martincath

No worries - I wish hotels that did this simply greyed out the available date fields so you couldn't enter a date they're not taking yet rather than marking dates beyond X 'sold' and letting customers try to make a booking that won't work. I think it's a weaselly business school psychology trick to induce exactly the sense of panic you felt and make the hotel seem even more desirable 'because it must be so popular'!!!

Good point - definitely ensure you are compliant with the MOST restrictive rules on timing, testing, Vaxx status etc. whether that's CBP, Canadian gov't, or cruiseline! So many special cases these days it's nigh impossible to give a single, definitive answer to anything... Well in that case, definitely go for ~9:30am and bring a good book. You'll end up waiting around for probably 60-90mins until CBSA and CBP agree the ship is zeroed out, security are ready to start, and all the dominos fall in place but once things do start up you should be strolling through just as fast as we do when we show up late.

It's almost certainly not - like many local hotels, their online booking only opens 11 months ahead, so if you are trying for late May you'll need to come back maybe next week? Or you could call them and ask - freephone anywhere in North America on 1 800 663 1424

HOHO bus tours - there are a few stops within the park, including the totems (frankly unless you're visiting every brewery in the city I wouldn't bother with the brewpub - it's definitely in the lower tier of local beer makers, although if the timing is convenient it's not a terrible lunch option). If biking is an issue of fitness, there are lots of electric bike rentals now. If it's balance, adult tricycles are available (and quite practical with the basket between the back wheels to hold a bag, just make sure never to leave anything in the basket when you park them!) - or if you're a couple and your other half has good legs, hire a tandem and let them do the pedalling 😉 Otherwise, cars can get to many spots - not on the actual seawall, but very close by at several points including both the totems and brewpub. Parking is done on a 'pay once, move anywhere else in the park for the duration of the ticket' basis so you can split up walking by stopping at each parking lot, checking out the stuff nearby, then driving to the next one - it's one of the very few sites in Vancouver where a car can be useful rather than a hassle for parking! Without a rental car though, the meter on a cab would rack up a lot while waiting for you - given the one-way system some taxi drivers are very reluctant to come pick folks up inside the park as they might have to drive a long way to get to you without the meter running, although you do often see a cabbie or two lurking in high season near some key spots like the Prospect Point cafe... if you're the kind of person who likes to haggle, negotiating with a cabbie for a fixed price impromptu tour of the park with a couple of stops to let you out to take photos might be worthwhile? As to the carriage rides - unless you drop ridiculous coin for a private hire (as in $300+, so cheaper to pay a cabbie for several hours of idling on the meter!!!) to guarantee your own choice of seat and what time you spend where, you won't see much. The horses are slow and you'll be on a big trolley with only the outside seats on each row getting much of a view - and the front row literally blocked by a horses arse! Carriages are really a thing to do if you are the kind of person who enjoys the vibe of a carriage ride, rather than a practical 'actually see lots of stuff' touring option.

There has been a GE/NEXUS lane in the past - and there's one thread from May indicating that it came back this year. Head left - and it might be a pretty small sign, with 'Priority', 'Crew' or similar wording as well as GE/NEXUS so hard to spot across a crowded room! In general, be either very early, definitely before 10am (and expect to wait around until everything begins, but then speed through once everything does open) or else be as late as you possibly can (but never less than 90mins pre-departure time). For shortest possible 'street to cabin time' the latter plan wins as there's no wait time - and gives the bonus of extra time in an awesome city. But if you've visited us before and just want to get onboard as early as possible, I'd say roll in about 9:30am with your bags (it's literally across the street and down a ramp, and then you know 100% you have given your bag to the correct longshoremen for your ship with no possiblity of error by the bellhops if e.g. there are 2 ships of the same line in port...) Haven't visited us before? I wouldn't recommend a North Shore tour on the morning of your embarkation, even if the expected tour end time is early enough - the bridges are always a bottleneck, and with Old Growth Logging protests ramping up their traffic blocking and specifically targetting the bridges now there's an elevated risk of delays. But if you do pretty much whatever else you like around town before noon, come back downtown for lunch somewhere nice, and then leave the last hour or so before emarking for things close enough to the pier to walk there within 10-15mins (e.g. FlyOverCanada which is right on the pier, the Steam Clock in Gastown). This removes all the risk of traffic delays so you can cut your timing very close with virtually no risk.

Since you name-checked me @Urban trekker Dennis I'll respond... +1 to what Dennis said 😉 But if they're both in your price range, you'll get even better value at lower price in the YWCA Hotel around the corner from Blu - their new tower is even newer than Blu, their prices lower, their practical facilities (laundries, kitchens) better, and profits go to a charity. You're obviously not brand-loyal given the comparison between HI and a Hampton family hotel, so unless you feel the need for the extra fripperies that a trendy hotel will offer over a basic one, swap to the Y unless it's sold out already - savings will help you make use of all those extra dining options nearby!

Sorry your sister had that happen to her - and not to make light of it, but statistically it's a helluvalot safer in terms of violent crimes here than Seattle or indeed any large US city. Property theft is the meat & potatoes crime here, from vehicles and homes, rather than 'crimes against persons' especially not violent ones. Seattle rates usually run 3-4x higher than us for violent crimes, homicides even higher than that (although last year seems to have been really bad for them so is skewing the rates unusually badly), so if personal safety is genuinely a concern Canadian vacations look even better in comparison.

Let's see... Vancouver is prettier, cleaner, friendlier, and just all-around much more awesome than Seattle for Pre- or Post-cruise stays; CAD means everything is discounted for folks used to using USD here; you can work on expanding your mind by learning a foreign language (Canadian eh, Cantonese, or Mandarin all come in useful - hardly anyone here speaks French!); cruising saves hours of Zero View sail time around the outside of Vancouver Island and replaces it with the actually-more-scenic-than-anywhere-in-Alaskan-waters lower reaches of the Inside Passage, including some parts so narrow it feels like you can reach out and high-five pax on ships passing the other direction; no need for a Victoria stop to comply with PVSA rules - and even if you want to visit Victoria, check the port times carefully on those Seattle RTs as odds are very high you'll only have a token, short, evening-only stop when a lot of stuff is close; one-way cruises are plentiful, so you can actually see some of the 99% of Alaska that isn't a coastal town Of course there are some downsides: international travel means Passports are pretty much required (there are a few ways to weasel around it, but realistically if you get on a plane you need a passport...); even though our dollar is worth less, our higher-taxes-and-minimum-wages tends to mean that eating out, especially drinking booze, is just as pricey as Seattle or even more so on the lower end of things; fewer flight options - none of the really budget airlines come here, the fees to fly across the border make prices higher and the lower competion pushes them up even more; ArriveCAN is needed for any Canadian visit - but then since Seattle cruises all visit a Canadian port, you still have to do it anyway...; two different sets of Covid rules to worry about - although with our random testing suspended and the US no longer demanding a test to fly home, whether you cruise out of Seattle or Vancouver you'll need a pre-boarding Covid test regardless of whether it is cruiseline rules or Canadian government rules that make you take them so that's pretty much a wash... so really it's just the risk of being quarantined far from home if you test +ve that's different; you might get addicted to new flavours of chips, Kinder eggs, or other Canadian products that are very hard to find or actually illegal in the US 😉

If Victoria is your stop immediately after Vancouver, you will definitely NOT go through US preclearance here - it's illegal unless your vehicle departs Canada within hours based on the legislation our governments signed back in the day, doesn't matter if it is plane, train, or ship. We've done a few of these short repos, and every single one that goes Van>Vic>USA you will do US customs on arrival in the first US port - which means expect some potentially long delays disembarking in that first US port unless it is Seattle or all the way down in LA. Astoria & SF, the only other likely coastal first stops, have very small Marine CBP contingents and not a lot of pier space so don't really staff up enough to churn through a shipload of pax quickly. Do not book any early shore excursions unless they are through the ship!

Agree with Woody - you might get a less-than-stellar exchange rate, but any tourist-serving business that handles cash here or in Victoria has a good chance of taking USD (but NB: change will almost certainly be in CAD). Credit cards for any purchase over $5 are the norm though, so unless you're doing a lot of private tourguide visits who want paid in cash, hitting up an ATM for local cash will likely be overkill. I find that one of the fairest rates is in Tim Hortons - they display the current exchange rate offered on their digital screens, so grab a Double-Double and some Timbits, drop a US$20 or $50, get a bunch of CAD back that shoud cover any tips for doormen and porters, really small purchases like bottles of water/cans of pop/snacks while out and about, and use credit cards for everything else would be my recommendation.

Answers embedded in your Quotes, in red if the formatting works!

2 cabs, 3 pax each on cruise day will be fine even if they are all the most common Priuses - there are almost no 6 seater cabs in the city, I've seen literally two ever. Both were Yellowcab, so you could try giving them a call (all the taxi apps only allow 4 seats to be guaranteed). At YVR, cabs are assigned first-come, first-served in the queue - so if all your flights do arrive on time you could take 2 cabs rather than 3 to the hotel as well, but even if you get lucky with a minivan odds are vanishingly small they'll have more than 4 pax seats. The main reason any company runs van taxis at all (as they are much more expensive to fuel, but must charge same rates by law) is they are legally required to provide a minimum % of accessible cabs per fleet for wheelchair users - so minivans have the middle seats removed, giving space to tie down a motorized wheelchair securely, and if you request an Accessible cab you'd be sent one of those. That still only leaves 4 regular pax seats so they are still effectively just 5 seat vehicles even if a chair/scooter user is short enough to ride it into the cab. If Aerocar have started up again at YVR, or a new franchisee has replaced them with a similar fixed-rate limo service, then splitting one limo ride isn't much more than 2 cabs and it would be more stylish - once you move beyond 4 pax towncars it's usually ~7 pax SUVs with two benches plus front passenger which run about $90 to the BH rather than the $68+Tip for 2 cabs. Stretches accommodating 10-12 the price jumps up to ~$120. If you compare that to each couple taking their own cab, maybe arriving in real style is worth the extra spend...? 😉

Keep the BH reso then, or if you find a better deal downtown change, but the airport will be a serious waste of time - even hotels literally next door to SkyTrain out in Richmond still involve a 25ish minute train ride, plus wait time between trains, every time you come downtown and return. For a late night arrival, heading straight to the pier next morning an airport hotel can make sound financial sense - but time has value, do you want to waste at least an hour every pre-cruise day on transit getting back downtown to sightsee, or spending so much on cabs that it would have been cheaper booking downtown instead? One of our more interesting restos, Forage, is very close to Blue Horizon - I can't comment personally on whether service remains great since TheBeforeTimes as I haven't made it back yet, but the same Chef runs the kitchen and the menu looks comparable. Some game meats, some foraged veggies, very locavore, very tasty. You also have a few Asian spots: ChongQing, a popular local Szechuan resto is a good spot to try a Canadian-Chinese invention, Ginger Beef; a veritable plethora of Ramen joints are on Robson and ideal for a cheap filling meal - Danbo, a block away, is extremely popular though my personal vaourite remains Jinya, closer to the BC Place end of Robson. If your group of six is at all picky, you could make much worse choices than Earls a block away from you - while I don't think anyone would say they are spectacular, they have a very broad menu that should satisfy a wide variety of palates. Cactus Club - since prices are the same, go for one of the two with a view either at English Bay or Jack Poole Plaza - is a step up from Earls but still remains fairly broad, a sort of 'McDonalds of Fine Dining' concept where the food is kinda fancy but every kitchen should be turning out the exact same dishes and the menu very rarely changes. Happy to get into serious detail on resto with you, but really need some guidance in terms of prefered/disliked foods and pricepoint for your group!

Your link is out of date @em-sk - the prices went up in April. The name of the doc changes, but YVR is terrible about not deleting redundant info from their website so your link will likely keep working for years! The new price is $34 - but that link will also become redunant at some point, so I always just point at the taxi page itself, as whatever is the most up-to-date PDF will be clearly linked. @Cruisin Kay D Taxi Fare Finder is very useful for metered fares in many cities all over the world - as long as the jurisdiction has set rates and traffic maps their algorithms are very reliable, giving you the expected rate in typical traffic but also light/heavy. Any cruise morning I'd assume heavy traffic - mostly in the bottleneck of the last block as entry into the pier is a single ramp and dependent on 'one out, one in' as soon as the available cab pickup spots are filled. In theory at under a mile, the meter should be close to $10 as you turn onto Canada Place, but expect at least another couple of bucks to tick away as you crawl the last hundred yards.

Agree SkyTrain will be very easy - but even though six people means two cabs if you're all Adults but not Seniors 2 cabs will actually cost a little less... It's $20 per cab to the River Rock, so $40+tip total and on a short ride like that more than 10% is a very generous tip given the Fixed Fare Zones pad the locations near the airport heavily (it would have been about $10 on the meter back in the day). If everyone is paying the full rate on SkyTrain t adds up to $48.30! If the family includes kids, be aware of the new age categories since any pre-Covid Vancouver visit - kids under 12 are now free on any Translink service all the time. For everyone else, you'll be paying around $7-8pp (always a single Zone fare that time of night, kids 12-18 now all get Concession Fares as do >65s, saving a buck but the $5 per ticket AddFare more than doubles the fare...) That late at night trains run only every 20mins - so even with a couple of free kids in the equation, I'd seriously consider joining the cab queue rather than wait for the train. Next day, coming downtown? SkyTrain, absolute no-brainer - you are off Sea Island so no Addfare applies, so even with 6 full rate fares on a weekday paying for 2 Zones the total cost is a significant saving at $4.35pp ($4.45 after July 1st) and given how close the station is to the hotel you'll arrive quicker than by cab also.

I'd check with the fam - maybe they plan to make a day of it, stock up in Trader Joes, go up the Space Needle, go Twin Peaks or Northern Exposure film location spotting! Train will definitely not be back until next cruise season - official word now is December... maybe! A new bus has started - limited days, but if they work for you it's cheaper than the other options... flixbus. Scuttlebutt is that they've bought the Bolt service lock stock & barrel so will probably have the nicest bus fleet compared to either QS or Amtrak. If your fam are offering because they feel they should, rather than really wanting to head to Seattle, QS would be the least inconvenient option for them as QS have a stop just north of the border in a Surrey Chevron station (pretty much due south of Pitt Meadows so your fam can avoid Vancouver traffic and give you a shorter bus ride). First service of the day is too early for disembarking cruisers to get on, leaving the pier at 6:50am, but by the time it hits that Chevron station it's a far more civilized 8:15am, with a Seattle pier arrival scheduled for 11:40-11:55 which gives a few hours of padding before you have to be onboard.

Virtual tests don't need to be Canadian - the most recent changes to the website gave explicit info on virtual tests, confirming that they must be actively observed and approved for distribution EITHER in Canada OR in the country they were purchased in and the observation happens from. So if RC are being picky, buy a proctored FDA-approved test before leaving home - the actual proctoring service is 24/7 from all the companies I'm aware of, since it's online your physical location at time of testing is irrelevant, so just book a convenient slot when you're in your pre-cruise hotel here for the observation of you taking the test.

Floatplanes are fun - and compared to scheduled flight prices, the tours are decent value - it's very hard to find flights to Victoria under $130pp now, even on weekends/evenings (weekdays with our provincial gov't based there, but a vastly higher population here, there's a metric buttload of demand for 'business hours' flights between Van to Vic). But if you do have a whole day and this is a big deal for the hubster, consider riding along on the mail delivery flights - since they're flying the routes anyway and it does suck up several hours, the price-per-minute-of-air-time is a steal compared to the short 'up, circle Van, down again' all-tourism tours.

To save repeating several links @copi2boys, go read this earlier comment I made which lists multiple storage options. NB: I've since found out that Portergenie are not operating again yet, so leaving bags somewhere and coming back for them is your only option, but there is literally nowhere that is worse value than the official pier storage... unless you book a tour through WestCoast, who then give a significant discount on storage, it's cheaper to store a bag almost anywhere else downtown. The Pan Pacific remains the best option if you are not comfortable actually prebooking somewhere - the bell desk has been confirmed to accept bags from non-guests again this season, they operate 24/7, and the location being right above the pier is also pretty darn convenient.

Late to the party here @barbienj but if you haven't made it to Vancouver yet, we do still have some free tours. Tourguys stopped operating unfortunately so the remaining schedule is much less frequent, but if the timing works Toonie Tours give a very generous 3 hour route for tips only. Full disclosure, I volunteer for Stroll Buddy (name change - used to be the Global Greeters network but some internal politics about profitmaking split the organization, and the keep-it-all-free, all-volunteer, no-tips-expected side of the fight worldwide changed name) so I won't comment on anything qualitative - but if you want a completely off the beaten track custom tour it's hard to argue with 'totally free, just your party, a local all to your very own selves for a few hours' as a concept! Looks like the local Architectural Institute and Heritage walks (which did charge, but were dirt-cheap and incredibly detailed) are not starting up again in 2022 at least - but if you're planning for next year, come back in Spring when fingers crossed there will be these and other options available.

Honestly I haven't a clue what you will be asked to do in actuality! In theory, you should do it before you fly in; then again after you land in Canada in respect of your cruise embarkation details because you do leave Canada and then Arrive in CANada again by cruise, so it really should not be same entry as your flight - but I've read a few mentions of people showing their existing flight receipt being allowed on... The Embarkation entry should deal with your Victoria stop and any other Canadian stops, no matter whether they are <72 hrs down the line or a week or more, BUT there are also plenty of reports of folks being told to fill it in while onboard as they apporach Victoria so it seems pretty likely you'll be asked to, even though you don't need to... and it's definitely a lot less hassle just to do it than to fight them given the minimal time involved. There's even been some clarification on the 'What about Skagway land trips?' I've seen that now strongly suggests you can show your embarkation ArriveCAN receipt at the border there too! Somebody linked it yesterday from Yukon tourism, a story about how they were basically peeved at the railroad for all the work they did getting the Feds to allow cruisers to be exempt from random testing and additional ArriveCAN entries for daytrips only for WP&YR to cancel all the Canadian train trips anyway... so the important issue, another exemption to normal ArriveCAN criteria for cruisers, was very much a buried lede in the story. Again though, multiple reports of folks completing land border ArriveCAN for the Fraser crossing, then yet another as they have now crossed back into the US so being asked to do yet another entry for arrival in Victoria/Vancouver... "If in doubt, fill it out" is the best advice I can offer! Worst case, you give our government more data than they asked for!

Great report so far - but on this point you got lucky by not visiting the current locations of any of our homeless encampments! We have the same issues as everywhere on the Left Coast - more survivable weather and liberal government does bring in extra homeless folks. Right now the biggest camp near downtown is Crab Park just along the waterfront from Canada Place, but east at the industrial end; there are always a few tents in Stanley Park off the trails too. We do however keep things pretty darn clean - although it's been more difficult during the last couple of years, so by local standards the city is pretty filthy these days. However, with us being the prime filming location for many US productions we do deploy various different kinds of fake trash on the streets before filming, then take it away again afterwards, so that we look more authentically 'Big American City' ;-)

Yes - I did see that quote, but the article it came from is wrong (at least grammatically) as it should really say '72 hours or less BEFORE leaving Seattle' rather than FROM leaving Seattle... and even that is wrong, as the clock has always been embarkation based not sailaway time... that got clarified back in April when the Cruise-specific ArriveCAN option arrived instead of just the generic Marine entry being available. Further down, it does mention embarkation time; and in the final steps, it does finally use unequivocal grammar that clearly shows the clock runs backward from rather than the woolly 'of/from' in the first parts; but the Copy/Pasted part retains the misleading grammar that implies you can get on and then complete ArriveCAN within up to 72 hours after the ship has sailed... Again, not Glaciers fault - it's lifted directly from the article, which was obviously not proof-read as it literally contradicts itself!

Doesn't matter - ArriveCAN is for tracking when you Arrive in CANada! As long as you stay in Canadian waters after Prince Rupert, you have not left Canada so you can't arrive in it again... for your flight to the US our of YVR what you need to worry about is the US government requirements - i.e. having a negative Covid test result before you can board a plane. There's no DepartCAN app, fortunately!!!! ;-)

You absolutely, 100% WILL need this - or you will be denied boarding in Seattle! Despite what's being reported above by Glaciers - which I do not doubt is correct given how much the cruise lines have been screwing this up - the Canadian government demands (and has fined Carnival already for failing to check!) that all pax have their ArriveCAN receipt checked at embarkation. There's a pretty active thread from @Ferry_Watcherabout the sh*tshow that has been happening at the pier in Seattle. Thankfully it died down after the first couple of weeks, but rest assured that while you may indeed still be asked to complete ArriveCAN again onboard (if so, just do it - it's easier than fighting with people who have no idea what they're doing, given that it will take you all of two minutes to pull the Saved Travelers from your account) it's the embarkation check that is the actual requirement.