martincath

While it's obviously best to always use the currency of the country you're in as a general rule, the hassle of exchanging funds locally is more than offset by the extra value provided you tip the same number of dollars - short of criminals who can't get a passport, every Canadian I know who lives within a couple of hours drive pops over at least now and again for Trader Joes, cheaper booze, Amazon Dot Com orders sent to a mailbox etc. so having to wait a while before spending your USD at face value to gain a ~33% premium, or cashing them in for a few points on the dollar at the currency exchange, is fine here in Vancouver for example. But if you do have both, it's certainly polite to ask!

As to the shopping hours, while most of the 'Diamonds R Us' type shops run primarily for tourists will open when there's enough people around to make them big bucks, 6am is a real stretch even for them, especially with the hassles of recruiting folks in a post-Covid world for low-income, no-tipping, seasonal positions like a cashier. Always best to direct your funds toward actual locals anyway - I believe Tongass Trading opens 8-6 throughout cruise season, and while Ketchikan isn't huge you can easily kill an hour of two just wandering around checking out some of the local historic buildings (wiki list of those on the heritage register here) before things open.

Dunno how I missed this first time around!

OP @Sea-n-Ease, my opinion on embarkation is consistently to do it as late as you possibly can. You can drop bags literally any time until they stop accepting them - the only difference is when you are too early, during the time when folks are still having things unloaded from the ship, the regular bag drop becomes a more casual 'longshoremen with a cage down in parking' affair.

If this is one of the 'Royal Class ship arriving and leaving a bit late because of when low tide is' days, that does mean their Disembarkation will run later than normal, and Embarkation therefore start later for folks boarding that ship. For the folks on the other ship though, assuming those times are correct it can fit under Lions Gate more flexibly like almost every other ship based in Vancouver that isn't Royal class, so I expect a normal pattern - folks getting kicked off by 9:30 at the latest so the ship can be zeroed out.

Honestly though, depending where you pulled those times from it could be a total non-factor because they're wrong - Princess are notoriously incapable of planning for tide times, every season we see the arrival and departure times of all the Royal class vessels start shifting, and sometimes even when they've finally remembered that the ships only fit under during a really tight window they still don't alter the whole season worth of data at the beginning but spread it out, giving folks notice a month ahead of time that they are actually sailing in and out at 3am not 5pm! There's literally one accurate place - the official timetable from the Port of Vancouver on this page - and even that isn't always accurate for Royal class on a future date unless it lists something unusual (any overnight visits, and arrivals/departures outside a 6am-6pm zone, are almost certainly corrected for tides - but anything inside that 6-6 period could simply be what Princess originally booked last year and haven't gotten around to checking tide timetables yet before revising!)

Assuming your times are correct though, if you show up at 2pm there probably will be more people than usual at that time of day for the same total pax load just because ship 2 couldn't start boarding until later, but you'll still lose out on absolutely nothing onboard (there's never any exciting activities on embarkation day, and tax still applies in port so even if you have a booze package every drink'll cost ya something!), gain time in one of the best cities on the planet, and even if it takes you ~90mins to get onboard will still still have only spent basically the same amount of time waiting around as if you went straight to check-in at 10am!

The only added risk by having a a fun half-day in Vancouver is if you do something silly, like being over on the North Shore at 1pm and expecting to get back to the pier for 2pm - yes, in theory those Capilano shuttles allocate a 30min drive time and in no traffic scenarios that's accurate, but with very limited route options even a minor slowdown on the bridge could cause serious problems. Even midday can see backups, because the bridge centre lane is dynamically controlled from ~9am to 3pm, so as soon as southbound cars threaten to cause backups on Highway 1 they flip the middle lane to southbound to clear them - while commuter hours are consistent, which way gets 2 lanes and which way just 1 can be a crapshoot in-between!

So go do that right away if you're mad keen - if you are sensibly here for a pre-cruise night in a hotel, try dropping bags earlier, at 9am, and hopping right on the shuttle outside the pier, so you can be safely back downtown by noon.

But if you don't have Cap on your bucket list, just stick to sensibly close by downtown attractions - FlyOverCanada is right on the pier, the Harbour Centre viewing tower a few minutes walk, the cobbled streets of Gastown start barely a quarter mile away. As long as you know that from where you are at 1:45pm you can walk to the pier in <15mins, as long as you don't walk into traffic your risk of missing the ship is perfectly well managed!

Love me a train ride, but I'm 100% with Bruce on this one - absolute minimum the day before on a long ride like that! Empire Builder was still only up to 64% on time as of last quarter, and on an almost 48hr ride which arrives barely in time for making a same-day cruise (11:29am on the current schedule), even three hours late and you are in serious danger of missing the boat!

Transpo from King St to your hotel then on to the pier next day - cabs, Uber etc. if you use their apps are probably the simplest options to get people with typical cruise luggage where they're going. From a downtown core hotel to 66 you will likely find it cheapest and easiest to also use a cabuber to the ship next day; if you're out in an airport hotel though, one of the shuttles like Seattle Express might be a bit less if you're a couple rather than a big family.

14 hours ago, Desert Dawg14 said:

We are staying at the Fairmont Airport Hotel the night before our departure back to Seattle so I'm trying to get an idea of timing for a 6am flight.

.

If I read the above right, we will go thru Security first before we see CBP??

 

If our flight is at 6am to Seattle, I'm trying to figure out what time to begin the process since CBP doesnt get going until 4:45am.  If we check in at 4:30am at the airline counter and then go thru security, will that put us at CBP at enough time to make the gate??  Or should we check-in earlier around 4am and possibly be among that "huge queue of folks" waiting on the doors to open??

 

I really hate running through the airport to my gate with luggage...

In terms of advice, especially specific times, I'm not going to say 'definitely do X' because only you know your exact tolerance for queue-standing vs. panicking that you may not make your gate in time... but it sounds like rolling into the airport at 4:00am might be more your thing, especially if you insist on doing check-in old school.

Using check-in-at-the-counter is extra risk, because at this stage even people who have zero clue and show up 5 hours early can be in the lineup! Until they get told that they can't proceed to bag drop yet there is no check to remove anyone from the system ahead of you even if they shouldn't be there, and unless you're flying first class or similar you can't do anything to reduce your time wasted at check-in by other people.

Always check-in in advance (sign up for the Fairmont membership program before your arrival and you'll get free WiFi in your room; use the free airport WiFi; but given you're staying at the Fairmont I would simply visit the self-service kiosks the night before when you arrive at the hotel - as long as it's less than 24hrs you should have no problems checking-in and they print out proper sticky bag tags and paper boarding passes if you're the kind of person who likes those - personally I still prefer a paper pass, no worries about cellphone battery life!)

Also, take the opportunity of your hotel location to wander the airport briefly the night before - check the signs, find bag drop, find where your gates are, minimise any confusion at oh-dark-hundred! By getting all that out of the way the day before, you can walk from your hotel straight to bag drop - personally I'd aim to leave the hotel by 4:30am here, so that you can make use of a T-90 YVR Express security slot just in case there's any kind of Security backlog.

Even if you can't pick a time less than 90mins preflight, the 'slot' has official leeway of 15mins so if you choose a T-90 slot you can actually roll in at T-75 with no problem. Passing through Security in the 4:30-4:45 bracket, you will almost certainly still find a queue at CBP - but with doors open and folks already moving through. There are lots of kiosks, they're much more common in airports all over the world these days, so even factoring in a few first time users, folks who put their passports and boarding passes back in mom's purse, that sort of inefficiency, it's still a very short turnaround for each person so once the queue starts moving it does flow nicely.

With NEXUS we do get a smaller queue for our trusted-traveler kiosks at CBP as well as at Security, but we walk right past the Regular Joes so have a decent idea how much busier that side is and it always looks smooth (they've had more than enough time to clear the backlog). Our preferred time to fly to the US is that first batch of 6/6:30am flights, and we roll in on the first SkyTrain of the day (5:09am - so a flight we need to check a bag for needs to be 6:30, to get to bag drop in time). We do have to hustle, but I'll take that over standing about in a queue for ages!

45 minutes ago, lidodeck03 said:

Thank you for the clarification! As I said, I have not flown International before. This will be a first for us. I am looking forward to see how YVR compares to Atlanta Hartsfield, Chicago O'Hare, Los Angeles, Dallas/Fort Worth, Orlando International, as we frequent those airports most often. One other question.. If the ship leaves the USA (Astoria, Oregon) and stops in port at Victoria, BC the day before arriving in Vancouver for disembarkation, does it still have to go through the same CBSA process for both locations?

Thank you! 

No problem - we just won back 'best North American airport' from Skytraxx after briefly losing it to Seattle, so it's safe to say once more that YVR is the least-worst airport on the continent of all time (we had like ten in a row until Covid!) so enjoy!

As to the CBSA screening, yes, it's all about your Port of Entry so on this trip that means Victoria unless the weather is too rough to dock. You won't be aware of any immigration unless something pings on your file - pax manifests get submitted remotely in advance, we run the checks before you arrive, and anyone who's been naughty will be identified for a meet'n'greet with CBSA on arrival in port (announcements for passengers X,Y,Z to go to Location A - everyone else can just walk off). In terms of Customs, you will likely be issued a card in your cabin to complete and hand in aboard at least the day before the Victoria stop - again, if there's anything of concern on the cards those pax will be flagged for a chat with CBSA.

So while it's possible you might see an officer or two at the pier on arrival in Vancouver, just in case anyone buys some expensive stuff aboard on the last night that they should be declaring, having completed both Immigration and Customs means you probably won't need to do any more paperwork.

1 hour ago, lidodeck03 said:

I have never taken an International flight so I have a "crazy" question! I see a lot of early morning flights (6:00AM - 9:00AM) leaving YVR with a destination being in the USA. If CBSA doesn't start the screening process at the airport until 7:00AM, how are all those people getting on the airplanes at 6:00AM - 9:00AM? 

Thank you!

You're confusing both the country of the agency concerned and the location! CBSA = Canadian border folks, who screen at the pier because most ships cruising in have arrived from US waters; CBP = US border folks, who prescreen US-bound flights at YVR starting at 4:30am (with a shift briefing, so no actual work for at least 10mins, and a huge queue of folks on those 6am, 7am, even 8am flights who have no idea about CBP hours so showed up to check-in only to find locked doors after they'd gone past Security... it usually takes until 5am to clear that first backlog, which is why I like taking the first SkyTrain - arriving 5:09am - to YVR for a flight before 7am)

38 minutes ago, kdakda said:

So, are there other places to get Dungeness in Vancouver????   I doubt that we'll go to Granville Island, but will be staying near Canada Place for several days pre and post cruise (yes, we really enjoyed our stay in Vancouver last year, so booked another cruise for this year)

Loads - basically any seafoody resto, any time of the year, as we have 7 different zones in BC with differing availability so there's almost always some around. If you want a resto that's very likely to have fresh seafood in general, try Fanny Bay Oysters near the central library. They've got their own boat for true 'tide to table' cusine as they term it, a Michelin Guide 'recommended' nod, are very convenient for most downtown core hotels, and will also sell you seafood To Go as they operate a marketplace as well as resto in the same location.

1 hour ago, doowopbob said:

I should have said that we were thinking of taking our bags off with us so we can get to the airport in time.  Ramps are not a problem, stairs are.

Gangway off the ship is a 'stacked ramp' job, no stairs; inside the terminal building you have elevators, escalators, and stairs that need used (you will not be allowed onto the escalator, or I believe the stairs, unless you have a hand free - staff guard the top for health & safety reasons). Elevator queues can get bad because every wheelchair and scooter user as well as folks with too many bags have to use them.

I might already have written this info on one of the links Bruce suppied above, but just in case:

if by crab you mean e.g. Dungeoness, then anywhere you can see them live and watch them get cooked is fine (I doubt there's going to be much variance in price/lb anywhere convenient to the pier)

If you're expecting fresh King crab though, you won't find it in Tracy's! Like everywhere else in Alaska, it's 'steamed then frozen at sea, reheated ashore' when it comes to Kings in cruise season - cruise season does not overlap with fresh availability, so you eat the same frozen precooked crabs as literally anywhere on the planet... except Vancouver, where live Kings are shipped in and kept in tanks.

If you have at least half a dozen big eaters, or up to 10 regular appetites, an AKC Feast here might be just the thing for you - you do need to order a whole crab (~10lbs) but it comes served three ways, with plenty of side dishes, family style at several of our larger Chinese restos. While pricing varies a lot each season, I have one specific pricepoint this year already - a local resto offered 90mins of AYCE King Crab for CAD$198pp a few weeks back, but given that factored in still making money on folks guzzling as much crab as possible, $100pp remains plausible for a more normal 8-10 folks split one crab as part of a feast.

If you're happy with dungies, which despite being a lot cheaper are frankly also a better tasting crab anyway if you ask me, they're almost certainly also cheaper here than anywhere in AK thanks to USD vs CAD let alone the tourist premium in AK ports - for maximum crab, minimum frippery, I'd go with The Lobster Man on Granville Island. Pick your crab out of the tank, have it steamed or boiled for you, they'll do you a 'picnic pack' with bread, butter, lemons etc., even crackers and picks (although if you're visiting the public market anyway, it's cheaper to buy your own bread, lemons etc. over there as the Lobster Man adds a wee premium for the convenience, and dollar store tools work fine for a 'one and done' rather than something nicer you want to take home and use again in future).

On 4/21/2024 at 7:38 AM, Sea-n-Ease said:

What’s the walk like (around 10:00 pm) from the SkyTrain to the Metropolitan?  Safety and distance. 

 

What’s the walk like (with large rolling luggage) from the Metropolitan to Canada Place (daytime). 

Safe as houses compared to any US large town let alone city; very short; not much longer and downhill; and if you check this map you can virtually walk the entire route by Streetview to see exactly how ludicrously easy it is (very close to a straight line, Howe is the only street you'll need to walk more than part of a block on!)

Taxi is CAD$41 now to the pier - but unless you get lucky and a van rolls in, as mentioned you will struggle to get 4 bums on seats and luggage in the boot of the Priuses which make up ~83% of local cabs! Carryons on knees during the 35ish min drive would not be fun, especially since fixed rate fares mean cabbies put their foot down as much as possible!

Savings on SkyTrain are not huge in comparison inbound though, with the extra $5pp AddFare. Senior Fares, if on a weekday, will be a little over $32 total (weekends all one zone, so closer to $28).

Consider an UberXL for this trip if you all want to go in one vehicle - it'll likely be a little higher than cab fare even without Surge but you'll definitely get a big enough vehicle to fit you all - or split up between a cab and SkyTrain. Maybe send all the big bags with the cab folks though, so save schlepping two bags each from the station (although the trains do have plenty room for baggae under every seat, and as YVR and WaterFront are both terminus stations it's easy to get a seat and maneuver yourself and bags oyut at the far end).

I honestly can't recommend any Chinese restos in Victoria - but then, my baseline for tastiness  is here in Vancouver! If you're on a Vancouver RT don't waste your time eating in Victoria when more and better is available pre/post cruise - Victoria has some good locavore western options, classic fish & chips, and several poutineries if you're looking for something different that might be another hard to find thing in your home area, but the Chinatown there is so tiny that all the restos are basically tourist traps.

Probably 90% of folks in that neck of the woods probably rank Jam Cafe as the best resto in the blocks immediately around Chinatown (personally I think it's extremely overrated and never worth the wait, so Swans brewpub would be where you'd find me dining nearby - although the food is very much a secondary concern compared to the beer, which is superb... their perfectly serviceable pub grub does help soak up the booze though!!!!)

Cabs should be lined up waiting. Cheapest I've seen anyone mention for an Uber fare was still over CAD$30, depending on hotel location Cab fare will most likely be $37 ($41 for the few fancy hotels right by the pier).

I'd be inclined to walk out and see how many folks are waiting in the cab line - if lots, fire up Uber app and check how long nearest car is and whether Surge applies, then decide at the time what looks the best combo of time vs. money!

YYZ has a handy guide to all the steps - for an Air Canada flight from RDU, connecting to a YVR-bound flight, here you go!

Specific expectations for Immigration/Customs here (Kiosk info, Advance Declarations - your connection time should be enough, but I would recommend always doing all things in advance that you can to expedite your way through the steps in case your incoming flight is running late and your Enough Time becomes Worryingly Short)

On 3/14/2024 at 9:06 AM, Yo Adrienne said:

...Thanks for any suggestions you might have...! 🙂 

I just found a definitely-fancy Brunch option for you, with availability, on Mothers Day!

Bacchus (the Wedgewood's in house resto) has always been on our secondary rotation - it's one of the very few quiet fine restos in Vancouver, off the radar enough to be always bookable and also literally quiet with lots of heavy fabric - but I only just found out that the normal far-too-overpriced hotel breakfast has been supplemented by a Bavarian Brunch starting this weekend, helmed by ex-Michelin Star winning Chef Stefan Hartmann himself for a ludicrously low price considering (as in, half the price of the hotel's regular 'bacon/sausage/2 eggs' American brekkie plate!!!)

They're also offering specific extra-fancy Mother's Day Brunch and Afternoon Tea service - and actually have availability right now for both! They're way pricier than the regular brunch menu, but the same ballpark as the PP/Fairmont brunches. If you haven't already decided on something else to do, go have a shufty at menus on the Events page and get booked ASAP if they look good.

Ordinarily I'd never recommend a resto experience I have not had myself at least a couple of times, but the combination of the impossible timing to sample before your visit and my total faith in any Hartmann kitchen he's actually working in make me feel this is worth the risk for once (long story short, our first Hartmann meal was in Berlin almost 20 years ago before he got his first Star; we were super pumped when he got hired by Uwe Boll of all people to come head up Bauhaus in Vancouver in 2015; he's not just a good cook, he runs a super-tight kitchen - I fully expect Bacchus to move up from the Recommended list to an actual star in the next edition of the Michelin guide this Fall, and when it does I'll be annoyed because getting a table will be much harder!!!)

22 minutes ago, Coral said:

... They just were boring and not doing anything fun.

Elon Musk has extended his project to Alaska and hired whales now...!? 😉 

6 hours ago, wolfie11 said:

Gray whales migrate along the outer coast on their way further north.  They are almost never seen in SE Alaska.

In the context of a Juneau whalewatch it probably was a bit silly of me to mention Grays given how few of them would be near that port, with just a handful of sightings over the years, but they're a lot more common in SE Alaskan waters - especially April/May - than you seem to think. As soon as they hit the tip of Vancouver Island it's back in toward the mainland, all the info on Grays out of Haida Gwaii I've seen has them being consistently east of the islands there, and Chatham Sound is a major feeding ground for them with their preferred shallow, muddy bottomed terrain. Prince Rupert based tours see Grays regularly, and it's hard to head north from Prince Rupert without crossing into SE Alaskan waters; the AMHS isn't visiting this year for some sort of issue related to a lack of internationally-licensed crew, but whales don't need to worry about legislation! 😉

Even if we're talking US ports regularly visited by cruise ships, rather than just general SE Alaskan water, Sitka has seen their Gray numbers spike massively in the last 7 or 8 years - a mainstream news article last year indicated 700 Grays hanging out in Sitka Sound last May, not just feeding but even breeding - up from the typically-still-over-a-hundred of the prior few years.

Mostly I'm familiar with the Coastal Pacific Feeding Group though, rather than the ones which continue to follow the full migration up to Bering/Chukchi Seas - and they've been moving both further into Inside waters over the years. Most of these 'summer residents' still hang around on the outside of Vancouver Island, 200+ have been tracked around Pacific Rim park waters between Tofino and Sooke, but right in this neck of the woods Howe Sound is also a regular summer haunt for a small group of them: some of those guys visit Stanley Park - every two or three years since I've been living here, one even made it right up False Creek just after the 2010 Olympics.

Other pockets up the BC Inside Passage are also known, all the way to Chatham Sound - indeed, there are even a very small number of year-round sightings out of Prince Rupert now although that's anecdotal, I haven't seen any formal research or long-term 'citizen science' pics to confirm the same whale(s) are remaining consistently local.

4 hours ago, reeinaz said:

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

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

From your other posts @DShier1a you're on Noordam out of Vancouver? If so, you could whalewatch here before boarding - for less money AND a guarantee (local vendors remain May-Sep in this neck of the woods, although it is in the form of 'free rides for life until you see one' rather than 'here's a crisp hundo, never darken our gangplank again'!)

Not sure what the issue is with the Juneau trips, as already mentioned they have resident whales, I know for a fact the Gray migration looks to be already long underway as usual (there's an active whale count along coastal oregon sites at Xmas and easter for south and northbound respectively) and the Mexican humpies tend to head up about the same time as the Grays. Unless someone's heard about issues with the Hawaiian population not leaving until later, I can't imagine May not already having ample whales to go look at...

On 4/15/2024 at 11:45 AM, pfloyd2576 said:

Thank you for posting this question, I wondered myself.

 

Does anyone recall seeing taxis at the port that can accommodate 6 people?

 

I might have to convince my in-laws to take a cab over the shuttle. Does the shuttle accept U.S. dollars as payment?

If memory serves there are the same literal handful of six-seater vans in Vic as there are here in Van - for the same reason (taxi rules that mandate a minimum % of Accessible vehicles per fleet, much higher cost to run those vans, so virtually every van has had middle seats removed and wheelchair/scooter strapdown points installed to meet their legal requirements while every other car is a Prius).

This would be a situation where I'd be looking at Uberlyfts big vehicles to ensure you can fit 6 pax!

As to the shuttle - if you want to just burn money, sure, book it! Per person it's more expensive than a cab if they charged in CAD - but in fact they already price it in USD so it's even worse value at nearly double cab fare... only a solo who would otherwise take a cab both ways to and from the drop point saves money, 2+ people are already throwing money away and 6? As a Scotsman I'm virtually in tears here just thinking about all the beer you could buy instead if you like to p*ss money down the drain!!! 😉 

If the weather is crappy enough that you would not enjoy walking around outside for a couple of hours, skip Butchart - and since you're already clued in enough to have found Pendray, do that instead of the Fairmont. I cannot think of a single person who has taken tea at the Empress and also elsewhere without sharing the same opinion - certainly nice, but far too gosh durn expensive for what you get at the Empress!

In general though when it comes to temps, if you could survive a visit to a garden or other outdoor space in Portland in April, Butchart should be fine unless it just happens to be bucketing down on the day you visit - the quarry makes for a much less windy microclimate, all the trees left intact around the perimeter likewise, so even though it's a bitty further north we find the temps much more Portlandy than Vancouvery in spring and fall. The gardeners do a sterling job of ensuring there's things to look at all year round, there's force-grown smaller plants from greenhouses that get put out, and April is peak tulip season which povides plenty of colour.

The most factual answer is to check statistical sites tracking many years of data (I like Weatherspark)

The most sensible answer is that it's irrelevant! If you have already packed sufficient layers for Alaska, you have automatically packed clothing that will handle Seattle weather as is basically the same just slightly warmer!

What you need for AK is sufficient layers to handle the coldest likely weather minus an extra 10C/15F or so to account for windchill on a moving ship/being parked next to a glacier for a while. Plus thin gloves and a toque - ears and fingers get nippy with wind or nearby ice - that you can pick up in a Dollar Store (the 'one size fits none' thin stretchy fleecy jobs are perfect, virtually weightless and roll up into a tiny bundle you can stuff in a jacket pocket).

But 5 days in Seattle... no temptation for a side-trip? Get out onto the Olympic Peninsula? Nip up or down the coast to Vancouver or Portland by train?

59 minutes ago, reeinaz said:

Hi.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2 hours ago, alainciao said:

Can you book with YVR Express the day before?

Definitely - if there are slots remaining, you can even do it when you arrive at YVR! The cutoffs are no more than 72hrs in advance, no less than 90mins for Int'l (including US), no less than 45mins for Domestic. Just double-checked the FAQs to make sure I got the numbers correct - so note that my 'book it 75mins before' advice actually doesn't work for US-bound flight, min 90 on those.

Edit - if you can't get online on the ship the day before, I'd make use of your downtime while traveling (SkyTrain has free Wifi, works even in tunnels) or while waiting for a cab (the pier itself has their own free Wifi, and city-provided #VanWiFi should also get a signal if you're at street level e.g. trying to get an Uberlyft).

28 minutes ago, 2012_Alaska_bound said:

Thank you for the correction.

No worries - as we recovered staffing levels post-covid there may have been tighter restrictions, and some airlines differ in how long preflight they open their desks for old-school in-person check-in (and then blame CBP, or YVR, or Anyone But Them when folks complain despite it being entirely down to airline choice to save cash by only staffing desks for 2 hours - budget airlines in the UK are a nightmare for this kind of weaseling)...  so you may be accurately remembering a 2hr period being mentioned to you!

If it's not too busy, the 3 hours can sometimes stretch longer too - CBP have limited holding space for bags, so it's all down to how many bags per hour they can scan plus do they have enough room to hold them while pax work their way through Security (CATSA staffing) and Prescreening (CBP staffing) - until you are cleared, your bag doesn't get released for transfer to the plane, as every bag needs to be available for inspection at the time you are speaking with CBP agents. Min 1, max 3 is a pretty safe general rule though.

12:30pm for a two ship day should be fine, even if you are having your bags taken off to be collected at the pier. If you are physically capable of self-disembarking though, that's always better - not just quicker but also a risk removed of your bags going astray.

If you can carry your own bags off, you can also easily use SkyTrain to YVR which removes any wait time for cabs, or finding where Uberlyft are allowed to pick you up (no longer inside the pier so you have to walk at least a block away on the street outside; so why not walk three and then have a dirt-cheap, 26 minute ride to YVR with no traffic worries?)

The Canada Line is best accessed from the main Waterfront Station on Cordova Street - ignore the entryway on Howe, that leads directly onto the Expo line platform and navigating the station interior with a suitcase is much more hassle than just walking the sidewalks - turn left outside the pier, first left onto Cordova, <300 yards and you're there. Note that the sidewalk on Howe just outside the pier is being resurfaced - it should be done in theory by early May, but there's a coned-off bit of roadway right now for pedestrians which makes Uberlyft access to near the pier much more hassle (taxis have a dediated queuing lane to enter the pier, which cuts the street down to a single lane for everyone else including rideshares right now).

YVR bag check is rather different, unless you've flown from Canada to the US before - with Prescreening there is a single, centralized bag drop for all flights to the US during CBP operational hours (4:30am-8:30pm daily). CBP are the ones who put a hard cap on the timing - which is max 3 hours before, min 1 hour. With Global Entry you will get quicker Security as well as a dedicated set of kiosks inside the preclearance area - so as long as you get there before the 1hr cutoff for checked bags, you will definitely get through security and CBP in time to board.

Do take the physical GE card with you if you have it - CATSA, our equivalent of TSA, do not have access to the database at the security queue so the only way to tell if you have membership is to show them the card. If you don't have one (I've heard a few long-time members of GE say that back in the day they could choose just to get a sticker in their passport instead!), don't worry - simply use YVR Express to book your security timeslot instead which gives you access to the same short queue as GE/NEXUS. It's free - and given your timeline, choose a slot 75mins ahead of your flight. If you're more than 90mins early (there's a 15min grace period either side) you won't need the short queue, and if you're less than 60mins early you're rebooking a flight anyway or abandoning your checked bags!!!