martincath

Looks like the mods moved it over to West Coast already OP, so you should get plenty of eyes on it now and a few more replies. Personally I think the HOHO is a good idea - and in terms of your bags, simply store them downtown yourself for a fraction of the cost of the cruiseline HOHO excursion! Even if you don't book in advance, you can use the Pan Pacific hotel bell desk to store your bags all day, for less than the official pier storage ($10 per bag vs. up to $15 this year for the official one!); while you do get a discount on storage by booking a tour with West Coast - who run the HOHO as well as various other tours - their hours are useless to you, as you have to come back by 4:30pm to retrieve the bags before they close! Much better to use literally any other service, whether the PP or a prebooked other location (many hotels and stores have signed up with the likes of Bounce, Luggage Hero etc.), so you can do whatever you like all day, have dinner downtown, and only have to get your bags before you head out to YVR in the evening. NB: even if you are very nervous travelers, and headed to the US, it is utterly pointless arriving at YVR more than two hours early - there is no preclearance step for late flights (CBP stop work at 8:30pm) so you only have to drop your bags at check-in like a normal flight, get through Security (which you can prebook for free to avoid queuing, even though this late there's rarely more than a few minutes wait anyway), and most of the restos are shut by 8 or 9pm so there's very little to do post-security to kill time. You do want to be at least a full hour early - bag check has a hard cap of 60mins preflight for every airline I'm aware of flying int'l - but for redeyes anything much more than an hour is gravy. Do pad your timing to get to YVR a little if you plan to take a cab - limited routes, a key bridge or two, roadworks every summer and of course the chance of an accident - can make the 35ish minute drive 15+ mins longer easily enough. But SkyTrain - even with luggage - is always the cheapest (evenings any day are all One Zone, so barely over CAD$3pp!), almost always the fastest, definitely the most consistent in timing (26mins end to end, automated trains, no traffic possible means that time rarely varies by more than seconds), and easy to handle a good amount of baggage per person with (big case and carryon each, no problem).

Assuming you mean Okanagan wine @donaldsc Don, then with a car you might consider actually driving up there Pre or Post cruise! It's a fairly popular area for minibreaks locally, especially for sunworshippers, and for really limited run wines the only way to get some is to deal direct with the producer. In addition to the gov't liquor stores - look for Signature branches, as they have some extra-well-trained staff as well as a wider selection - some of the private stores sell things that BC Liquor don't due to lack of volume (there's a whole weird legal thing here when it comes to anything with 'Sin taxes' so technically BC Liquor are always involved behind the scenes, but fancier stuff that there might only be a few cases of left after direct sales to regular customers almost never make it to the BC Liquor retail shelves). If you have specific wines in mind, check if BC Liquor has stock first (just use Product Search on the homepage, it'll tell you which if any stores have it and how many bottles are in stock) - if they do, they'll be the cheapest as the discounts for retailers are very slim here, only a handful of popular-but-crap brands ever get sold for less than regular gov't retail price with most private stores instead putting prices higher rather than even matching them.

Having the same preference, and having used many UK/US/Euro trains, I find that the choice made for the Canada Line rolling stock is actually the best of any of the airport LRTs and even real trains I've used David - your bags are always with you rather than at the other end of the carriage in a dedicated luggage area, which removes a theft risk; there's no need to lift them into an overhead rack (much harder for most folks with any degree of limited strength than sliding under a seat) or even a middle shelf like in many of the UK trains with dedicated multi-shelf luggage spaces on the ends. The actual reason given for the choice of vehicle layout if I'm remembering the early planning documents correctly (which did have multiple layouts for both the chosen provider and the other competing bids) was simply because every dedicated luggage rack eats enough floor space that at least 4 people could stand there instead - and these are ultimately a people-moving service for the overwhelming majority of folks riding them (even on the airport line, except for the stations on the Sea Island fork, most folks have a briefcase/daypack level of encumbrance as they are commuters). I'm pretty sure the set of 4 sideways seats referenced by @Milhouse above are supposed to be priority 'for folks who need them' seating, so I had discounted the open areas when replying to the folks with 2 big'uns each - but standing in the open area across from them with your cases vertical should enable keeping them under control easily enough if you stand nearer the front of the train (acceleration is more gentle than braking, you want to be bracing them for the slowing down part - and worst case it's you who gets bumped by your own case then, not other folks!) There's really only going to be room for a couple of folks with four big cases to fit in that part of each carriage, but since both YVR and Waterfront are terminus stations you board a basically empty train so it's rarely hard to get a choice of where to be if you're ready when the train pulls in. @dsteinthe new fare system removes the zone calculation, or even using the ticket machines at all, for most folks these days - as long as you have 1 tappable credit card, or smartphone with a loaded card to their NFC app, per person you literally tap them on the gates to enter and leave and the system does the required math of zones traveled and autobills at interbank exchange rates the appropriate Adult fare for that time and day. Kids too old to travel free (13+) do need an adult to have a spare card to let them do this, and for both them and Seniors 65+ who want to save a bit of money may still choose to use a machine so they can get a Concession fare of course!

Only the very first (bag drop, which is split by ship, not line, so do be very careful!) and the very last part (actually boarding) is ship-specific, with Checkin-in desks done by lines and then Security and CBP Preclearance a mixed bag of all pax regardless of ship or line. You won't be able to board the wrong HAL ship - your cruise card will be rejected at the gangway as you're not on their manifest - but you can put your bags into the wrong cage and if you do that it may not be caught (there have been a few reports over the years of folks and their bags both being on the right line but not vessel!)

Luggage drop is reliably available somewhere down in the parking levels by at least 9:30am - look for signs and some guys standing around with big cages on wheels. I'd suggest even later for your return - depends what time HAL departs, but even if they're on the earlier side like 4/4:30pm you can push it to 2 hours predeparture with total safety. If e.g. your Celeb vessel isn't leaving until 5 or later, they may have official boarding slots issued that run later than your new HAL ship, so especially if it's a day with a third or even fourth ship on top of those two it can still be pretty busy through to 2pm. Depending what you want to eat, and if you want a view, outdoor seating, or only care about quality grub Gastown may or may not be the best place to dine; if it's a nice day and you like 'al fresco' the other side of the convention centre from the pier has restos with tons of outdoor seating and big windows, from decent pub grub (Tap & Barrel) to 'fine dining lite' (Cactus Club) for example, among several other food options on or above the Seawall, and these are all even nearer than pier than most Gastown restos.

A whole buck less! 😉 My concern with a mid-September date is that this might actually be a 'just for the cruiseline' excursion, with who knows what compromises made to the menu to drive down the value even further... I just checked, because it's been a while, and they have jacked the price up yet again (now CAD$95!) and changed reservation system to SevenRooms from OpenTable - right now, resos only go until 4pm on the September dates I checked so you might want to enquire as to precisely what's included on this excursion and compare it with the detailed list of the included nibbles, types of tea etc. for the regular 'good but pricey' version... which not that long ago had a blatant Summer Tourist Tax added (prices in June-Sep were 50% higher than rest of the year when I first moved out to the west coast ~13 years ago - now they just keep the tourist tax on year round, while other Fairmonts have near identical menus for about two-thirds the price). Note that High Tea is one of those ironic names - it's a real meal, far more casual than Afternoon Tea though slightly-swanked-up compared to the regular 'meat and two veg' Tea (which just means dinner/supper to many folks in Scotland, Ireland, & North of England) by adding some scones & jam, maybe a pastry - an upgrade to us working plebs as a treat but hardly comparable to the froo-froo Afternoon all-luxury version! Coffee (and iced tea) isn't inherently a warning about a bad experience though - that's been offered alongside the classic pot of hot tea for at least my lifetime, very helpful to long-suffering family members dragged along grudgingly to at least be able to drink a familiar beverage (and even Britain was far more of a coffee drinking nation until the Victorian era anyway, when coffee rust decimated the original Indian coffee plantations while not impacting tea production). Even if you're still keen to go I'd check out the options around OK City first - this website does a great job at listing locations offering teas, even just seasonal/special occasion ones rather than regular menu offerings, although I've found that the prices can often be well out of date. Even if there's nothing as fancy as the Empress, you'll at least have some baseline expecations set so you'll be able to assess how good the surroundings/service/baking was without also trying to process the whole concept for the first time.

If it's Vancouver to Seattle, am I correct in assuming that this is a post-cruise shuttle to get you to a flight out of Seatac? If not, please clarify! Unfortunately even if you get accurate feedback, there's no guarantee your experience will be the same as folks last year had, or even folks the day before you - Princess (and the other lines too) do not have a singular process, or a singular local charter bus line they always use, or even a constant legal framework to operate the service within, so at times the experience literally varies day to day not just season to season. Given I live in Vancouver, I've never taken a cruiseline transfer to Seatac - but I've crossed the border in every remotely sensible way you can and seen enough reports from folks who complained when something went screwy with their transfers to be aware of how the local logistics work. I can therefore talk you through the theoretical options - from the simplest (and least likely, as it requires buy-in from port authority and both Canadian and US border control agencies) to the most-annoying (where the line, despite taking your money, has no bus booked at all and just buys you a seat on the 9:10am scheduled QuickCoach that leaves from the pier at least 5 days a week in summer). Which you will get you likely until the day before when your Disembarkation docs appear under the cabin door; you may even find out at the pier who's going on which bus! Best case is a Sealed Bus Transfer - legally you never leave US territory, boarding inside the pier without going through Canadian customs, the bus door literally sealed with a sticker, drive to the border where CBP just check that the seal remains intact and if it is wave you through. This is the fastest possible drive, as literally no stops in Canada (illegal to do so!) and probably not even a toilet stop between US border and SEA, and 3 hours end to end is possible if there's not much traffic in Seattle. These trips however need so many people to agree that they're happening it's best to assume you will NOT get this treatment - even pre-Covid the shorter rides just to YVR's US controlled wing failed to happen more seasons than they managed to get all their ducks in a row and make happen, so the odds are against you. If this is an option, it should be advertised as such - names like a 'US Direct Transfer' have been used in the past. Next-easiest, and the most likely if you are cruising in Summer rather than close to the beginning or end of the season, is a direct transfer by charter coach - you'll have to disembark, go through Canadian customs (this may happen onboard depending on cruise route - if you are asked to hand in a customs form aboard you probably will not see CNSA at all in the pier), then walk over to the bus (inside the pier, many buses, be sure to get the correct one!) and leave your bags next to the trunk hatch. Get driven to the border, park, get off and retrieve your bags from next to the bus, head inside to drop them on the x-ray scanner belt (no trolleys, no porters!), be processed by CBP for entry to the US, collect your bags and take them back outside next to the bus again, reboard. With processing time at the border, expect at least a 4hr trip - they might also add a toilet break stop. NB: the bag schlepping thing is the default - but CBP can choose not to ask for it, leaving bags onboard the bus instead, or even go so far as to let you all stay aboard the bus holding up your passports and have an agent walk the aisle, comparing faces to IDs. As a charterbus full of cruisers, in US waters until yesterday, with basically no time to have gone shopping in Canada before boarding the bus, and probably almost all US citizens and greencard holders, there is no official statistic but common sense indicates your coachload is more likely to benefit from a 'light' inspection due to being low-risk compared to a random bus-ticket buying person... but always assume you will go through the whole rigamarole! Least-easy is when instead of a charter, you are added to an existing QuickCoach departure - basically it's the same process as a charter in terms of border crossing, but because your fellow pax could be literally anyone the odds of nicer-than-they-need-to-be CBP treatment diminish! QuickCoach express service does also stop a few times, so their official timing is ~4h50m to SEA from downtown Vancouver. Why won't you know in advance what will happen? Because until the last night of the cruise anyone aboard can buy a seat on a transfer... so Princess literally don't know how many seats are needed. If it's less than a coachload, but they had enough advance sales to have already chartered a bus, great - it's when the number of seats sold exceeds the capacity of the booked vehicles that things get messy, with perhaps a minibus hired at short notice or seats booked on QuickCoach depending how many extra bums need seats to sit on. Honestly, short of finding an advertised sealed-bus transfer in advance you should at least consider booking your own transport independently - renting a car for the day will very likely be both cheaper and much more flexible in timing and routing, since you mentioned kids that means at least three or more of you and those per-person tickets really add up. If you don't have a flight to catch same day, the evening train is both much more pleasant and significantly cheaper than any bus (adults $34, kids even less, some ages even free with Amtrak Saver tix). Even booking QuickCoach direct you can probably spend less to get basically the same experience - direct from pier to airport - and at least know you have a seat reserved on a QC coach rather than a random factor to worry about. Only if you have Princess flights booked would letting them do it for you be worth giving up control of timing and pricing of your transpo IMO - since if they fail to get you to the flight in time they'll be on the hook for all the rebooking costs.

Honestly, the best question isn't so much 'how early can I check-in?' as 'how efficiently can I check in?' As already mentioned, you can drop bags before check-in begins - but you can then leave and enjoy yourself for hours before coming back after the queues have died down! The first people aboard will have waited maybe two hours for that privilege; even folks unlucky enough to roll in on Amtrak or a late morning flight who arrive in the peak 11am-1pm hours probably spend less time on average in the terminal than those early-arrivers do, although they may spend 90+minutes slowly shuffling through the queues rather than sitting down in a waiting room for 90mins then moving quickly through the security and CBP. But show up late, when most folks are already aboard? It's easy to spent only 20 minutes curb to cabin, literally never stopping moving except when interacting with staff or kiosks at the various stages. Well worth the price of missing one 'free' sitdown lunch IMO! Even us locals can find things to do around town that are much more worthwhile than sitting in a cavernous room with a horde of other pax for hours, and folks who don't live here or visit often will find more things to do for tourists than in every Alaskan port put together! The risk of showing up too late to be allowed to board is also basically zero unless you make a poor decision, like sightseeing over on the north shore (in theory it's a half hour drive back from Capilano bridge for example, but due to very limited bridge routes it can easily double just because of traffic, let alone if there's an accident). Sightsee around downtown, leaving the spots an easy walk back to the pier for last (Gastown, Harbour Centre are <10mins away on foot; FlyOverCanada ride is literally on the pier!) and you can shave the margins to maximise sightseeing time very safely - aim for 2 hours before your ship departs and you should hit the sweet-spot of as few other people around as possible but no chance of missing the ship.

Just checked Accent Inns - a small local BC chain - and they still offer 'stay & park' deals at their airport location that work out to $40 per week on top of room rate with up to 4 weeks parking allowed to be booked. That's as cheap as it's going to get for parking, and if you are driving all the way from the 'peg @jenquist I imagine you'll be planning at least one local night in case of delays en route (fire season plus limited routes makes for incredibly lengthy detours occasionally in summer on top of the inevitable roadworks, idiots renting RVs who have no idea how to drive them well causing massive tailbacks on all single-lane roads through the mountains, occasional accidnts etc.) Not a great location for sightseeing - but the hotel's airport shuttle should be able to drop you at Aberdeen or Bridgeport SkyTrain stations, saving you the $5pp Addfare compared to riding it from the airport station downtown, and they'll obviously pick you up at YVR on the way back.

To the best of my knowledge it's the same experience regardless of the time of day - and cruise seasons for the prior 5+ years have seen OpenTable bookings available until 9pm, at least until Canadian Summer ends on Labour Day! This is very likely going to save you some money, as the cruiselines jack up the laready outrageous CAD$90pp to cover a shuttle bus into town which you could either walk in about 20min or pay $10 for a cab full of people to do instead. Honestly less money does buy better elsewhere - but if you only have a PVSA compliance evening stop none of the better value tearooms have followed the Fairmont down the path of evil that is Afternoon Tea In The Evening! At least book it directly yourself though and cab or walk it, US$100 = $130ish Canadian, so you could hire a cab both ways yourself, tip the cabbie 100% of the fare, and still break even!

Yes, there's space for pretty big suitcases under each seat - but with 2 big ones each you're going to have some trouble as there's no way to fit all your cases within your seat area at all comfortably unless your idea of a big case is very different than my own. To put specific size parameters in place, when the missus and I travel for a long vaycay we take a 28" roller plus a 21" carryon each, her big purse and my small backpack - we fit into a pair of seats OK, with big cases slid underneath, the 2 carryons in front of her knees and between my right leg/her left (I'm tall, she's short) and our personal bags on knees. Maybe you don't mind sitting with a big case across your knees, but if you don't want to do that then as long as you can keep control of your additional big cases having them in the aisle next to your seat won't get you kicked off the train (unless you get very unlucky, automated trains mean very few staff are ever around to enforce rules). But unless at least one of you is short enough to fit a big case vertically in front of your knees, or you stack them on top of you, whoever is on the outside seat would need to sit awkwardly turned to get both hands out to hold two big cases in the aisle - braking is fast enough than an unheld case will absolutely tip over or roll forward into other peoples legs if anyone is standing. If your 'big' bags are actually paired big & less-big cases that stack or strap together securely, so you're able to wheel them as one unit, you should be fine moving around - but if it's a 'one hand pulling each case by the handle' situation I'm going to suggest that you should take a cab instead to avoid banging into people navigating both stations and sidewalks. Plus not being able to safely use escalators means you have to find and wait for elevators in all SkyTrain stations and at the pier (in stations, if you really want to shove a case in front of you and pull one behind nobody will stop you using the escalators, but at the pier they actually will - you will not be allowed to self-disembark with two large suitcases that need a hand each, staff are placed at the escalators to redirect folks without a hand free to hold on with toward the loooooooong queue for the elevator). Certainly inbound, even for just 2 people, a taxi makes for decent value - SkyTrain tickets get hit with a $5pp surcharge inbound, which more than doubles the price at peak time and more then triples it for a Senior offpeak! Fixes cab fare to or from the pier is $41 per vehicle - potentially room for 4 people and ton of bags if you get a van taxi, always at least 3 pax and a decent number of cases in the most common Prius cabs. To downtown hotels, unless you're in a fancy one right by the pier, fixed fare inbound is $37 - so compared to SkyTrain, 4 adults actually break even when paying regular daytime fares of over $9 each... Outbound, with no surcharge, and especially if you have a tight flight time, the savings in money and time are much more attractive - and if it's a weekday, commuter volumes are massively toward downtown rather than YVR so there's a good chance you will have ample space to take up 2 pairs of seats across the aisle from each other and tuck your cases in no problem even if you're traveling around 9am.

There are a couple of other websites specializing in day rooms to check, but every one I've looked at only turns up the Hyatt downtown consistently (and the Fairmont YVR, which is even more kaching and not at all convenient for sightseeing!) If you've got young kids or fogeys who need naptime your options are likely to be Hyatt or nothing; but if everyone is old enough, but not too old, to manage a day on their feet before the redeye you could just store your bags ($10ea at the Pan Pacific hotel right above the pier, even less at some other locations found using luggagehero, bounce and similar) and put the cost of a dayroom toward a HOHO tour, ticketed attractions etc. I find that a movie ticket provides a great place to nap (pick a boring film!) in air-conditioned comfort, with a guarantee of being woken up when the movie ends so you won't sleep too long and miss heading out to YVR 😉 One outside the box possibility is to rent office space by the hour - while I think all our hotels are now back to capacity enough post-Covid that they are no longer renting their rooms as offices so the odds of getting a room with a real bed are near zero, you might find some with a couch suitable for a couple of wee ones?

Honestly, if it's more about the company than the food I'd keep it simple and stick to Timmies, Mickey Ds, or A&W (who actually do a passable Fried brekky in case anyone is looking for a bit more of a lasting protein/fat hit). If you want fancier fare though, of the options listed I'd say Bel Cafe is the most practical - while the portion size isn't as good as Medina and the dishes run a bit simpler in flavour profile, Hawksworth runs the tightest kitchen in the city so consistency is as good as it gets and the daily deals up the value quite a bit. It's also a helluvalot easier to walk in and get a four top than Medina! If Light is the most important aspect of the food, then Tractor would work well - even most locals think of them as just 'that weird salad bowl place full of people in Lululemons!' but they do a very decent range of brekkies at a modest price; $6 for a bacon & egg wrap is not to be sniffed at, and avotoast for single digits of dollars is mad good value for Van! Even big fat carnivores like myself can fill our bellies decently by adding a wrap onto the side of a brekkie bowl or sammich, and still come in at <$20 - the only real issue with them is they're so healthy that they don't sell coffee, just lemonades, kombuchas, and stuff...

Yup - there will be road closures making things a little more annoying, but then there's also way less commuter traffic on a holiday so it might end up being a wash. Cab fares are now fixed from pier to airport, so even if it is a slower drive you ain't paying extra for it (although Uber will undoubtedly Surge the cra*p out of fares if they're busy!) Canada Place will update their website with the event schedule nearer July but you can look at last years for an idea of what's happening Even if you're the last folks kicked off, don't start waiting for a cab until ~9:30am, wait an hour, take an hour to drive, get caught up in all the cruise bus traffic at YVR so you take another hour plus to get through bag drop, security, preclearance... you'll still be at your gate before boarding starts so I wouldn't worry about missing the flight but I'd still prebook a timeslot for Security! Personally though I'd much rather get going earlier, take SkyTrain if you can manage (if you can self-disembark you are 100% capable of schlepping your bags to, on, and off the train - and unlike cars, no traffic issues!), then chill at the airport for a couple of hours longer. Treat yourself to lounge access with what you save taking SkyTrain (<US$3pp!) 😉

First, read through the official website which lists all the assorted subsections within the park. Then fire up Google Maps, which has had official drive-throughs along the entire Seawall, all the roads, and even some trails. On top of that, tons of uploaded personal photos including the rotable 'photospheres' let you put yourself into the picture - for the vast majority of the park, pretty much all of it except the ticketed Aquarium and the sporting activities really, the crux of whether or not you'll find it worthwhile to visit is to look at the views! Unfortunately the park-specific HOHO died years ago, so the only way to actually VISIT each section rather than getting a driveby on the not-cheap, very limited loop horse trolley is to buy your way around - with either sweat or money... the park website still mentions trolleybuses and coach tours here and there (our Park Board is the epitome of inefficient when it comes to anything managerial or technological!) but aside from a token stop on some city bus tours there really isn't any non-private tour that gives even close to as much as the horse trolley does, and that only sees a fraction of one part of the park. If you can ride a bike, rent a bike - if at least some of you can ride a bike, consider a Tandem or eBike (if it's someone lacking strength/endurance, let younger legs or a motor provide the power!) or a Tricycle (if it's a balance issue). Bikes can get basically anywhere that folks on foot can, but with a significant speed improvement - crucial if you want to see sites that are not all close together as efficiently as possible. A car is actually a fairly efficient way to move folks who don't or can't walk far or bike - if you have any other suburban attractions you would like to visit (e.g. Queen Lizzie Park or UBC Campus) then renting a car for one day may work out very well for you even if you don't get out of town proper with it. Parking in Stanley is 'pay once by plate number, park anywhere for the time paid' which means you can drive inside to e.g. near the totem poles, park and wander a bit; then move the car onward to Prospect Point, Rose Garden, Tearoom etc. Not every bit of the park is superconvenient to a parking lot, but there are several spread throughout (the link above has detailed maps), so as long as folks can walk or others can push them even a couple of hundred yards you can visit many of the popular parts. Hiring a cabbie to drive you around will add up - official wait time runs just over $30 an hour these days, cost while moving usually works out at least double that, so it doesn't take too long for the meter to run up higher than a rental car + parking but you could take the risk of calling cabs/ubers etc. for each leg... I do occasionally see a cab sitting in the parking lot at Prospect Point, and once you're around the far side where the restos are folks obviously cab to and from those for lunch & dinner, so you might not have to wait too long provided you only make a small number of stops to look at stuff. Hiring a private guide for the day with a vehicle would be pricier than the cab or rental option, but might get you some good tales as well as transport. If memory serves there are GPS-based cheap downloadable 'tours' that you can follow, and at least one guy literally selling a live virtual tour so whether you walk or bike or cab around somebody will talk to you on your phone about what you're looking at. Some First Nations run tours will walk you around with a focus on art, medicinal plants, etc., and if you get lucky and visit on a day when there's something happening locally there might be specific event stuff related to Canada Day or whatnot. As a local, nine times out of ten if I'm in the park myself rather than bringing visitors I'm doing the whole seawall loop on foot or bike - the only bit of the park I never, ever miss on those visits is the totem pole display, which is very close to the seawall so a trivial amount of extra sweat involved. Everything else is nice in varying degrees, but some parts are seasonal (roses!) and others too much effort if you've already done them (Prospect Point - yes, the views are nice BUT not nice enough to schlep up that hill on foot or bike for the umpteenth time!) so it's all about 'is this a great day for X?' but if you're a first timer you should get your butt up the hill for those views 😉 The only 'landmark' that I would give a caveat to in cruise season is Beaver Lake - if you expect to see Beavers! There's other stuff to see on the loop around it, it's certainly interesting, but even our pretty-chill-about-people local beavers rarely make an appearance except pretty early or late in the day (the ten-cent word is Crepuscular; they like to be out around both dawn and dusk) and that's when also when you get into potential issues with coyotes, homeless campers, and the practical matter that to be at the lake at a good beaver-spotting time means either arriving or leaving the park when it's pretty damn dark (not much artificial lighting in the park). The Seawall and the main vehicular roadways are easy enough to navigate even at dark o'clock, but among the trees? Lots of potential ouchies. Everywhere else depends on you and yours for its relative value - maybe you love Rhododendrons but hate Roses, love Burns but hate Shakespeare, so you fine-tune which garden areas and statues to visit accordingly! There's all sorts of quirky little things around, like our local copy of Copenhagen's Little Mermaid with far more clothes on, bits of grass with interesting signs, an island that is geographically a peninsula but officially a ship, a lagoon named as its literal opposite, and while we don't have a tree you can actually drive a car through any more you can still stand inside the cyborgian remnants of it and imagine you're in a Model T. Something for just about everyone in other words - what's best for you unfortunately can only really be answered by you, but at least these days Streetview is a massive help enabling you to do homework long in advance.

Assuming you have all three options already OP, broken in and comfy, then I'd choose the lightest pair without much wear on the sole which also gives some ankle support - in Alaska there's a good chance you'll be staring off at a distant animal, glacier, peak or whatnot, and it just takes a second of not paying attention to your footing to turn an ankle. Big risk? No - and if forced to choose between a grippy sole and ankle support I'd go for the former as rain and wet decks are pretty much a given, but if you can have both that's best. If your suitcase is getting full, wear the boots on the plane!

Well buggeration - I think I'm conflating a couple of different stories about people who resurrected restos, turns out Carol Lee didn't buy DG she just hired a bunch of the staff after the fire ~8(?) years back. I assumed when DG reopened that was also her, given she'd been trying to reopen Foo's HoHo for years I figured she'd pivoted to DG instead but some press tales indicate a completely different lady owns it... I was in with my mum when she last visited, as Chinatown BBQ was packed with people, not long before they closed due to difficulty staffing... somewhat embarrassing as that was a year ago! Sorry for the mislead, thanks for the catch M, and I'll throw out the Not Chinese But Excellent Phnom Penh as an alternative great value joint because Yelp thought they were closed forever last week thanks to idiot posters claiming so, despite the usual hand-written sign in the window about this time of year that they are closed for family vacation fun... Viet-Cambodian, outstanding beef and the best wings in the city!

T&T is a great spot for a cheap hot lunch (takeout) as well as whatever interesting Canadian/Chinese candies and other dry goods you might want to stock up on - walking there though might be a bit of a gritty, urban experience if you follow Googles suggested routing! The simplest (and only an extra couple of hundred yards, just over instead of just under a mile) route to avoid the most unpleasant views is to follow Howe St from the pier, hang a left on Dunsmuir for several blocks, and then take the stairs down to T&Ts front door behind Chinatown-Stadium SkyTrain station. Or just SkyTrain it - without your luggage the older Expo line works just fine, and the platform access right outside the the pier on Howe takes you to that line. You can even ride it there and back without paying twice - fares are good for another boarding within 90mins of your first, any direction, and if you have a Visa or MC credit card with a tappable chip you don't even have to waste time figuring out the machines, just tap on the fare gates when you enter and leave and all the math gets done for you... Even if you visited multiple branches, you'd be hard-pressed to fill one of your days at T&T let alone three different embarkation days! It would be a safe 'last place before embarking' spot to visit, given the choice of SkyTrain (<10mins) or walking (depends how fast you can walk a mile) which are both independent of any traffic jams.

If it's this year, then that last Solstice one-way will go through Preclearance - it's straight to Hawaii with no other Canadian stops - so it should be an exact repeat of the first Solstice embarkation. The HAL one in-between likewise, except of course you'll have different check-in desks and bag drop - but Security and CBP you should become very familiar with after running through the same rooms three times in a month! Personally, even if you have a bunch of pre-cruise-one time here, I'd suggest only doing bag drop when you disembark then getting out of the pier to do some stuff for the day. It's more efficient to board late - that whole 'two different countries have to agree the vessel is clear from a customs and immigration perspective' always causes a big delay, so unless you enjoy sitting on plastic chairs in a huge room for 2 hours it's much better to get out and about then come back as close to the 2 hours pre-departure limit as you feel comfortable with. If it was 2 Solstice then a Nieuw Amst or vice versa so you could get the quicky B2B pax clearance, heading right back onboard would be efficient - but since you're changing ships both times even if you wait until they kick you off at about 9am, you'll likely sit and wait until almost 11am before you're even allowed to leave the big holding room to go to Security... Be strategic with your pre-cruise time and do the furthest away stuff you are interested in, leaving downtown core attractions for the embarkation mornings and the really-close-to-the-pier attractions for your three embarkation afternoons - Harbour Centre, Fly Over Canada, wandering Gastown, that sort of thing - so you're walking distance to the pier during the last couple of hours before you plan to embark and your risk of any problems making you late is removed; this way you can both maximise and optimise your time in town as efficiently as possible!

From the PP, if it's walkable dim sum you're after I'd go with Kirin - or if money is no object, Mott32. If you don't mind a fairly short transit or cab ride, Dynasty on Broadway has racked up as many or more awards as the top-end Richmond joints - Dynasty was actually the first of the newest wave of fancy Chinese restos, with almost everything since then also opening in Vancouver proper including the only Michelin-starred Chinese place in the country, Quanjude. Once you move into more budget, 'mom & pop' level reliably-good restos it's pretty much all about Richmond - but in Chinatown proper there are still a handful of tasty bargains e.g. Chinatown BBQ and Daisy Garden (same owner, a local gal made good, who 'rescued' these businesses and keeps prices artificially low so the local Seniors can still afford to dine where they live), or for Dim Sum the factory kitchen that makes most of the dim sum dishes reheated by anywhere that isn't supes fancy will actually sell takeout food direct to the public (Kam Wai) - there are some small tables you can even eat at if you get lucky! The already-mentioned Jade Dynasty is probably the best balance of a dim sum focused joint that is decently priced, has plenty of tables that don't involve sharing with strangers, a nice clean space, and service that doesn't feel rude to Westerners... but I don't think many PP guests would enjoy the walk, unless you're familiar with Vancouver it's hard to avoid walking past some pretty dodgy blocks on any remotely-direct route, so I'd be inclined to take a cab even though it's barely a mile.

100% they will be in the same building - the only other pier closed several years ago and is now part of a secure cargo terminal - but your walk won't just be across the pier since check-in, security, and CBP preclearance are all centralized so when you swap ships you must reenter Canada legally and go through the entire embarkation process just like folks who showed up in a cab from the airport!. Your actual B2B on same vessel, whichever pair of the three cruises those are, you will need to get off to be cleared by both Canadian CBSA and American CBP but unless you choose to leave the pier you and the other B2B pax will do that as a group and are then able to walk right back onboard again; but when you switch ship you will have to walk back out and re-enter (well, technically you won't have to go outside-outside, you can just wander through the non-secure internal space to bag drop for the second ship, but you will do a lot of back & forth plus up and down several levels. Worst case if it's a 3+ ship day and you start in the furthest berth you might rack up close to half a mile in total, but in various smaller chunks with the possibility of sitting down at some points; including at least 200 yards where you'll have to schlep your checked bags again or else find a porter. If you can handle major airports without wheelchair assistance, you'll be fine. When you say 'out of Vancouver' if your very first cruise starts here then all the things you do when you first arrive are the exact same things you'll repeat when you swap ships - neither you nor your bags can skip any of those steps legally. The only complication would be if this is start/end of season and one of the cruises is a Repo coastal - some of those visit a Canadian port after Vancouver, so US Preclearance doesn't happen... if your combo includes one like this you may not do exactly the same steps both times!

Edit - should have thought to mention that this is Canada Day! There will be Stuff Happening at the pier - family friendly entertainment, bands, performers, and the like which may mean the usual bus stops for HOHO and other tours are shifted a block or two away... Unless something odd happens, there won't be much in the way of road closures, just the block or two immediately next to the pier becomes pedestrianized (so crowds can flow between the pier and the other side of the convention centre, where the olympic flame is). Fireworks may or may not happen - after Covid we expected them to come back, the Port claimed too expensive despite making record profits with all the extra shipping, and the first attempt to use a drone show instead of fireworks failed miserably... but your flight times means even if there is a firework/drone show it'll start too late... Original post below remains as I typed it! There are day tours that will take you and your bags, but for a late flight none of them last long enough except a trip to Victoria, which is TOO long! Unless you've visited before, for first-timers I feel like the ideal choice is stash bags, ride HOHO all day (it might be very busy in the morning, since it stops right outside the pier so a lot of folks without plans may be tempted to jump on - if you hop off at some of the early stops you may not find a seat waiting to hop back on then next bus, but the later it gets the easier it becomes to get back on without delay), eat dinner downtown, retrieve bags, head to YVR for no earlier than 2 hours before your flight. HOHO tix cost less than post-cruise coach tours and go to basically the same places as the city tours do - so even if all you do is ride it around the loop rather than hopping on and off it's still decent value. City coach tours will drop you at YVR around 1:30pm; North Shore tours (Capilano, Grouse) maybe 3pm, and even a Whistler day tour perhaps 5pm - none of these are much use for a late flight as you won't even be allowed to check your bags that early, and while YVR is among the nicest airports on the continent to kill time in more than an hour or two there is really stretching things. Better to keep it simple, do a little research to see which city attractions seem most enticing to you, and then fill your day with the best stuff for you - you could even skip the HOHO and just walk, take transit, or short Cabuber rides from site to site if you don't feel the need for a guided spiel while driving around. Crowds at YVR are way down in the evening, and any flight that does not Preclear avoids one of the steps so takes less time - CBP stop work at 8:30pm, so a 10ish flight will not be Precleared. With a suitcase that needs checked you still must arrive at least an hour early (even without CBP examining bags, airlines at YVR have a 60min deadline preflight to check bags headed to US or Int'l) and given the lighter queues you should waltz through Security even if you don't prebook a timeslot, so depending how nervous a traveler you are leaving downtown 7:30 to 8pm should give you ample padding, especially if you take SkyTrain (very consistent 26min ride time, unlike cabs no traffic issues).

Yup - even if you are not a guest, you can pay them $10 a bag (cheaper than the official pier storage as well as much longer hours, so it's far more practical - you can sightsee unencumbered, have dinner, then collect bags and head to YVR)

Agree that since this will be dark o'clock, the only interior spaces to visit are pubs - every ticketed attraction, except possibly the IMAX theater at the museum, will be long closed and even the Fairmont's egregiously overpriced 'Afternoon' Tea (which notoriously takes bookings as late as 9pm in peak summer) is unlikely to be on offer beyond 5pm once Labour Day has rolled around. Wander into town by going left or straight ahead instead of right toward the park; enjoy looking at parliament and other buildings around the inner harbour all lit up nice, visit a pub (personally it's always Swans for us, up next to Chinatown) and then wander back to the pier. In terms of actual excursions I wouldn't bother personally, but there will almost certainly be some options available both indy and through NCL - if you're horsey people and want to blow a wodge of cash rent a carriage (don't take the trolley, they have rows of bench seats with poor sightlines unless you sit on the outside, anything costing less than $75pp is almost certainly a trolley!); if you're small boat fans, then there's a chance the pickleboats might be running for tours of the harbour from the water for a much more modest price; NCL might package a coach tour pub crawl - much cheaper to just take a cab between pubs yourself if you don't want to walk. If your visit is in the first half of Sep, NCL will almost certainly sell you a far-too-short and overpriced visit to Butchart Gardens. If they are selling one that means the gardens are open, so you could split a cab with a couple of friends each way will give you more time at the gardens than the cruise bus will and also save a pretty hefty chunk of cash (assume about $120 for a cab that seats at least 4 and $40 per adult ticket, all in CAD - compare that to price of NCL excursion to see what the saving is). Butchart is a great garden, but I'm not a fan of doing it all in the dark even though they do light it up - even early in Sep you're unlikely to arrive with much in the way of daylight!

Yes, they will - they have a real bell staff (desk on ground floor right by the doors) who can hold bags (which should be free for you as a guest checking in that day), call a cab etc.