through what you're seeing remotely, for varying costs from about $5 up - and even without free roaming data, the city provides a free WiFi network (#VanWiFi) as do Translink on their vehicles, so it's really easy to both use live maps to find your way around and messaging to split your group and meet up again for lunch, to head out to the airport etc. Been before? Or want to burn some calories after umpteen days of cruise dining? Take a walking tour - there's a perfectly decent free option that covers a fair chunk of downtown through Toonie Tours, various paid tours on foot or bike from them and others, and if you have a decent budget perhaps even a private custom tour by foot/bike/vehicle? Toursbylocals started right here in Vancouver, many guides are signed up. There's even a free custom walking option, Stroll Buddy (full disclosure, I'm a Buddy, though as I don't get paid it doesn't feel like much of a conflict of interest!) NB: folks with a flight after 10pm will not preclear here but instead will be stuck doing it old-school with immigration and customs processing at your first US port of arrival - so hopefully it's a direct flight homeward for you so you can try to catch some shuteye, rather than a rude awakening after a short hop over the border then hours standing around in a typical US understaffed airport hoping not to miss your connection! However bad you feel Vancouver does queues for CBP, it's a dream here compared to even most large US int'l airports in the wee small hours... 😉 Folks in this situation are well advised to eat lunch and dinner downtown - firstly it's cheaper out to the airport after 6:30pm on weekdays (weekends and holidays everything is just 1 zone all day) and secondly despite YVR touting fair pricing at their new food outlets, that's a marketing ploy as even restos with downtown and YVR branches don't have to have the same menu so they can add higher markups if they wish... YVR remains pricier to eat and drink than downtown, with far fewer options. Without preclearance, you can roll in barely an hour before your flight (most airlines demand at least 60mins early to check bags) and easily be through Check-in, Security and at the gate in ~30mins - late evenings are SO much quieter than the morning peak hours folks heading straight from the pier face!

The Maddy! Is it still terrible? Oh lordy, when I first moved to Toronto 20-some years ago a buddy and I regularly went boozing there on Fridays just for the people-watching - short measures, mediocre food, worst waitrons in the city, constantly scamming with extra drinks added to the tab we didn't order but unlike the average drunken student we were experienced boozehounds and able to count how many rounds we'd actually consumed. One particularly memorable evening I had to point out to the manager that a) the fact I was sober enough to argue about it after apparently having drunk 24 pints clearly meant I had not drunk that many; b) this was so far beyond the safe serving threshold that the bar would get its license pulled and the server possibly face charges if I reported it (I was recently qualified under Smart Serve, so the horror stories of personal criminal responsibility were fresh in my mind) - we had our entire bill halved!

Well, for the ultimate savings you could make use of the Ys kitchens and make your own brekkie from grocery store bought stuff? I recall whipping up simple egg dishes at the Y myself on our first visit, a few rounds of toast with an omelette or cheesy scramble and we were set for the days wander! There was a decent selection of pans, plates etc. Both Vegemite and Marmite are stocked by several chains of supermarket & drug store BTW 😉 Dinner-wise, Happy Hour in general is where the bargains are if you can manage to eat on the earlier side (rare to go beyond last orders at 6pm); Chinatown is probably still your best value dining around downtown: Chinatown BBQ deliberately charges low prices to maintain affordability for the local senior population, and with a group you can take advantage of the large platters to share; New Town Bakery isn't just the famous apple and egg tarts, they have a sitdown resto through the back with pretty modest prices (though they close early, 7ish IIRC?); Phnom Penh (no website content - they don't need one! Yelp has up-to-date pics of the menu though...) has generous portions, with 6 people you might get your own table, everything shares well, and at almost fifty years in the biz to still have queues nightly is all you need to know about their quality and value! Not just because you're Aussies who might be missing a parm, but also because the pricing is very decent for downtown - Moose's Down Under is the local Aussie watering hole, and while they do expect tipping the baseline pricing is about as good as it gets for pub grub in the core... with a decent 30% off across the board for appies before 7pm every day also one of the most generous Happy Hour policies. You could also get a couple of big pizzas delivered, or for even cheaper buy premade fresh pizzas at grocery store and cook them in the kichens, then eat them up on the rooftop patio at the Y? For something a bit fancier than Pizza Hut and their ilk, but not as annoyingly hipster as needing certification from Italy, I find Straight Outta Brooklyn a good fit - you can pre-order for a specific time, pick up at the Robson branch and walk them back to the Y in five minutes, and while at ~$20ish for a pie they're not cheap they are much better value than most of the artisanal places with good, robust flavours (my wife looooves their white pie, I prefer the classic pepperoni but find there's actually too much meat!?, so I peel off about a third of the slices, she puts them on hers, we swap a slice, we're both very happy bunnies).

Any chance you mean the Novotel at North York Centre? That's usually where my wife stays when she has to go back to HQ in North York and it's a definite drop in price compared to downtown hotels but has retained a decent standard over 20 years, she's never had any complaints. Although last time we were both back in T.O. for a social event, we stayed in the Interconty Yorkville (I think they renamed it Royal Sonesta recently) which is also very close to the subway but definitely ran pricey and swank - if it's this one then refuse any room overlooking the internal courtyard on a weekend, as it stays loud until late during weddings and other events with bands or DJs and the soundproofing on those internal room windows is not as good as the external ones! The other relative-bargain hotel I'm familiar with from putting up visitors to my own old employer downtown is the HI Express on Jarvis - looks like reviews remain solid, and it's enough east of Yonge Street to be a little off the radar for most tourists while also being pretty convenient for the pier (very close to St Lawrence Market and and easy walk to the Distillery District, both popular spots to visit). Concur that there's a ton to do and see in Toronto - while the densest concentration of sites is in or close to downtown, depending on your tastes you might find other neighbourhoods better if you have time for local sightseeing. Zoo for example is top-notch but way out to the east of the city, Casa Loma a pretty unique 'castle' with a great story behind it lurks in an otherwise residential area well north of the core, but a Bloor West hotel would be ideal for here, the ROM or Gardiner museums. Best advice if you do have some pre-cruise time to sightsee is to use transit to get around, especially subways (no traffic!) Airport hotels are all sub-par if you want to sightsee but would be fine if it's a late arrival, bed, straight to the pier next day situation - even with UP it's still much pricier to get into town and back than on regular transit network, and riding the express bus to connect to the subway is a real time suck though cheap, so overall it's better to pay a bit more for a convenient location IMO even if you're watching your budget pretty closely - you can always earn some more money, but you can never regain lost time!

Is it a Saturday, during firework season? Despite the lights, I feel that without daylight the quality of the experience drops notably (but then I'm a botanist - I want to be able to read labels, not just say "Aww, lookitdaprettyflowahs!") but the firework show is well executed and seriously ramps up the value of an evening visit! Further complication is no fireworks at the moment due to the emergency measures for the many wildfires - good chance that next week, maybe two, will likewise be cancelled... but if you're later in the season we are all hoping for some rain in September!

The train does sometimes vary in length @gregma60, but that's more seasonal than situational - there are limited numbers of the Talgo sets, they can't mix & match with regular Amtrak rolling stock and don't have many if any spare Talgos (when they have their annual service, the train becomes a regular Amtrak setup with the Highliner carriages for a while, IIRC late Fall/early Winter). I will say though that at least a few folks ride it to Bellingham and other stations further south without crossing the border, and I've yet to hear of Amtrak ever over-selling, so there will be seats if you booked. If you are separated, just ask each of the pax already sitting in the other of your pair of seats to swap so you and the missus can ride together - regular economy are 2:2 rather than 1:2 in business, there aren't single seats for us plebs! - and if either is Canadian you're near guaranteed success 😉

Sunday, Medina queue is insane without those resos (which do go to charity BTW, in case that makes a difference...?) Chambar is where Medina began - utilizing the empty kitchen in the then-dinner-only resto - but the success of Medina led not only to them moving to their own space, but also Chambar adding their own weekend brunch service with a somewhat similar menu... smaller, but frankly it spanks Jam Cafe (on the same street, and the absolute pinnacle of Not Worth It brunch queues) six ways to Sunday. Head straight up Beatty, look for the Skytrain station, the big steps behind it, and the (in nice weather) delightful outdoor beer garden space is Chambars - their interior is also large, so these days staffing is definitely the limiting factor in terms of any wait time rather than lack of available tables. Also not far, and while it's best for Happy Hour IMO compared to brekky, is Homer St Cafe - their house specialty has always been rotisserie chicken but personally I've found that their house-cured pork belly is the real big hit, we've been dining here since they opened, had pork belly every meal, and it has always delivered... while I'd personally rather pay the charity fee for Medina, I've had a brekky or two here and can recommend both the sammiches and the biscuits'n'gravy. Really my only beef is that they cost as much as Medina but aren't quite as good... One relative bargain spot, but with the caveat that I know there's been a change in both management and staff since I last dined, is Uva - the wine bar under the Moda Hotel. Back in the day this was a fantastic spot - home-made black pudding even! - but always under the radar. These days the menu is much more compact, but a decent size sit-down fried brekky for under $20 incl tax is virtually unheard of in a Vancouver resto! The other real bargain I can suggest if nobody is fussy about table service is A&W - they're not just the least-bad fast food resto chain in general, they offer almost a Full English for barely over $10 a head. The only thing really missing from the Full Canadian is black pud - you get hash browns, streaky bacon, snags, eggs (cracked & fried to order, not patties!), beans, tomato & toast, and no social obligation to tip as it's counter service! Closest one is on Robson, just west of Homer, very short walk. Not sure how readily you can find black pudding in Oz, or if that's a thing you'd all enjoy, but if so the Irish Heather in Chinatown is a bargain at $17 for both black AND white pud as well as bacon, snag, eggs, toast, mushrooms and beans (and if you were going to do any sightseeing around Chinatown in the morning it's convenient, do stuff, eat brunch, then head to the pier). Or maybe do 'Chinese brunch' - dim sum! A few options, with Victoria on Melville and Kirin on Alberni both being pretty close to the pier. Last possibility I'll mention is super convenient for the pier - De Dutch Pancake House, at the other hald of the Convention Centre. Great portion size for the price, the only reason I don't go to my local one more often is the lack of a 'dutch baby' style pancake on the menu (to be fair, German rather than Dutch origin but super-common across the whole PNW).

By 2026 the new extension should be operating - but that will still be far short of reaching UBC, who seem weirdly resistant to allowing access to their land despite demand from the students! Yes, weekends are quieter so both transit and cars should be a bit quicker moving.

It's not where I'd choose to be for either convenience to the pier or most sightseeing, though it does have the obvious benefit of being close to several on-campus attractions! The Japanese, Rose, and Botanic gardens are all top-notch; and while the jewel in UBCs museum crown (MOA) is closed for extensive renovations the Beaty Biodiversity and Pacific Museum of Earth are both worth a visit if you're into bones & stones. You're actually more like a half hours drive to the pier as there are no routes from UBC that do not clog up with traffic pretty much any time during the day. Food out there is a mix of mostly-local chains, but every now and again something unique opens there - literally just in the last few days the first Sports Illustrated Resto opened for example, although personally that's my idea of hell! UBC isn't a notorious 'party school' but everything about SI just screams frat-boy ****-baggery - so my view is that it might actually improve the vibe at all the other campus eateries if it pulls that particular demographic in! I'd be inclined to leave campus for any serious eating - there's some decent Greek and Japanese food particularly as you pass through West Point Grey into Kitsilano - but there's more on campus than you might suspect because many of the better options are hidden inside the various food courts! It's very rare I eat on campus, but every now and again there's an event at Thunderbird Arena I attend and the good parking choices fill up early so I might have an early dinner pre-game. Biercraft is by far the best place for a beer on campus, unsurprisingly, but their food's not bad; however for a cheap & tasty meal almost next door is Wesbrook Village food court which has a branch of Chef Hung Beef Noodles. Nobody disagrees that the best Chef Hung is the original in the Aberdeen Centre, but UBC entices enough foreign students from Asia who pay a fortune compared to locals to attend that Asian food in general there is decent, so this is probably the second most consistently good branch. If you've visited Vancouver before and done the main sites for tourists, UBC could be a pleasant change of pace from downtown hotels - there's just a massive expanse of green space around, ocean views, etc. that mean if you don't need to go anywhere else it's great... but if you're planning to do things downtown, or especially the North Shore attractions (Grouse, Capilano, Lynn) your commute time back & forth will add significant time and hassle to your day - airport hotels are a much better bargain on that front thanks to SkyTrain, which at least avoids traffic so has a very consistent travel time. Until the UBC SkyTrain extension eventually opens the rather limited roadways are just as bad a bottleneck as the bridges to the north shore are for regular workie commuter types - even 'Summer School' season is pretty busy at UBC, although you might find it a little easier to find seats on buses.

In Vancouver proper there are departures from Granville Island with Prince of Whales and Wild Whales (the latter have always operated from here and have the most generously vague timing for trips - so if you want the single best chance of a sighting without needing to make a repeat trip, and don't mind spending up to 7 hours on the water compared to the more typical 3 hours these are the guys to go with). Further south in the 'burbs, Steveston makes for a nice day trip if you include a whale-watch - folks less comfortable on small boats might prefer going from here because it means less water travel to get to the places where whales are most commonly seen in this area, and the providers are mostly based here because it saves them fuel (they run shuttle buses from downtown hotels, at an extra cost, but for a solo traveler not a terribly high one). You can ride with Vancouver Whale Watch or Seabreeze from here - and if you take transit or drive you can also spend the rest of the day visiting the fascinating Gulf of Georgia Cannery museum, take in the filmed extremely often Ye Olde village (Once Upon A Time is probably the best-known show from this location), and generally enjoying a nice little seaside spot.

Further to Anita's reply - if Allen Marine are still running tours (the big catamarans sold through the cruiselines), there are whales to be seen as they offer a $100 bill to everyone on a tour which fails to see a whale... and have yet to pay out a penny in compensation! So if your cruiseline is selling tours, there will be whales close enough to Juneau to be seen. NB: the minimum sighting is 'backs and blows' with all providers regardless of what form their guarantee takes, everything else is a bonus. Whales also aren't very democratic... some of them will head southward well before you arrive, others hang out longer. If memory serves you have lots of time around Vancouver - a whalewatch here has a better chance of seeing some whales which already left Alaska (Grays especially are coast-huggers all the way down) as well as those who decided to hang around here eating all summer, plus of course our resident Orca pods, and all for less money due to pricing in CAD... official peak season here is until October, during which local companies offer sighting guarantees (but in the form of 'come back for free until you do see a whale' rather than refunds; if you have enough time to take a repeat trip, a better deal than $100 off!)

Seating is only relevant for early arrivers - the initial check-in happens in a big hall on the convention centre level, so if you arrive before CBP start allowing pax to move through Security and their area you should be able to sit with your assigned group until it gets called to start the long, winding stop'n'go walk. If you finish all the required steps before the ship is ready there are also seats near the gangplank for just your ships pax to wait for boarding. If you have Status, usually some kind of snacks - for Joe Q NoStatus maybe just water. If you don't want to arrange a wheelchair assist, or rent your own scooter etc. for the trip, then I will suggest that the only sensible thing to do for you is to board as late as possible - do check carefully the Sailaway time, ensure you arrive two hours before that (CBP need a completed manifest before releasing the ship - show up too late and you may be denied boarding because the paperwork has been finalized!), and you should find no queues for anything at all. Doesn't cut down the walking distance - could be easily a quarter mile back & forth across multiple levels - but radically reduces the time. We have consistently managed 'curb to cabin' of 20mins - whereas folks who come early enough (9:30am?) to be literally the first people to walk out of the holding room through Security and CBP will be just as quick through each queue they also have at least an hour, possibly as much as two, of sitting around waiting on top of the quick walk!

Over 6,000 pax so that's a BIG two ship day thanks to Royal... given that many three-ship days include two vessels in the ~2500 pax range plus a wee small luxury ship with ~700 or less, I'd be playing safe and treating it as a three-shipper in terms of passenger numbers. Only after CBP do the passengers separate, so it's really just the total number of pax that is relevant until the very last stage (which is only relevant for early-embarkers - if you are sensible and show up late, you will walk straight onboard rather than hang around near your ship!) Be either very, very early (11am is probably too late) or else be very, very late - for only the cost of missing a 'free' sit-down lunch onboard, by boarding late you have a much more pleasant day (more time to see Vancouver, less time spent in queues) provided you don't do something silly like take a trip to the North Shore - as long as you can walk to the pier from wherever you spend your time mid-afternoon, you remove all risks of traffic problems and especially bridge-crossings. The important time to be aware of is All Aboard - deduct two hours from scheduled sailaway for this, the hard cap you should aim to arrive before so that CBP allow you to board. Also be aware that if you are sailing Royal rather than Koningsdam, you may end up with a very weird sailaway time issued not long before your trip - Princess are apparently incapable of referring to tide timetables in advance, so even though they are officially published over a year in advance in books (even longer online) they insist on claiming a typical 4:30-5:30pm departure is the plan then blame (God? Poseidon? Aquaman? Take your pick!) when it turns out that they can only get under Lion's Gate bridge at 3am or whenever... CBP don't like working O/T though, so even if you won't leave port until the wee small hours All Aboard Time will probably remain no later than 5pm. At this point in time, the only real planning that makes sense is to arrange NEXUS or Global Entry if you are entitled to apply and have not yet acquired one of them - you may actually have time to get a card even as a first-timer! While not guaranteed to be available, there's a good chance there will be an expedited lane through the biggest bottleneck (CBP) at Canada Place and definitely at YVR if you are flying in from anywhere outside Canada. NEXUS is the single best value spend in travel if you are able to get to the interview locations - $10 a year for all benefits of TSA Pre, the extra GE stuff, and also extra Canada-specific benefits by land and air (and sometimes sea depending on the port).

YWCA Hotel is almost always the cheapest good hotel in the entire metro area. If your cruise is next year, good chance of rooms being available - this year, very likely sold out as they often do. Don't mind schlepping your bags upstairs (no elevator), AC etc. and there are a couple of options - the Buchan in the West End downtown is about as cheap as it gets while being in a decent area, clean, safe etc. Some seriously dodgy SRO 'hotels' try to part tourists from their money by selling through Expedia etc. - there is not a single hotel on Hastings Street EAST (West Hastings does have several) in Vancouver that's worth considering for a tourist, no matter how cheap you will regret such a booking! Given the ever-smaller number of hotel rooms and demand being back up the deals on hidden hotels via Priceline and similar bidding concepts may not be as good as they used to be - but given how compact our downtown core is you can 100% guarantee that the 'secret' hotel will be in a great location if you restrict bids to the core and 4* or better. There are some 3* and 3.5* hotels which are perfectly nice, but in our entertainment zone (i.e. drunken buffoonery happens every night in the wee small hours, especially weekends) along Granville St - if you're hard of hearing or comfortable sleeping in earplugs expand your search to 3* and up and you'll be fine, the party zone isn't dangerous just annoyingly loud!

Don't do just 7 days would be my advice, unless you plan a one-way cruise and then time on land in AK. This year Princess have been running a lot of 10/11 day RT Vancouver trips, and early in the season (as well as late) many lines do some unique itineraries with an extra couple of days and ports while moving ships into Seattle for the summer. The more ports the better! You're already in the right timeframe if you ask me - May is always nice for RTs, no kids off school, driest weather, nice long evenings, quieter ports - although if you are considering a one-way going in June improves the chances of getting access all the way into Denali (though do check progress of road fixing - hopefully by summer 2024 all will be back to normal)

Personally the only reports I've heard about prebooking Uber/Lyft in Vancouver are just as negative as the cab firms - we are a city of flakes, which when combined with a 'work the hours you like' gig means nobody is getting up early except to go do yoga on mountaintops!!!! Will there be SOME rideshare folks awake and driving at 5am? Almost certainly - but how close to you, how much demand for nice long airport runs instead of short in-town jaunts etc. is hard to predict, and pre-booking is worthless until Uber etc. start actually running their own vehicles with robodrivers... they cannot guarantee any drivers at any given time, and for trips that early many will only work for Surge pricing! Since you're in a hotel, by far the most reliable thing is to leverage them - get them to arrange a cab at Xam, let them worry about how to do it. Cab firms locally are even more dependent on hotel concierges, company contracts for late-working staff etc. then ever now they have to compete with three legal rideshares... they will NOT screw over a hotel request, but they will absolutely throw a private booking under the bus if a driver is sick, car broken etc. such that they have fewer cabs available than requests in time window X. Auberge is also pretty swank, and same building as one of our uber-swank private member clubs - calls from here are NOT ignored by cab companies!!! Transit I don't recommend - SkyTrain doesn't run early enough, and Bus routes are sub-optimal with Nightbuses still running on limited routes that early too. All in all this is a real no-brainer - minimum risk is to use the hotel to arrange a cab if you want to be as certain as possible one will be waiting for you at ~5:15am. But just to put this in perspective, you could walk with your bags from the hotel to the station (downhill!) in a half-hour if you're in vaguely decent shape and able to roll your bags yourself - so if there's some epic disaster involving a strike by all rideshare, cab, and transit drivers simultaneously it would be annoying but feasible to just walk...

The train is a nice trip, and of all possible ways to cross the border the least annoying unless you have NEXUS (no special treatment northbound, stuck like everyone else until your carriage is released to meet CBSA at the station, but at least the worst-case is you are the last carriage on your train and it takes a half hour to get cleared, unlike at YVR when who knows how many other planes might be landing about the same time as yours!) The only issue is the inefficiency of combining two separately booked travel legs same day - between now and next year the flight schedule could change multiple times, and even if the flight you end up on still has ample padding to meet the evening train your time in Seattle is going to be extremely variable. If the train is on-time you will not be in your hotel until after 11pm - already very long travel day if you're heading to your home airport in the wee small hours - and the evening train is sometimes very late (we've arrived at 2am in the past, as soon as the train slips out of its scheduled 'pocket' between freight it leads to a cascading series of being held in stations for another freight train to pass you on multiple occasions). Personally, since you indicate you plan 2 nights pre-cruise, I'd book one night in a Seattle hotel and the morning train the day after - it's much more likely to be on time as it starts in Seattle rather than coming up from Oregon, and even if your flight ends up very late you won't miss the train. Seattle has plenty to enjoy in a day there, and you'll really only be giving up one morning in Vancouver due to the swap from evening to morning train with an ETA of before noon. If you sensibly board the ship as late as possible on embarkation day you can easily find an extra five hours to see more of Vancouver, more than you lose on the train ride (and you'll be able to see the views the whole way - even in late June with sunset ~9:30pm the evening train has at least an hour of darkness on the ride).