martincath

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).

I'm a bit late to the party here @CruisinMissMolly but I'll add a couple of tidbits and reinforce some of the already-mentioned opinions! First - yes, coming up the day before is wise. Border fluctuations this year have been wild - 2023 may in theory be 'normal' for travel, with numbers up of flyers and drivers, hotel bookings etc. etc. but there is a distinct lack of consistency. This year has been a mess - with NEXUS we have still sailed past the border queues, but unless ALL of you in the car have that you can't use those lanes so your border crossing time is really variable, and CBP/CBSA staffing still seems to be problematic as until the traveler patterns stabilize they can't staff up booths very accurately, so Really Long Waits/Almost No Wait seem to be happening much more often, with the former often down to the fact that half the booths are closed (i.e. border agencies did not expect this many cars at this time). Depending exactly where in Oregon you're coming from therefore how many hours on paper that drive is, how many potential drivers are in the car, whether you have friends/family who would be happy to e.g. drop you off/pick you up again in Portland, you may find that the train or a coach may end up cheaper than even long-term airport parking plus gas - you'll have to do the math on that yourself! But assuming that driving does remain your preferred option... Parking at Templeton is great value, but the SkyTrain inbound is not so much for a group - on a Friday you'd be looking at ~US$7pp inbound, compared to a per-cab price of ~$US29, as there's an extra CAD$5pp fee for all travelers leaving Sea Island where YVR lives. You can however ride for free all over Sea Island - there's a big mall as well as the airport and parking - so you can take SkyTrain to the airport (only one stop, so even if standing room only not much of a hassle) if you want to hop into the fixed price cabs. There's also the issue that this station isn't the end of the line, so getting a seat for everyone may not happen depending how many folks fill up the train at YVR station, and you'll have far less time to get organized as station stops are short. Unless the train is mostly empty, I'd suggest actually riding it backwards even if you want to take it all the way downtown - go to YVR station, where everyone onboard will get off and it will sit for a few minutes which gives you plenty time to secure seats together and slide your big suitcases underneath them. Waterfront is the other terminus, so again everyone piles off and you can take a bit more time getting organized. The other thing to consider is driving right to the pier to drop off all the bags and most of the people - no fee to enter just for a drop-off, in theory now only the driver needs to pay to get back to the pier from YVR parking so the cost drops, so it just comes down to the value of your time and hassle factor... even on the Canada Line, which does have plenty of room under seats for bags, it's easier to travel unencumbered! Ballpark a half hour drive into town, the same out again, for an hour round trip if you avoid rush hour commuter traffic - but only a single ~$7 train ticket for the driver compared to one for each party member. Whether you do this or not, when heading back out to the airport after the cruise everyone can pile onto the train - no AddFare going this direction so approx. $3pp! - and get off at Templeton if you're driving straight home after the cruise. For minimum possible hotel price, I'd compare Bellingham area hotels with suburban metro Vancouver (Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby) to see who's doing the best pricing - chances are you are too late to score room(s) in the YWCA Hotel downtown here, generally the best value option in the region especially if you arrive early enough to do some sightseeing. But you might get lucky, it's worth checking to see if they have availability - the family rooms (5 single beds) are unique downtown, and if you're adults+kids or even two couples traveling, a pair of 'Jack & Jill' rooms sharing one bathroom between them are cheaper than the full en suites but a bit pricier than the 'shared bathrooms along the corridor' rooms. It is a real hotel, not a hostel, and one of the shiniest (new wing only opened ~2 years, old wing renovated this very year) as well as cheapest, and unlike any other bargains you get full mod cons like AC and elevators! But with a car needing parked, the 'park & stay' specials at a handful of hotels mostly near the airport might be just what you want - local chain Accent Inns used to offer a 'park & cruise' package at both their airport and Burnaby locations, with included shuttle to the port and a week of parking in the rates, and they don't often show up on big booking sites. I'd actually go old-school and call them to ask about the available packages - a local 'milk run' shuttle runs about $18pp to take you from airport area hotels to the pier, but unless you're a solo a cab is going to be better value and more flexible in timing, and while you would need to use the hotel shuttle to get back to YVR if you want a fixed-price cab those only operate inbound, so from the pier all fares are metered and you may as well go directly to the hotel.

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.

Any time Karen!

Your guess is as good as mine - as I recall, at least one poster had her email address and attempted contact quite a while ago to no avail.

Swans is the closest brewpub to the pier - from there, Spinnakers is another ~15mins over the bridge, Hoynes a bit closer to Swans (shorter opening hours there though, as it is a brewery with tasting room rather than real pub) and you'll find various local brews especially from Phillips and Driftwood, two of the largest breweries on the Island, well-represented on the tap lists at most local bars. Walking map to the mentioned spots from the pier. Walking up Government, as almost everyone does if they leave the ship and head to the Inner Harbour area, you should easily spot Bard & Banker and Sticky Wicket - Garrick's Head is off to one side, less obvious to non-locals, so it's going to have a few less random tourists. All of these are 'cold and fizzy' pubs though, Swan's & Spinnakers are the only reliable spots for cask-conditioned hand-pulled ales.

Then my condolences, and apologies if I have stirred up any past trauma. I had no idea there had been any sort of commemorative unofficial visit, by my time the 'real' single star was in place - like I said, exact dates forty years back are easily mistaken, and I feel terrible that my query about the later Guide inspection dates has forced you to reveal this info. Had the US been part of the Guide in that era, everything I've seen and read about Chef Masa leads me to believe he would have very likely earned three stars for Le Plaisir as well as in his own eponymous kitchen; Julian Serrano who I understood took the reins soon after, and learned much from Masa, has certainly racked up his own share of stars since; the restaurant truly did have a string of absolutely top shelf talent at the helm throughout its life-span. I have at least a vague understanding of your experience, which makes my faux pas all the more galling - I've lost a couple of colleagues and friends to similarly violent and meaningless deaths, though at least the perpetrators were brought to justice which helped provide some closure. My hospice work had me at the deathbed of far too many people, but at least they were all expected. My wife's horrific experiences were actually what nudged me toward bereavement support work when I retired - she's been hugely unfortunate in not just similar losses to your own but also crushing survivor's guilt from a terror event; she still can't face talking about the lost friends and neighbours to this day. Strangely enough, she ended up the kitchen just after that, making dessert for the politicians who rolled in to be seen 'showing empathy' at the scene... since the dinner service at Masa legendarily continued the very same night you too must have been involved in serving customers within hours after. Hopefully going through the familiar motions was an emotional support for you at the time, I know she feels that having a familiar job to do let her keep it together in those early days afterward. Western society generally deems only close relations 'worthy' of bereavement leave, expecting everyone else involved to just soldier on with time off for a funeral service at best - it's just not taken at all seriously enough. All the losses which have impacted me the most have been in this vein, friends/colleagues/mentors taken unexpectedly young rather than even my closest relatives - those I have always been fortunate enough to say had the proverbial good innings, or at the very least were freed from the pain of a known condition so we could prepare in advance. The folks who came to group suffering from loss of less 'societaly-valued' relationships than parent/spouse/sibling/child were always hardest to help, literally expressing guilt at 'taking time away from the folks with real problems' all too often - the only good thing that ever came out of my own such losses was being able to share them, and give permission to grieve to these folks, as absolutely ludicrous as that sounds! All of Western society is pretty good about celebrating births, but even in the more stratified religious rituals like sitting shiva support around death is so focused on immediate relations that almost everyone else is just left to figure it out - I truly hope you managed to grieve in your own way at the time Bruce, and can look back with fondness now on the good times without feeling too much pain. Again, I'm sorry to have raised this - I can only plead ignorance, I simply never expected in the context of a cruising board restaurant discussion that bereavement would be something to factor in. Regardless of intentions I was an ass - I cannot blame you at all if you want to put me on your ban list over this, as ignorance is no excuse. Your standing in my eyes as an experienced source of insider knowledge remains unblemished in case that's any consolation - and I am as always glad to learn new information, about unofficial-but-Michelin-issued stars. It has been a very odd couple of days for me on these boards - triggering and being triggered about death while discussing trains and restaurants. You can't make this stuff up!🤷‍♂️

Not to step on @suefrankws toes since you asked them, but in case their visit was a prior year rather than early this one, here is the link to current pricing, and that page should remain relevant with an updated price for future years in case someone finds this thread in 2024 or later! For crew - great deal at $5! Everyone else - you could take a cab just by yourself to where the shuttle drop is, in bad traffic, for maybe $13 Canadian dollars. Typical Victoria evening stop, rather than rush hour, probably $10 on the meter. So for a solo - worthwhile as a return trip but very marginal one-way as US$8 may actually be as much as cab fare! For a couple? Cab takes you anywhere you want, not just the official stop, and you're quids in already with just two bums on seats. Without luggage to worry about, why not share a cab with some fellow pax you got to know onboard? Vic has a handful of 6-seater Vans, mostly 4-seater Prius like here, but even with lavish tips and 4 people you'd be looking at maybe US$5each total for a round-trip from pier to shuttle drop or nearby! Visa/MC accepted in all cabs, at interbank rates, even if your card is a 'bad' one with a Foreign Transaction Fee the odds of any negotiated price for US greenbacks to the cabbie are going to be much worse value, just use a card! Same at anywhere in Vic which offers to take USD, there are a few - unless they display the exchange rate and it proves no padding, never let them charge you in USD cash or credit 'for your convenience'; best rate I've ever seen on these conversions is 4% shift in their favour, worst CC FTF 2.5%.

Dang - saw your other post, answered there re: getting to/from Butchart independently, missed the tidbit here about CVS redirecting! That tells me they have definitely been either bought out or joined up... another casualty of the Covid tourism downturn!

@roupaAs my profile might give away, this route is not unknown to me... 😉 The only problem - and in the grand scheme of things it's actually more of a benefit really! - is that you cannot take the train the day you disembark unless you are on one of those rare 'overnight in port' cruises where immigration would be done day of arrival, so you could get off at oh-dark-hundred the next day without any CBSA issues. Only the morning train goes all the way - the evening stops in Seattle - but if you look at this as an opportunity to overnight in Vancouver (we are pretty awesome, even if not as wonderfully weird as Portland!) it's a great idea! For @primopj, with a Seattle stay to break it up same day evening train is easy (the station will even hold big bags for the day, IIRC $6, if you show a ticket) and then there are multiple daily PDX trains from SEA. It's possible to use Amtrak bus to connect to one of these later trains, but having to bus over the border ruins the two biggest benefits of the train - an easy Preclearance at the station before boarding rather than schlepping bags off at the border for inspection, and I5 running well inland for big chunks of the route to SEA while the Cascades hugs the coast more closely - and believe it or not, the much-crappier buses actually cost MORE than the train does, no Saver tix for them! With the longer run, lowest possible prices by train are higher than alternate bus options (Saver tix minimum price for VAC-PDX was $64 last time I checked; to SEA it's $34 so per mile traveled very comparable rate - but VAC-PDX buses on flixhound are better value than either shorter leg, we can always find <$40 fares, and the faster travel of the buses might be a factor for some too - though it doesn't sound like that matters much for either poster in this thread who are planning a hang rather than trying to get a cheap flight ASAP! Speaking of that - do take the MAX to your flight @primopj, it's dirt-cheap compared to cabubers and much faster when there's any traffic; one of the very few bad things about PDX are the traffic backups of far too many people driving cars there at peak hours. But the train is nice - we treat ourselves to the train every spring (well, full disclosure, not for 3 years as service return date was all over the place this year and there were no trains at all during the Covid times!) to avoid the Tulip Festival in Skagit valley! Other than that, we do drive almost every trip because despite the niceness of the train gas only costs me <$30 each way, with NEXUS lanes and quality planning we consistently manage a ~5h15min drive time door-to-door unless there's a major highway incident, and it's handy having a car for Costco runs and day trips! For a tourist though, without their own car? Train, hands-down, is my recco for getting to PDX unless time is at a premium (in which case, fly). I'm assuming your Portlandian rellies are going to drive you around @roupa, show you the place, wine you and dine you, I'll leave that to them (although I always like finding new good stuff, so if you could pop back with a list of where they plan take you that would be great!); but if they're actually out in the 'burbs and don't go downtown much, happy to also suggest some sites and dining (just ballpark your interests, any mobility or budget limitations etc., otherwise honestly the best advice I can give is trawling through tripadvisor to get ranked categories from a broad opinion base!)

If you overnight pre-cruise then the train (or any other mode of transport) becomes an even safer bet - the evening train also rarely leaves late (it's the northbound morning train, so unless that arrived in more than 8 hours compared to it's scheduled 4 hours there's ample time to clean it up for an on-time departure!) but even if delayed ridiculously southbound by every possible problem, that just means arriving very late to your hotel - you can always lie in until right before checkout time to ensure you get a full night's sleep before boarding! Many folks do find that King St is just a little sketchy, not many businesses nearby that would be open when the train arrives even if on time, but cabs will be lined up waiting to get you to your chosen pre-cruise hotel. Banff - if all you want is to look at the wonders of nature, a bit of snow might make it even better for you! Coaches are all equipped with proper winter tyres and/or chains - in rough conditions they might run late, and overall I'd feel safer in a big bus than even my own car at that time of year as I don't drive up there anywhere near enough to claim being familiar with the roads! The PP is a quality, 'full service' establishment with a proper bell desk that has multiple staff and ample storage - in peak cruise season lots and lots of bags get left for the day. By mid-October I would be shocked if they weren't able to easily accommodate you leaving a suitcase for a few days. I'd offer to keep your bag myself if it wasn't the week of Thanksgiving - we're out of town from 7-15th Oct to take advantage of the bonus holiday. But what I could offer is an escorted walk around town before I leave, if your arrival is early enough? Show you the practicalities of navigating downtown, using transit, any then-current 'tent cities'/other places that are more likely to trigger any fears, irrational or not. If 4/5/6 Oct is too early for your arrival, there are other local volunteers with our 'greeter' program, Stroll Buddy, who may be available instead - some of them know more than I do - and while your English seems excellent, some of the volunteers are also multilingual especially the Richmond-based folks among whom Cantonese and Mandarin are commonly known. The standard request form allows three date slots, but there's a comments field - you can use that to frame the dates available around your conference, cruise, Banff, flight home etc. and see who replies as available. I would almost certainly be free again daytimes Oct 16 onward, but I feel that these 'meet up with a local' tours work best when they happen early in a visit, so you get maximum use of the local knowledge passed along to you so if a peer can meet you earlier, take them up on it! In terms of safety it's about as good as it gets - criminal background checks to make sure we're more trustworthy than most paid tour-guides, personally I've even got full Vulnerable Sector clearance so I can work with anyone from special needs kids to dementia patients unsupervised and both the FBI and CSIS agree I'm 'unlikely to offend' - criminally offend that is, I've got some very offensive but hilarious jokes that can't be told on CC 😉 Oh, the needle thing is definitely one of those 'rooted in truth, but nowhere near the issue for regular folks as the stories make it out to be' scenarios. Used needles are rarely disposed of safely by addicts after use - I've seen more people unconscious with needles still in their arm than walking to the nearest sharps disposal box. But in the areas where anyone is likely to stumble across them in a manner that makes them at all likely to be jabbed - kids playgrounds where curious fingers might investigate this new thing, off-leash dog parks as mutts are very enticed by faint blood smells - we deploy patrols to sweep them daily. Even walking barefoot you'd have to be very unlucky - the inherent design of all syringe needles means if you drop them they lie tilted down with the point on the ground, as even the separate 'stabs' have a larger plastic or metal 'ring' at the blunt end for attachment to the liquid-holding body. I've been trained on safe handling of infectious people, sharps and fluids, and while I must admit that before it my own thought about a potential 'random needle' incident would be standing on one, it was immediately apparent that it's poking yourself while you are trying to use a needle on someone else when almost all of the incidents happen! I still wouldn't wander about downtown in bare feet - but because of poop-on-the-ground based infections, not needles. The fake turf on my local soccer pitch causes way more nasty infections than needle-sticks from the surrounding blocks according to the local hospital ER staff!

My first stop after getting off the plane in Blighty is almost always at the best-reviewed curryhouse in that city I can get to for dinner. It's truly hard to explain to folks from elsewhere that 'Curry' to a Brit and 'Indian food' are not actually synonymous... absolutely nothing wrong with the real cuisine of any of the subcontinental countries of course, but attempts to make a British dish like tikka masala over here always make my tastebuds sad as they're never quite right. In many ways they're undoubtedly better, but it's the different that trips my emotional childhood food memories!

Sorry, didn't even acknowledge your contribution yesterday in my fury... thanks for the tale, which should indeed remind everyone that no method is entirely foolproof! The fundamental benefit to a cruise transfer is that it keeps your line 'on the hook' if they fail to get you to the ship. For Vancouver departures that's potentially a really big deal if you're flying in same day - while with an RT you could fly on to the first stop and join the ship legally (as you would then sail from e.g. Ketchikan to Vancovuer, legal by both countries laws) if it's a one-way then you are hooped. Princess specifically have been verified to have flown folks onward - at their expense - and then eaten the PVSA violation fine (currently close to US$800) when they have failed to get pax to the Vancouver pier in time. But if you were doing it independently they would almost certainly not even let you board if you paid to get yourself up to Alaska, as PVSA violations are on the ship and Master, not you the passenger! They could pass along the fine, but it keeps things much tidier with CBP just to not have violations occur... The train is just so much nicer than any other transit method that if you are already starting in Seattle, rather than flying into SEA to catch a transfer, it becomes worth serious consideration not just because it's half the price of a cruise transfer, but it has a lot more padding in the event of problems - even delayed by 50%, extraordinarily unlikely on the morning train with no dependencies to other Amtrak services, you could easily be at the pier by 2:30pm. Glad you made it, and thanks again for the trip report - 'boots on the ground' viewpoint is always nice to have, even in these outlying cases. As is apparent from my pedantry about the very low risk use of SkyTrain for the last leg of the train journey, I'm a worst case scenario planner myself - trading off an independent 'better chance of success when things start going wrong' against 'more likely to fail, but even if it does there's a built-in backup' cruise transfer is tricky, the more data the better! Oh, and for folks unfamiliar with Vancouver, we don;t have any real highways in the city - it's all surface streets with highway numbering on the direct route connecting to each neighbouring municipality, so don't panic just because the bus is 'off the highway'... we even have a bit of 99 where you have to hang a 90 degree left and head west a few blocks, as the route after the airport starts on Oak St but then moves across the Granville St - but given this particular driver was going South at some point, yeah, that's definitely a bad driving issue rather than our unusual urban planning!

You're welcome. Do be careful with timing on the whalewatch - more so through the cruiselines it's a bit iffy, I've seen quite a few cases of a 'sunset whalewatch' of limited duration (2 hours rather than normal 3+) that doesn't leave the dock until basically sunset. Since you're there yourselves, booking directly, the length of the tour is much more likely to be 'standard' - and as long as it's leaving 5ish, you should be able to see for the whole tour even at the end of July. Butchart - I'm afraid that I have only driven there in my own car for years, we never do any 'cruise stop' Butcharting as we're always in the pub! First trip way back when though we took CVS, a local company - last time I checked they were not affiliated with Gray Line so you could check their schedule too (of course, to survive the pandemic they may have been bought over or chosen to join the 'GL family' so they may not be any more use). Kabu - a local BC rideshare - is more prevalent in Victoria than Uber, as they resisted the latter for far longer than Vancouver did, but given the name recognition chances are good that all the Kabu drivers will also have an Uber setup soon if not already... if in doubt, install all the apps, see which has a car conveniently available, book on that. Since you have lots of time, transit to and from the gardens is absolutely viable - in fact returning after the fireworks, walking out to the stop may be quicker than the nose-to-tail crawl of the cars leaving the carpark! The 75 runs late at night, goes directly to downtown Vic without transfers required, and your Day Pass from earlier still keeps working until end of service... even with three people, $15 is by far the cheapest possible way to get to and from the gardens! I would still recommend at least pricing up a car rental though (remember to check cost of parking overnight at your hotel!) - because the fireworks are back on Summer Saturdays, including all of July. Unless there's a firewatch on the woods nearby, or some freakish summer storm, your ticket on Saturday lets you watch the fireworks for no extra charge, and they are a pretty good show with synchronized music. There should be a bus that leaves right after them if you really don't want to drive - the schedule, with show timing, is here with the 'firework bus' back in the day leaving about an hour after the fireworks begin (~30min show, ~15min walk back out, a little padding for slow walkers) Note that they did crack down on readmissions - what we used to do was visit the gardens in the morning, go do other stuff, return after dinner, and I think every sensible local did the same as regardless how pretty the gardens might be in the dark with many fairy lights around, you absolutely cannot see the plants as well under artificial light. With sunset still after 8 though, if you do an early dinner downtown (go Happy Hour!) then head out at about 6pm you would have two-ish full hours of daylight, including 'golden hour' time, some more useable twilight for at least another 30+ minutes (while in the sunken garden the sun 'stops' earlier, the surface parts like Italian near the house still have some light), up to another couple of hours of re-walking the paths with the lights on, and then fireworks. Or, one useful thing you can do is pay a pittance for an extra day on your ticket! Price is confirmed on their website, but IIRC it was something like $3 to add a second day - so if you only go after dark Saturday, you could return Sunday morning and fill your boots! All-in-all, renting a car could be very handy for you even if you only used it for Butchart and getting back to the airport (renting it from YYJ as a round trip could be cheaper than from downtown one-way; the BCFC also tickets people to the ferry terminal, not just to downtown Vic, so cabbing directly from there to airport to collect your rental works well as they are close together - but with parking fees for 2 overnights, I would guess that instead a 24hr rental from say noon Saturday to noon Sunday and an airport return would be your overall best bet). Given the distance to Butchart and the airport, three cab rides would run you about US$120-150 depending on traffic (firework night the queue to get out is MAD - as every single person leaves at the same time, and the meter will just keep ticking over!) or even more if you're generous tippers. That buys a fair whack of car rental! Even with just a 24hr rental you could use it Sat evening for fireworks, Sun morning for return to gardens, then drive yourselves to YYJ from there... from Butchart you are half the distance to YYJ compared with downtown, so even though the direct route uses smaller roads you can leave from there a bit later, drive is ~20mins instead of 30+. So there you go - if all the shuttle buses now operate on a 'just 3 hours at Butchart' you can take a bit longer to get there (an hour vs. 30ish mins) but for dirt-cheap, rent a car that you can also leverage for airport transport next day (price very variable, but worth checking), or do the cabuberkabu thing. For this last, I would try calling a cab firm old-school to chat, and ask them - there's definite demand from Butchart after fireworks, but is it enough compared to the pub crowd downtown for cabbies to 'deadhead' empty all the way out there first...? I don't know the local patterns well enough to say I'm afraid, so I'd be booking a cab in advance for an hour after firework start time. At least you don't have a ship sailing without you soon afterward - worst case you have to hang around at Butchart for ages waiting for a car, or take the 75 bus, or heck, this is Canada... when they shut down for the night and the staff go home, somebody might even offer you a ride into town!

Bruce is right, that the West Coast Board is more active - more eyes on, better odds of getting the answer - and also right, albeit very succinctly(!) that there's no such service here! CBP Preclearance renders such a service impossible - you and your bags must be at the drop belt so that bag images captured can be linked to you, and then if CBP have extra questions about all the reindeer sausages, walrus tusks, polar bear teeth, and melted glacier chunks you're smuggling home they can pull the bag up onscreen and ask "Is this your bag sir or madam?" before diverting it for hand-searching or whatever 😉

On any Royal class ship, whether RT or one-way, you skip all the BC Inside Passage so both routes will see a little of the Salish Sea coming out west of Vancouver Island for the first few hours, then have nothing but ocean for a day and a bit until first port. Returning on the RT, same thing, no views for over a day until Victoria, then literally sailing in circles until time to dock (cheaper to run an engine slowly, which maintains hotel functions too, than to pay for docking hookups!) while with the one-way, you have a similar day-and-change of bouncy open water across the gulf of Alaska - but then you will see the approach into Whittier. So this particular one-way, compared to this RT, really are much more similar than different... whether the approach to Whittier is better than an evening in Victoria is hard to say - there are some topnotch pubs in Vic, so if your teen is 19 they might really enjoy an evening of responsible, legal boozing with you 😉 If you have time at the end to extend your vaycay in Alaska, then the one-way becomes enticing; ditto at the start, Vancouver is better than Seattle (I may be biased though...!) but if all you're doing is fly in, board ship, sail, off ship, fly home - I don't think the hassle is worthwhile at all of worse flight options, probably more expensive to open jaw YVR & ANC too even if you can score nonstops both legs. I'll apologise in advance if recommending a different ship and date is over-stepping, you did only ask for a comparison if these two, but I do have some genuine concerns that you are limiting yourselves too much and missing out on a possibly-better vacay! If you definitely want a Royal class ship, within these data parameters, just skip the rest of this as it'll be no use to you!!! Personally, the advice I'd give is to check out the other main 'rule of thumb' for Alaska - that Alaska is somewhere you cruise for the place, not the ship! Consider other Princess departures on smaller vessels, which might give you hours more extra scenic daytime sailing in some of the most scenic BC waters, and have better proportionate deck space for when your balcony isn't pointing the right way for the glacier/breaching whales/whatever other cool thing might be seen on the other side of the ship. Royal class have lots of bells and whistles, but they are also fundamentally flawed for this region - no promenade, open decks up top have a lot of perspex barriers that makes good photos harder, and most importantly they lack adequate rudder area to make tight turns in high winds or currents, which is why they are banned from BC Inside Passage pilotage waters as none of our pilots are willing to steer them through it! With what sounds like at least July 28 to Aug 13th available, I am sure you can find a big enough cabin to fit you all on another ship, and there are many departures in-between these two - especially since doing South instead of Northbound one-way adds Whittier to the mix. There's even another Princess option, in case you've built Status and want your perks: Sapphire Princess sails SB Aug 2nd to 9th for example - perhaps flight times going TO Anchorage might be a bit less bad, getting the annoying travel out of the way first then the easier flight home from Vancouver at the end? Southbound, with BC Inside Passage on the table, you could also see some outstanding scenery before bed on your last day even if the southernmost portion will be sailed while you sleep. If dates can be flexed forward or back a few days, there are 10/11 day RT cruises from Vancouver all summer on Crown Princess, with a superb itinerary of way more ports and virtually no 'dead days' - you're either in a port or there's something to look at outside! With July 25th to August 4th, or Aug 4th-15th sail times, the dates do fall a bit outside your listed range unfortunately... Based in Seattle unfortunately Princess seem to have nothing but Royals - cheaper to operate than the smaller ships, so the way all lines are going - but if you are willing to consider other lines too, there are an average of ~2 ships per day each from Seattle and Vancouver, most of them mainstream HAL/NCL/RCI/Carnival/Celebrity, so there's probably something price-equivalent?

Ding! And @SandAndSea6 - it may be a really short stop, with most attractions closed, but at least you likely will get a little bit of daylight, even last day of Aug sunset is just as you arrive, with 30+mins twilight and moonrise soon after. You might manage to get a few 'golden hour' shots as you sail in and even ashore if you hustle off quickly! Maybe some poutine for an evening snack??? (Warning, I did not check ALL the restos on the list are still in the poutine biz - but there's links there you can confirm yourself!)

Even if this gets me a ban for insulting someone personally, your incredibly insensitive commentary on this tragic Amtrak incident is the end of the line for me. Read what you wrote and give just a shred of thought to how it might impact anyone involved. That first sentence is from beginning to end is an absolutely inhuman statement to make. Many people riding were not pleased - of course they bl00dy weren't, who the heck would be pleased to die or be injured on a train ride? So who WAS pleased then, what proportion of the whole does many not include? Seriously, for a while now I've suspected 'you' were actually an experimental chatbot - but none of the articles I've read produced by them would have spat out such a fundamental failure of empathy so I'm forced to conclude that you are actually a real person - just a really, really unpleasant one! You didn't even just post a crappy choice of article - there are many and varied, far more sympathetically written then this 'he said they said' discussion of law suits and firings. You didn't even just frame awkwardly, as I know many autistic friends and family members might have. You cracked a joke... Many people pleased indeed - you should be utterly ashamed of yourself! Honestly, bottom of the barrel doesn't even come close - I'd simply have reported the post but frankly the more people who read it and realise what a thoroughly unpleasant excuse for a person you are, the more likely that you'll be banned by enough posters to fade to irrelevance, and good riddance when you do. Congrats - you're the only person who's a big enough assh*le to make my ban list!!!!

Since you're good with cabbing as needed, I'll throw out a few more scattered locations, and since you obviously enjoy Greek food, I'll do an unusually deep dive - before moving to Canada we visited Greece at least once a year, I learned enough of the lingo to apparently pass as Athenian (provided I stuck to food-related topics), and even gave tours of Greektown in Toronto to tourists - there is nowhere near the sheer breadth of Greekness on the left coast, but we do have several Greek options around town. From a UK perspective they vary from 'gouge-y tourist resto on the beach with gritty bread you have to pay for' to 'regular resto like local Greeks might visit' to "Mama; Papa; I'm sorry, and I know Yiayia's moussaka is the best... but I want to cook things differently, not the same every time! I'm opening my own place, with... cocktails that are not just smutty puns to entertain football-strip wearing tourists!!! <cue shocked faces of parents>" The Greek (by Anatoli) would be the downtown version(s) of the last of these BTW - there are two other branches now, but I prefer to patronize the original Yaletown one... their rabbit dishes were soooo good, I just wish more people than me would ask them to bring it back! Nobody wants to eat fluffy bunnies these days, we have more rabbit rescue organizations than restos with it on the menu regularly which is utterly irrational!!! There's also a very Canadian genre of Greek, equivalent to Chinese-Canadian restos which combine a whole mess of 'what the local folks want to eat' into a single very broad menu - and 'Greek Pizza' is totally a Vancouver thing. Martini's was probably the ultimate exemplar of this Ethnic-meets-Other-Ethnic-meets-Steakhouse concept, more famous for their pizzas and lasagne than their Greek food, a multi-generational family run joint for over 50 years with a customer demographic that was all over the map - but they closed just before Christmas 😞 Minervas, which just happens to be the best place to spot Ryan Reynolds and family when he's in town (unless you know where his mum lives), is similar age and menu to what Martinis had - to my independent palate almost as good, but when you grow up with it as your family's spot of choice for all big celebrations, it's understandable the Reynolds' prefer it! The best combo of authentic, tasty, big portion size, and value Greek tends to be well outside Vancouver - Coquitlam and further east have some really good places, but factoring in travel time and cost none of them are enough better for me than hitting up Nammo's if I want 'straight Greek' rather than more modern. Another spot in town that I have yet to try, but gets consistently good reviews and might be handy for your hotel would be Hydra in the EXchange hotel - it leans a bit modern/Mediterranean rather than traditional Greek, but it's on our 'must get round to dining here' list. Steaks - compared to the UK, steakhouses over here are in general a revelation. Cows are so much cheaper that lengthy aging of beef is the norm, even dry-aged for a month is readily found which has a lot of wastage. The only real caveat I have is around the cuts - everyone I know from Blighty who thinks North American steaks are bad made the same mistake, they were Sirloin eaters who ordered a Sirloin here... and thanks to different butchering traditions, a Sirloin here is actually a Rump Steak in the UK!!! Depending on your preferred cut, you may or may not have an issue - Wikipedia has pretty useful comparative American/Canadian and UK cut diagrams if you have a strong preference. If in doubt, rib-eye baby! Where to eat them? You can push the boat out, eat Prime beef in fancy surroundings with very old-school waitrons at Hy's; go somewhere more modern, much brighter dining room, a few genuinely different products at Elisa; but unless you are already a quite extravagant steak eater The Keg is significantly cheaper but still manages great consistency between branches and 'just right, or we make good' customer service - they usually only have one Prime cut available, but the next step down is still a nicely marbled, tender steak, but they're most famous for their roasted Prime Rib which generally sells out every night. Honestly, it's so easy to cook a steak at home that I don't frequent the steakhouses often, but we get demands to hit The Keg from every repeat visitor - it's a really nice combo of good service, decent pricing, and we've had free wine or comped steaks even when they fix a mistake (like Medium Rare coming out Rare) right away. Burgers - sooooo many opinions! Even the fastfood chains vary quite a lot from each other (I genuinely enjoy A&W in comparison to McDs/BK myself), we have several 'sort of premium' burger joints and chains like Fatburger and Five Guys in town, and of course just about every restaurant has their own iteration. Not because they're super good, but because they're very Vancouvery, if you are out and about and fancy a quick burger lunch White Spot is worth visiting - Triple Os is their 'burger only' smaller footprint resto, with the full service ones covering a very broad, something for everyone, menu. As a Brit, skip the curry and the Sticky Toffee Pudding - the former is far too mild and the latter almost entirely date-free - but there's nothing actually bad at the Spot! Brunch also got mentioned by you - our brekkie scene has definitely improved over the years, several genuinely great swanky spots now, a lot of top-notch waffles (incl Liege style with the pearlized sugar crust) and we can even do you two Irish brunches on the weekends, with black pud and everything! Johnny Fox's plates up black and white pud, proper bacon (not just streaky or 'Canadian' but the overlapping cut with a bit of both like it defaults to all over the UK), soda bread etc. or will bung the meaty bits into a decent slab of baguette for the best breakfast sammich in the city IMO; the Irish Heather swapped out soda bread for a (very nice) home made wholewheat a while back, but still brings the pud and the bacon with the best selection of whisk(e)y in Vancouver available to wash it down with. So if you get a bit homesick, you have options that aren't just full of touristy crap like bikes on the walls and making all the servers wear tiny kilts (looking at you, Mahoney's!!!) Generally meaty-fishy but not so much veggie other than taters - do you already eat Spanish food? Tapas seems made for your requirements - lots of small things, don't order veg if you don't want to, deep-fried tater croquettes with cheese & ham & whatnot, mmmmm. Certainly not quite the Spanish cultural level of spending hours nibbling until the wee small hours, but we have a couple of seriously-authentic places that source a lot of conservas from Spain. Down in the West End is Espana, run by a Brit who really upped the local sausage game at a couple of Italian joints as well as his own poub for a while; outside the core but not far, in the 'brewery zone' of Mount Pleasant, is probably the best tapas in the city, Como - these guys actually let you stand at the bar and get super-cheap happy hour nibbles, with draft vermut! For various ridiculous reasons, drinking while standing at a bar in Vancouver was historically illegal... and the food is absolutely delicious. Speaking of the brewery zone - any chance you're fans of real ale? There's some pretty decent grub in some of the full-service brewpubs, like R&B (great thin crust pizzas), or the remaining original 80s establishments Yaletown brewing and Steamworks both conveniently downtown - all of these do a decent burger, my fave is oddly enough the veggie burger at Yaletown (but mostly the new breweries opened using a limited license which prevents them cooking. Some have gone down a charcuterie path as it's legal to cut and serve cold meats and cheeses, others just get food trucks to park right outside and let you bring the food in, some do a bit of both! Beer tastes vary wildly, so if you've got a particular palate, lemme know what you like to drink and I'll try to point you at the most likely local spot. Let's see - I stuck to walkable from the Wall for the first list, so it's missing a lot of Vancouver staples. We obviously have access to a ton of seafood here - every pub and their granny will do you chips with cod, halibut, salmon as the commonest fish. I do think that it's a bit of a waste to batter the last two, but if you've never had it give it a go - it's pretty hard to screw up frying things so whatever pubby place is most convenient works for F&C. Sushi is super common and popular - downtown, I personally am not a huge fan of Miku but most people are (they do Aburi sushi, flame-seared, and while I am fine with barely-cooked fish as well as raw the texture combo just does not quite work for me - but everyone I know who likes the style agrees they do it well), if I wanted just sushi I would go to Kaide - it's been a round a long time, always has brown rice, great value, and isn't at all touristy - unless it was going to be A Big Deal Experience... if you really want to have a spectacular meal, try going Omakase at Tojo's - it's an institution, and the man himself is NOT young so don't put it off to a future trip!!! Japanese other than sushi we also have a fair whack of - many of our casual noodle places are Ramen joints, and if all you want for lunch is a big bowl of noodles there are many options! But I really like the Izakaya concept, a sort of Japanese Tapas Pub, and I think we have more here than any city outside Japan - two local chains, Guu and Hapa, have multiple branches but Kingyo is generally held as the standard of excellence, all in the downtown core. This way you can do sushi, noodles, tempura, donburi, yakitori, etc. etc. all in the one place! Chinese - including lots of regional ones! abound. Downtown, on the casual end hit up Dinesty for dumplings; maybe ChongQing for Szechuan (the original branch on Commercial Drive is more consistent - but it's a safe bet to try Ginger Beef here, a unique-to-Canada thing); and while outside the core since they closed some branches during the pandemic, Peaceful is justifiably famous - northern cuisine is far more obscure than Cantonese, especially their Xinjiang dishes will be very different, and they are one of very few affordable places that hand pull their own noodles! Fancy - you can do a nice dim sum extravaganza at Kirin downtown, but if you're good to cross False Creek to Broadway then Dynasty is even better. Want to dine in a Michelin Starred Chinese? QuanJuDe is a recentish arrival here, but its heritage goes back to the mid1800s - a fancy meal with all the ways to eat duck you can imagine awaits! And if you've got a limited time in town and want to sample a wide variety of Vietnamese & Cambodian food - Phnom Penh has been doing their thing for decades, with a queue every single night for tables long before the Michelin guide threw a Big Gourmand at them. It's even busier now! Plastic tablecloths, shared tables with strangers, service that runs rather brusque if you don't already know what you want but hot dang, they do what they do very well indeed! Two people can manage to hit the highlights in one dinner - wings, beef luc lac (add the fried egg, trust me!) and butter beef (carpaccio basically, in a GimmeSomeMoreOfThat sauce!!!) - you won't have room for veggies, so no worries! 😉 We do have quite a lot of Vietnamese around, people and food, but downtown the best bets are the snacky lunches - a really nice Bahn Mi is a delicious lunch. The anglicized name of Viet Sub might out you off - but they're old, so using a name locals can recognize made sense at the time! Really good proportions of fillings, nice light & crispy baguettes, no skimping on the pate for the non-veggie butties. If you're in Chinatown, the original Ba Le is my go-to; a tiny mom & pop shop, homemade everything, and you do need to ask (and pay extra) for the pate, but it's cheap as chips. Reviews really don't do it justice, because usually they're either taken aback by the incredibly simple space (2 rickety tables) or think that these guys are franchised from the more well-known on on Kingsway (nope - other way around!) so a lot of annoyed 1-star Yelpers... I like to take a butty and go eat it in the park next to Sun Yat-Sen garden - the free city side has a nice pagoda and shares the same pond as the pay-to-get-in super-authentic garden next door who do not let you bring your own lunch inside (but is still totes worth visiting...) While we do have lots of Indian food, if you're used to British curry you will be disappointed across the board - the core concept of pre-Partition northern food with the dairy and meat ramped up just doesn't happen here, so I would strenuously avoid any generic 'Indian' and especially buffet restos... but if you want actually-Indian authentic stuff you can eat pretty well! Most of the really good stuff is out in Surrey, which can be a bit ropey unless you know exactly which neighbourhoods to avoid - but there are some really good options along Kingsway (frequent bus service, easy to get a cab, but maybe ~$20 ride back depending where your hotel is) like House of Dosas! In a sort of similar evolution to British curry, just in a different direction, Jambo Grill looks tacky as all get out but it's actually really nice - Indian food by way of Africa, with various familiar things and a bunch of perhaps new to you. Almost outside the city here though, virtually in Burnaby, same bus fare but a cab probably $25 each way... If, like me, it's hard to go a week without some kind of 'spicy saucy meaty thing with flat bread' dish - we have some Ethiopian restos that are really nice, but outside the core. Axum is my usual spot, not too far east from the core, and for the missus and I who love walking heading out to some of the breweries nearby, then Axum for dinner, with dessert picked up on the way back home at la Casa Gelato makes for a really nice evening. Cabs will stop (meter on!) and wait while you go inside, but note that they have an insane amount of flavours so if you can't pick fast better to just pay the cab and call another one! NB: cash (they do take USD if you have some leftover from AK) only, unless you have a Canadian bank account with Interac debit... There's also a cluster of three Ethiopian restos quite close to each other, about the same distance from the core as House of Dosas or Axum: Fassil, Gojo, and Harambe if you wanted to compare and contrast Injera between them! Dinner With A View is popular with tourists - you can rotate while you dine, for much increased cost of a ground level resto but perfectly decent grub, on top of the Harbour Centre. Many places ring the Seawall, with views across Burrard Inlet or False Creek, or pointing westward in English Bay for some glorious sunsets - Cactus Club cover two of these views pretty well, but Tap & Barrel do so for cheaper (with decent pub grub, some unique booze collaborations with local wine & beer makers). The Coal Harbour outlets of both look northish, English Bay the CC has the best views of the couple of restos right at the edge, and False Creek it's T&B with their unique two storey covered patio that rack up winter 'outdoor' dining options - Granville Island's Bridges is now also a T&B pub. A bit swankier, Lift is right out on a pier, water on all sides; but for me the sweet-spot of actually getting views of the mountains AND the city itself then Seasons in the Park is the only game in town - good food, albeit not cheap and not cutting edge, good service, an unbeatable view adds up to a good combo! SkyTrain gets you close, buses even closer, but all need a hill climbed so I'd cab it... although if you sneakily SkyTrain to King Edward station and then call a cab or Uber you'll save money, especially dining early that might overlap into evening rush hour! From the resto, walking across the park viewing points at the top is minimal distance; the big glass dome of Bloedel is also very near - but the other paths down into the Quarry Gardens might be too much, I would play that by ear and see how your wife's doing after touring around. If she's up for a bit of walking on some steep paths though, QEP is like a mini-Butchart, but totally free!

Just going to amalgamate a few bits and pieces from your posts @Hercules67 - firstly some travel opinions, and then after what will hopefully be further reassurance about reIative safety on your visit despite the media reports! First, I concur with @Meander Ingwa that if you want to do Victoria from Seattle then just overnight at least once and take the clipper - it is downtown to downtown, very convenient. Floatplanes also land downtown in Victoria, but luggage is a problem with them - a small suitcase with just a few days of stuff, no problem, but balance is absolutely critical! Local flights simply send your bag on a later plane if it doesn't stow safely, an hour or three later and it turns up - but those int'l services go much less often! Uber/Lyft/Taxis both here and Seattle are overwhelmingly modest sized Prius models, but two people will be fine - even the original smaller trunk models can handle a couple of big rollercases, and with just two of you putting a carryon on the backseat if necessary still leaves you room. If you're comfortable with rideshares in general, as well as Lyft consider adding Kabu - a local Van/Vic service. Prices are actually higher than cabs for short trips here - there are far more fees involved, so it takes a while of driving for the lower per mile/minute rates to start saving you money, and if Surge is in play you will always pay less for cabs. In Seattle we mostly used EastSideForHire - which does fixed rate fares so you know exactly what you'll pay every time - if we needed to move luggage around further than a convenient walk. Banff is far enough that I've only passed through a handful of times, actually stayed there only once, so in terms of hotels, hikes, etc. all I can say is that there is the rather unusual quirk that due to it being inside a National Park entry rules (and fees!) apply constantly - if you are going to bus/train combo there, not really an issue, but if you decided to rent a car you would need to buy a park pass for the vehicle for your whole stay... unless you stick to the highway without stopping, even for lunch, you've got to pay! October though is a bit ropey for a visit unless you want to do snow-based activities - October averages 8 inches of snow in Banff (Winter Tire rules would be relevant if you rent a car - here in BC the law kicks in Oct 1st) and so if you just want to do a bit of hiking rather than snowshoeing or skiing, trying to get up there when you first arrive would be better! You obviously have at least two fixed dates - the conference and the cruise - but may already be locked into your return flight too. For anything mountainy, even Whistler, do check the weather and climate stats - while in theory these are four season destinations, the shoulder times of Spring and Fall are the real 'low seasons' for them as folks tend to either want to do stuff that they need snow for or need to avoid snow for, so the messy in-between parts involve very variable dates every year about when e.g. mountain biking stops and skiing begins. Clothing fit for an Alaska cruise probably will work up a mountain pretty well - the extra chill from being next to glaciers or on a moving ship will compared with the elevation gain - but I would consider upgrading gloves and hat if you plan to hike, as that means constant exposure to temps whereas on a ship if you get cold you can pop back in to warm up or hug a mug of cocoa. A pair of mittens that you can wear on top of thin, stretchy, Dollar Store fleece gloves should ensure toasty fingers, ditch the mittens if you need to handle items and you'll still benefit from the gloves while taking snaps (a good trick with gloves that cheap is just to cut away the end of your screen-swiping finger, much less pricey than a pair of 'you can use touchscreen' gloves if you would never use them back home!) Two cheap dollar store toques will do likewise for your ears and head (if your jacket has a snug hood, one hat under that should be enough) and even the dollar store fleece scarves are long enough to wrap twice around your neck to cover nose, chin and throat all at very minimal expense! Personally I find earmuffs invaluable here for cold and rainy days - my best rain hat is a leather broad-brimmed affair that keeps me bone-dry but my ears get cold! I can't say it's fashionable, but I'm already married and have a great face for radio so comfort is waaaaay more important than looking good! Whistler can be done on day-trips from Vancouver by multiple competing bus companies - so with this much time in Vancouver it is extremely viable to wait on a good weather day then hop on a bus there. Unless you want to spend a long day on the slopes or do some long hikes, such that you have to overnight there to fit it in, there's really nothing much else to see in town, it's all about Doing Stuff Outdoors (there is a pretty big modern art gallery and the Squamish-Lil'wat Cultural Centre is interesting, with a nice canteen for lunch, but other than that everything is built around feeding and housing what feels like half of Australia - the local staff are incredibly antipodean! - and the visitors, it's like a beach resort town but with mountains...) Now, some more verbiage to frame your expectations about the homelessness etc. Vancouver and Seattle's 'street life' is actually very visible in the daytime - in fact in summer the people who do have homes the cheap buildings spend most of the day outside because it's cooler than in their tiny-windowed rooms without AC, so it's not just the people in shelters (which near-universally have a 'out at breakfast, back after dinner' policy to allow deep cleaning daily which means night-time is the only time you don't see them!) or sleeping rough. They're visible but in general they don't want to have anything to do with 'regular people' let alone tourists unless they are actively begging or involved in selling drugs or sex - and in both of the latter cases, to avoid police issues they would wait for customers to make the first move. Because of various policies around drug harm reduction, open consumption and even purchase of narcotics - marijuana now being legal - happens. The biggest open air market of 'reclaimed goods' (which regardless of how it is spun includes stolen things being fenced) was literally just outside police HQ when I first moved here - and the reason it stopped being there is because the police moved to a new building!!! There's now some off-street areas put aside, and a couple of blocks of street get barriers put up on weekends to enable a second street market in season - by October, the secondary street market is unlikely to appear, but if you want to buy some really cheap things the main market area has covers to enable sales in the rain...? All of this is to say that while media, and especially social media, stories of lawlessness are greatly exaggerated, you absolutely will see people on the lowest rung of society pretty much all over downtown - the only regular enforcement I'm aware of is people camping out in the more touristy parks, and even then the Rangers mostly do a sweep in the morning at Stanley to get people to pack up and move on, rather than actually stopping them pitching their tents at night. Go for a run early, you will see campers even there! But these are folks just living their lives as best they can, rather than preying on pedestrians. Begging is the only common situation where an interaction of any kind will happen unless you instigate it - and compared to the quality banter that beggars deploy in say the Middle East, it's brief and boring here. I've had one guy, ever, actually bother with a genuinely involved story here in Vancouver to elicit sympathy - there's no insults, no extravagant curses (or blessings if you pay up), just a normal-speaking-voice "Spare some change?" "Have a nice day"... So if you just want to go about your business, it's about as unobtrusive as it can possibly be! From what I've seen in Seattle personally, it's a pretty similar situation there - people yes, begging yes, less obvious hard-drug-use in public given US laws run way more strict than ours, but it's far more likely to make you uncomfortable than actually endanger you. Especially given your niece's issues, unpleasant though it might be, I do feel obliged to flag the possibility of racism impacting your visit. Asian folks, especially East Asian, are everywhere in the Vancouver area - but of course we do still have racists here, and there was a measurable rise in verbal and even physical attacks during the pandemic. Same as with SARS back in Toronto, a small segment of society vocally blamed China for the disease - and the kind of folks happy to shout at old ladies in the street are rarely also aware enough to tell that they are actually Vietnamese or Korean or bother asking how many generations their families have been here! But because almost everyone here under 60 grew up with Asian neighbours, schoolmates etc. the instinctive, unconscious racism of rejecting Outsiders runs low here. Almost 10% of all cohabiting couples are interracial in Vancouver for example, and that includes lots of old folks from when we were still an overwhelmingly white city - among the 20s and younger crowd it's significantly higher, completely normalized - so if you're being stared at in a bar or cafe it's much more likely that the starer thinks you're cute than that they hate you 😉 Continuing in a lighter tone: the smallest 'visible minority' by far in Vancouver who are flagged by their genetic appearance are... redheads! Despite a fair chunk of Scots and Irish bumping the numbers up a bit compared to the worldwide population, they only make up about 2.5% of the ~45% white population of Vancouver and a negligible amount of any of the other census groups - even our smallest measured ethnic group, African-Canadian at ~1.5% of the total, have more compatriots than the poor gingers do!!! As a Scot who suffers from gingerbeardism myself, I can get away with such otherwise colourist language 😉 So it's a bit of a mix overall - you will feel comfortable here compared to most of North America in terms of having many familiar-looking people around regardless of which Asian country you originate from (heck, go to a big Richmond mall and white folks will be a small minority!), but you may also encounter a particular kind of 'positive racism' at times, especially in restaurants when servers might address you in the native tongue you look like you should speak (a local friend from a Han Chinese family, raised Malaysian for a few generations before her parents moved here, learned some Cantonese just to avoid awkwardness every time she went for dim sum - because especially if you are sitting with white folks many servers assume you are the one who will translate 'the good menu' for your friends!!!) To specifically address the experience of your nieces: Chicago is a very different animal from Vancouver or Seattle - in demographics and violent crimes especially. We visited often from Toronto, including road-trips where we'd stay more out of the way and use transit into town, it's a tremendous town for food and architecture. Even as a well-traveled big white guy I felt uncomfortable in a few neighbourhoods outside the Magnificent Mile/Gold Coast/Loop/Old Town 'tourist core'. Despite the sometimes ridiculously high crime stats across the city, the touristy bits of Chicago are pretty safe - but I can definitely imagine a solo Asian woman feeling a bit out of place even in the nice bits! It is an extremely multicultural city but if memory serves it's just about equally split between White/Black/Latino census groupings at not far off 30% each, with everyone else in that last 10%. I have no doubt that your niece would find the big cities of the PNW more comfortable than she did Chicago! Jings - that went on a bit! A few other posts seemed to pop up while I was writing, so hopefully I didn't miss anything else that needs a response. If I did, I'm sure I'll get around to noticing and pop another reply on later...

I was typing away with a follow-up and then realised you were not who my last post was directed toward! With mobility issues, before I add anything else I should definitely check the location of your hotel folks and also how restrictive I need to be with distance, stairs etc.? If you're not budgeting tightly then a cab to and from takes care of getting to the resto (at a modest % of the meal price for anywhere swank downtown) but many of our older buildings involve a few steps inside, have their loo in the lobby of the building which involves a couple of doors and a corridor, that sort of thing... And I think I know what you mean by 'quality over art' but just to be sure - pricey ingredients fine, but froo-froo add-ons that are purely for presentation no? What about the in-between 'somewhat odd things done to the food, so still edible but looks different' like soils and foams?

Take away the specific notes, and it's only different in one clause - it lacks MAY, while adding a whole heckuvalot of utterly pointless fluff because it's got far too many specifics and seems to require actual evidence of interference/obstruction/danger. Your 'more sensible' is in my opinion 'stupidly specific wording that also prevents preemptive action' - our rule for example allows, and I have seen it most often be used for such, Community shuttle drivers to use discretion to refuse tourists with big suitcases but at the same stop allow a little old lady to move her groceries home in a shopping trolley (which take up as much space as those suitcases would, so they are just as bad from the perspective of the rule!) - sometimes it's even just to keep some space free for the next stop, because these routes are the lifeblood of the downtown core elderly and poor demographic, with regular drivers who get to know the regular passengers - on 'Seniors/Veterans Days' at local markets they know that they'll see X, Y, and Z people boarding between the same stops about the same times every week. But rather than get stupidly specific by having different rules for e.g. the small shuttle buses, the huge boxy seabus, the Canada Line trains vs. the others, regular buses, double-decker buses, bendy buses and whatever else might be added in future, we applied a single, very broad rule allowing total discretion to the 'boots on the ground' staff to trigger it - or not. In other words our transit system, funded by our tax dollars, is in a much better position to be quietly nudged in favour of the people actually living and working here in preference to tourists and discretionary traveling locals, all of whom are in a better place to afford cabs etc. than the transit-use-by-necessity local folks. That is 99.9% A Good Thing IMO - everywhere I travel that has sensible provisions to prioritise people actually living locally over tourists I applaud them (e.g. Egyptian pricing on all tourist sites back in the day charged tourists 10 to 20x more than locals - even the high price was a pittance to me, as a barely graduated student with debts I still had way more liquid cash than the vast majority of the locals), and the tighter the rules on matters which benefit tourists but screw over local the better (*cough*AirBnB anywhere with housing problems*cough*). That 'may' is the primary tool that enables this to happen - drivers and attendants can choose to let things slide when it is quiet with lots of space on the vehicle, they can choose to show some compassion to folks who obviously need the service despite having inappropriately large items (homeless 'binners' with giant bags full of empties), folks working jobs that need heavy tools but don't pay much etc. but by having the rule be so generic that it can ALWAYS be triggered for anything bigger than a 'lap bag' without requiring ANY proof it means when they do choose to use it there is no room for quibbling ("My cart is 29 inches long, I measured it, prove I'm wrong or let me on!"), wasting time taking photos of or measuring things to prove they are in breach, making all passengers late. They can just say 'nope' to Mr Big Bag any time they want here and everything from the bylaws to the union to management is going to support them because it keeps the overwhelming majority of people moving most efficiently. The downside of this is of course that when you give all staff that much discretion, some will get trigger-happy - pick any group of humans of a couple dozen or more and guaranteed at least will be a serious pedant. I usually fill that role, except I drop to secondary back-up pedant when you're in the same thread 😉 So, like I say all the time, enforcement is very poor on SkyTrain - outside rush hour when attendants are on platforms, it's easy to not see a single uniformed person on a short ride like this one and even if you do see them they may well let it slide if it's quiet... but what our visitors and less-researchy locals don't realise when they recommend people just use transit willy-nilly because they do it 'all the time' is that they were in breach of a rule, it just wasn't enforced - I do like to let people know that there are less-than-obvious rules for exactly the reason that lots of other cities, like New York, have put less thought into their transit legislation than we have - one of the few good things about 'new cities' is that they can learn from the mistakes of the old ones. Ask anyone in programming what they think about legacy code... I don't warn people that driving over the speed limit might trigger a ticket because that's obvious to anyone, but I do make a point in warning about transit with big bags precisely because we are rather unusual in how sensibly we set up our transit rules - someone who knowingly takes the small risk? No skin off my nose - but as someone who values accuracy above all else, I would feel bad if I failed to warn folks! In similar fashion, on the rare occasion I find someone who seems like they would want to partake in the local outdoor drinking culture on Beer Island I warn them of the 'no public drinking law' as those aren't universal, but further warn that if they see cops or rangers NEVER to throw away their booze bottles... as littering carries a significantly higher fine than public drinking!!! It's just like how I greatly appreciated the advice of locals in parts of the US where ticketing tourists is a major revenue stream for Small Town X to warn me about the ridiculous speed sign combinations that are very challenging to obey all of in Alachua County FL, or that in some parts of West Virginia a cop can just eyeball your car and say you were speeding and protesting tickets must be done in-person in town on the one day a week when a judge is available - so you better be at least 5 UNDER the limit if you take the shortcut on the 19 through Summersville instead of the I79 via Charleston! These obscure regional tidbits are like gold dust if you're visiting from 'normal' places where cruising along at 5-10 over the speed limit on the highway is expected, or where you can schlep luggage around on transit... Incidentally, I'm genuinely surprised that you are attempting to defend New York's position on permitting baggage - every New Yorker I've ever spent time with has been an urban, non-car-owning, take-the-subway-everywhere-possible type and they all hate the <insert swear of choice> who take suitcases on the subway; from close enough friends that I helped clear a dead spouses stuff from their apartment, to casual friends of friends who are tour-guides, cabbies, chefs; the kind of folks who actually make a good chunk of their living from tourists - ALL of their statements on such matters boil down to "Take a cab you cheap tourist SOB!" rather than schlepping a suitcase on the subway! Even the really NICE people, the ones who have been fighting for decades to overturn the terrible, and absolutely earned, reputation of New Yorkers as being - shall we diplomatically say, abrasive? - share this view, like folks I know who were part of Big Apple Greeters in the earliest days. I truly think you'll find yourself in a very small minority of folks who not support banning Big Things On Transit in NYC sir or madam... and even the assorted guides to subway etiquette seem to agree that baggage on the subway means you are an inconsiderate <insert swear here>. Google "Johnny T’s best subway tips" for a hilariously Noo Yawk muppet-hosted video! If you feel that a public transit system truly needs to double as transportation for good and chattels, then look to Portland - while almost Vancouveresque rules apply generally there is an exemption for Really Big Stuff during off-peak hours on the 'low floor' parts of streetcars and MAX. Every now and again a thread pops up on local Reddit about someone moving house by streetcar, I've even seen queen size mattresses and bedframes being schlepped around! Personally I'm all for discretion being applied to bags on transit off-peak, provided no baggage stops someone getting at a door or seat, and most Translink staff share a similar view in my experience - but if I didn't say anything about this there would probably be at least one frenzied post every decade or so saying "WARNING! VANCOUVER TRANSIT SCAM! THEY PUT A SUBWAY NEAR AMTRAK BUT WOULD NOT LET ME TAKE MY TWELVE BAGS TO THE PIER! THEY STOLE MY $3! WHO CAN I SUE TO GET IT BACK?" 😉

As a Scot, forced to waste every childhood summer by visiting relatives all over the place, I can say with great confidence that there are MANY parts of the mainland's west coast and Caithness that boats are significantly faster ways to travel than cars... Limited roads, especially those following along the shores of long sea lochs with villages out on the end both sides are a nightmare - locals will row across to visit The Other Pub rather than drive at times, even without factoring in the Bane of All Country Roads... caravans! Actual islands - the ferry service was total crap when we did our last 'world tour of Scotland' before moving to Canada over 20 years ago, and folks we still know there confirm it's only gotten worse since on basically all the routes. Limited routes, limited hours, and don't get me started on the Wee Frees protesting ferries running on Sundays!!! Of course, some giant floating hotel isn't going to stop in the teeny wee nooks and crannies, but compared to arranging a piecemeal visit by car and ferry to multiple towns and cities the timing of the round-the-UK cruises actually look pretty efficient! As soon as the remaining important family members die, so that I can visit the UK without having to visit X, Y, and Z on pain of being cut from wills and never spoken of again, I'll absolutely be returning to the old homeland by cruise around the outsidey bits rather than driving myself around - and I grew up on single track roads, passing places, dodging sheep and random hikers around blind corners while regarding the legal speed limit as both minimum and maximum!

Hmm - the one on Lonsdale that pointed toward Canada Place was the most 'cruise port' focused, it doesn't seem to be around any more but is listed as returning soon!