martincath

Given your update @LorabelleI would strongly advise against traveling up from BLI on the day - but if you can arrive early enough the day before to get across the border it makes a lot of sense to use BLI, especially if the lengthy delays at YVR security remain in place when you're traveling. QS have a pretty big fleet of buses and Bellingham is not far at all from Vancouver, so worst-case of a breakdown you won't wait forever to get sent on - but you would definitely end up hosed for boarding same day with any mechanical issue or even a significant border delay. Check Amtrak schedule as well as QS - even if it's only buses running they have later night options than QS, and a cab to Bellingham train station is not very expensive from the airport. Speaking of the border - yes, DO expect to have to schlep your bags in. Despite some utter nonsense that occasionally gets mentioned on here, QS are not magic - they get the exact same treatment as all other buses, no head of the line privilege and no difference in whether or not you need to carry bags inside. Right now with Bolt and Greyhound both dead, the odds are better of only brief delays - but until Amtrak start running trains there will be quite lot more Amtrak buses than usual so the total numbers of coaches being processed might be pretty similar... Whether you need to bring bags in or not is up to CBSA on the day northbound, CBP southbound, and I've only ever seen this skipped when the border is busy. But the biggest issue with buses is that if a single passenger gets a border agent in a bad mood, has a flag on their file, or anything else that means extra questions ALL of you hang around waiting until a decision is made. Check the small print - if you are actually refused entry the bus company can leave you at the border then and there, but until the decision is made the whole busload is held. We've personally experienced delays in TheBeforeTimes of over two hours on buses due to heavy traffic - northbound if the general traffic queue gets much beyond 30mins, that means the buses cannot reach the turnoff to their crossing point as cars are in the way! We've also experienced delays waiting for one person or one couple to get cleared that ran 15mins, on one occasion 45mins. You cannot afford to take the risk of a delay with only a couple of hours of padding on a privately-arranged transfer!

Not the ports themselves (coast = breezes and mosquitos struggle to fly well in wind) but if you plan any excursions inland that's where the wee bar-stewards might start nibbling. We got a bit blase after a cruise or three and stopped carrying bug spray in our pockets - then went for a walk in the woods near Sitka to see some totem poles (ironically enough including this one!) and there were more than a few bitey beasties out and about... All the more galling as we had hi-strength DEET with us on the trip, just back onboard in the bathroom instead of where it would have been useful!!! Considering how easy it is to acquire and carry a small bottle of spray, it's a good habit to take it whenever you leave the ship just in case - but I doubt you could go anywhere in those ports where you'd need a full mesh head cover etc. like you would if you were far inland in mozzie season.

While it doesn't help OP given their 3 day pre-cruise stay, for folks coming in just a day or two beforehand remember that you can use a test taken at home within the last 2 days/72 hours depending on type... so if there's still a free clinic near you with PCR testing you have a full 72 hr validity before boarding a ship up here, and since we no longer need tests to fly into Canada you don't even have to struggle to find a Rapid PCR test rather than the day or two 'send samples off to a lab' versions. All-in-all though, bringing some cheap tests from home and bookmarking at least a couple of online proctoring services is going to be your cheapest and most convenient way if your timing requires a test here in Vancouver.

Questions like this can only have one good answer - pack layers! The amount of variability in temp, rainfall etc. in coastal ports in Spring (plus on the ship itself, when e.g. sailing into a 20kt wind at 20kt makes for some serious windchill...) means even studying the weather trends carefully you can't possibly choose just the right set of 'monotasking' clothes. But if you want to frame ballpark temps, rainfall etc. I find Weatherspark useful - here's a link to their Halifax summary page, you can change the location to your actual ports plus the nearest city to your home to get a comparative idea of what you'll encounter statistically-speaking... but again, one decently-waterproof top shell without a lot of padding and a couple of options for wearing underneath that you can combine if needed covers everything.

Going there, dead easy - all the cabs in Victoria know it's a cruise day and there's a line of them waiting to take your pennies! Coming back - take some numbers with you and call one if you don't see a cab cruising past and need one in a hurry, as it's a pretty residential area so there probably won't be many cabs trolling for business. But if you're reasonably mobile and not under time pressure it's a pleasant walk walk - here's a map from the pier - though not a short one at a little over 3 miles. Beacon Hill park is en route and also worth stopping at for some nice blooms, huge totem pole, longhouse etc.

Depending how many are included in 'we' you might find that a rental car is better value than buses - I'm guessing that's how you'll be seeing the area mentioned as public transit is far from great in those places. Changing a lengthy rental to one-way instead of returning to same spot might produce a radically different price than making a second separate booking - prices have been all over the place this year as rental franchises try to figure out demand for cross-border trips - but it's probably worth a few minutes of your time plugging in both scenarios to Kayak or especially Costco travel if you're members (the free second driver is often useful and pricing is usually better than elsewhere). You might even get lucky if you check out Transfer Cars - Vancouver/Seattle vehicle relocations came up fairly often in TheBeforeTimes.

It's the exact same principle as boarding a plane to (insert almost any foreign country) - while you might formally go through immigration on arrival, folks on the ground at the departure airport usually check you have your passport before you board to make sure you can gain entry at the other end... even doing 'paperwork' online has been normalized for years with US ESTA, Canadian eTA, New Zealand, UK, Australia etc.

Have a shufty at the official list of testing locations - but don't book anything expensive yet, as rules have been changing a lot recently! Since cruising has restarted locally, confirmation from experience is out there that using an online proctoring service and your own test brought from home is acceptable - as long as your hotel has internet you can spend a few minutes in the comfort of your room doing the test while observed rather than going to queue up somewhere in-person with who knows how many other randos... Going rate for Canada-based proctoring services seems to be about $20, which is a massive discount over even the cheapest physical test location given you can buy antigen tests in Costco before you come! Given that you can also test 24/7, I've yet to hear of anyone having trouble finding a proctored slot at short notice - whereas appointment at physical clinics do fill up, they mostly seem to be operating a single shift of 9-5ish (even clinics have staffing issues these days!)

Amtrak buses are sold directly on the Amtrak website - there might be legit tickets available elsewhere, though personally this is the first I've heard of 'wanderu' - but why take the risk? But if you don't have a specific reason to be spending time in Seattle, booking tickets straight through to YVR will avoid the kind of problems some other posters have been reporting - with travel still heavily impacted by lack of replacement staff, covid outbreaks etc. the odds of a flight remaining on the same timing/connections/airframe that you book it on are lower than ever, and the airlines are only responsible to get you where your ticket is booked for... even if you're saving buckets of cash flying to SEA instead of YVR, I'd plan for an awful lot of padding time, like an extra night in a hotel which would eat significantly into potential savings.

As has been broadly reported, including from folks working the piers, so you can assume it's as close to gospel as any piece of info gets - you need to show the receipt from your completed ArriveCAN at boarding. This is because ArriveCAN is the tool chosen by our gov't to track vaxx status of all pax onboard ships - it doesn't matter when during the journey the ship enters our waters, even just for a token technical stop to meet PVSA requirements with nobody permanently disembarking, the data is transferred to ensure that the ship meets our rules of all pax 12years+ being double-vaxxed. No ArriveCAN, no boarding! When you fill it out correctly, you get a very obvious confirmation receipt that includes a QR code (one of those weird black & white patterned squares that Smartphones can read) and a letter code - that's the thing you need to display to pier staff. A printed result is also allowed, but since you'll be on your land portion first it might be a hassle getting access to a computer and printer - I'm sure at least some of the included hotels/lodges will have a business centre, but if you have your own smartphone/tablet that can run the app that's one less thing to worry about. The 72 hour limit has also been unofficially relaxed just for marine entries - again, multiple reports confirm that successful completion which produces the expected receipt with QR code 4 days in advance rather than 3 if you have chosen arrival by water (land and air remain with a firm 72 hour cap in advance). Since you will still need to do the final part while on vacation, I suggest downloading the app and getting stuck into all the unchanging data ASAP so you can familiarise yourself with the app! As soon as you hit 96 hours pre-ship-departing-from-Sitka-time, log back in and complete the time-specific info.

You're welcome. I'm also resistant to acquiring a smartphone, though I have no problem with tech - I've been a tablet user for a long time although when home I'd always rather have a proper physical keyboard to type on. For us though, tablets were an absolute godsend - back in the day we'd take two suitcases on vacation, split evenly in volume between clothes and books as we get through 2 novels a day on average and unfortunately our tastes don't overlap much. When the Kindle came along and made for affordable, reliable eBook reading I grabbed one - and while I still use a Kindle regularly a tablet works just as well for eBooks if you are reading indoors where glare isn't an issue, plus the fabulous battery life of a dedicated e-reader is great but unless you're camping a device that runs for several hours on a charge is plenty good enough. Library books are also much more easily accessed on a tablet - Kindles need workarounds for many formats, whereas you can easily install Overdrive, Libby, Hoopla etc. and access all sorts of library materials on a regular Android or iOS tablet. It's almost as if Amazon would rather you buy books from them than borrow them from the library ;-) Even a pretty big tablet weighs less than a chunky hardback novel - and with all sorts of handy free Apps like white noise generators, torches, weather, alarm clocks etc. they are also useful bedside items that replace a few things we used to take with us when traveling. Assuming your cameras are digital you'll find that a tablet is also useful to review your photos while you're away, much easier to see than the teeny screen on the camera. All-in-all, even while cruising from our home port where excess luggage obviously isn't a problem, we've found tablets to be very useful travel tools.

I can tell you to the penny (CAD at least - exchange rate will move a few cents here and there) as inbound cabs from the airport use fixed rate zones rather than the meter! Days Inn is within the $34 Downtown Zone 8 - tip as you would in the US on that fare. NB: like everywhere, some cabbies as a**holes who feel they can scam visitors - so the meter might get turned on 'by mistake' or they may try to pretend your hotel is inside the Canada Place $38 Zone 9 area. There is supposed to be a copy of the zone map in the cab (hanging on the back of the driver's seat is the usual spot if it's openly displayed) so if the meter is moving, ask about the zone map - this should fend of any secondary attempt to scam you about which zone. Ditto on credit card machines being 'broken' (if legit, they can get the office to process your card), in hopes that you might hand over the fare in USD at par costing yourself an extra ~30% - by all means negotiate to pay in USD if you don't like using credit cards, but while it's totally fair to pad the rate some (going to the bank to change currency is a hassle) don't just give them 1:1 unless the difference is also supposed to cover the tip! Regardless, if they try to trick you tip zero and don't feel bad about it...

A few tidbits that might be helpful - as mentioned already nobody is being forced to use the App, and the official website version uses the same Canadian federal government web standards as the eTA application which I assume you have already completed or your travels will end before they even begin as you can't board your flight to Canada! Why not let you show an NHS vaxx certificate? Simply because there isn't an international standard that applies to such things, and it's thoroughly impractical to expect screeners to recognise every single issuing authority's format (and language...) at all, let alone well enough to spot a forgery! By standardizing to a single method it actually benefits you and all of us who travel by avoiding huge chokepoints at check-in. Much better to have all the time in the world to get your documentation in order and save it - it's literally just the trip-specific info you need to update in the 3 days before travel, all the core info about you and your group of up to 8 family members has no date restriction so folks can get that input long before they travel. Why use ArriveCAN for cruises when you're already in Canada? It's already built, it's reliable, it contains all the info needed to meet almost all the rules that the government has put in place around cruising like your vaxx status - however annoying you as a tourist find having to fill it out again, trust me us Canadians have more reason to be annoyed as we already live here!!!! ;-) And believe me - that last thing you want is to trust our federal government with another new IT project, it's nothing short of a miracle that ArriveCAN works as well as it does, building something else for cruising would likely go horribly wrong so reusing a proven tool is definitely the best way to go! If for some reason you are not bringing a laptop/tablet etc. of your own and your hotel doesn't have a working computer you can use to do your second ArriveCAN entry, I'd be happy to meet up with you and help out. I can offer a nice big-screened android tablet or a windows laptop, both of which have web browsers that ArriveCAN works with so no need to deal with the App. Our own travel plans are minimal at the moment, so there's a very slim chance I'll be out of town on any date this cruise season.

You're very welcome - do remember to check the Cap Shuttle schedule, as the summer version is not yet released (they have a placeholder at the moment, looks like some time in May is when it changes, which is the same as how things used to work in prior years too). In TheBeforeTimes, peak season brought two shuttle routes that picked up at different hotels - while right now Canada Place is the best option for the off-season shuttle (that's where the route starts and it is also the closest one to you, though the Hyatt is still very easily walkable at ~500 metres from EXchange) as it's the start of the line, if they add the second route this year again it will probably be worth walking the little bit further. Assuming the two routes are the same as in the past, one shuttle will be literally just going back & forth from Canada Place, and the other doing the same two hotels as the current off-season shuttle (Hyatt and Blue Horizon) plus starting at the Central Library. Avoiding Canada Place, which is by far the most popular stop, is worth the extra walk IMO - it's not as bad in the afternoon as when they first start running in the mornings and all those cruisers are disembarking and trying to get on it, but still it's the most packed with people option. Also, City Centre Skytrain station is slightly more convenient for your hotel than Waterfront - 2 mins earlier for the stop, only about 50 metres extra walk but all flat instead of up a bit of a hill from Waterfront, and again just a bit less busy with fewer travelers getting on and off than at the terminus so if you're concerned about time you'll shave a few minutes off. A quick Google Map link for your convenience of walking routes from both the Hyatt and City Centre Station to your hotel. Edit - I actually saved the summer schedule from just pre-Covid! See attached PDF. Service frequency might not be as good with tourism numbers still down, but it's likely to jump to every 15 or 20mins at least rather than half-hourly. Cap Shuttle-Schedule-Summer-2019.pdf

Blaine (Pacific Highway) Crossing rather than Douglas (Peace Arch) as you'll be on a bus - only cars and RVs at the arch, all buses deviate a teeny bit east as that's the one set up to handle disembarking pax and their baggage from buses. You may or may not have to go through the full rigamarole! Recent reports are that QuickShuttle is being contracted to run the shuttles and mixing you with regular joes, probably due to insufficient demand, so you could check their schedule - you'll be booked on the first bus of the morning if this happens to you, which hits BLI at noon and the first stop on the BC side of the border at 1pm, so putting in an ETA of 12:30pm is about right for ArriveCAN. If it is a dedicated shuttle bus there won't be any stops, so will almost certainly hit the border before noon. Regardless, exact time is not required for land crossings just an indication.

Getting downtown, to your hotel, and to the nearest Cap shuttle stop (not necessarily Canada Place unless your hotel is very close to it, there are a couple of others that might be nearer) is more likely going to be one hour after landing than two. SkyTrain is only 26mins end to end, if the Cap shuttle is running that means you're arriving morning or afternoon so frequency will likely be 7mins or less, for a worst-case timing of still well under 40mins if you literally just miss a train. As noted by Bruce, your YYZ routing means no C&I at YVR - pickup bags and walk right out as a Domestic arrival. The only real issue is flight delays that hit one of you rather than both groups, especially since you're meeting up with a supposed-to-be-arriving-about-the-same-time International flight so your fam will need to go through C&I - and your routes will be very different so there's a chance of one flight getting hit with weather that doesn't impact the other, over and above any mechanical or operational delays... Obviously you can check the boards to see whether their flight is on time as soon as you land, but I'd suggest pre-agreeing a maximum wait time at the airport with your person to avoid having to cruise with a family feud kicking off;-)

If it's literally 'go and crash' you may consider a cheap airport hotel for the cash side of things - but on the time side of the equation a downtown hotel wins in total travel time (unless you do spring for the ka-ching Fairmont YVR, and take SkyTrain next morning as suggested by Bruce, which avoids traffic issues entirely). Assuming your hotel's shuttle is still running by the time you get through immigration/customs you may have just as long to wait as a cab to a downtown core hotel would take - many 'airport' hotels are 15+min drive away, so by the time whomever is on shuttle duty gets your call, fires up the bus, drives to you and then back to the hotel you could easily be looking at 30 mins or more... so you'll get into bed just as fast if you take a cab downtown as there's always a lineup of those. No traffic, fixed rate fare, local knowledge of speed traps = all cabbies speed significantly, so you might even find it quicker getting into bed downtown... The big advantage to being downtown when you wake up is that you can squeeze in a morning of sightseeing without delay. While Scott's totally correct that no local hotel shuttles to both YVR and pier, it appears that Ace are restarting their independent shuttle service again from May 1st... If so, then you can expect a slow 'milk run' loop around multiple airport hotels, then a straight shot to the pier, for a price that only makes sense if you are a solo traveler ($20.70pp incl tax, whereas a fixed rate cab from YVR is $38 and a metered cab from hotels near YVR would run about $40 or less - with MUCH less wasted time).

A domestic flight? With no Covid testing or Preclearance needed as you're not headed to the US, the only potential problems are if you are docking on a 3 or 4 ship day the cab queue at the pier can become ridiculous, over an hour wait easily, and then Security at YVR also gets mad busy as thousands of pax start rolling in within a narrow timeframe. Things are less efficient at YVR than in TheBeforeTimes as of course your vaxx status does need checked for inter-provincial travel, and staffing issues crop up more often, so aiming for 2 hours early is wise. Fouremco's correct that just because your ship arrives at a weird hour you might not be able to get off - CBSA and the Longshoremen do not staff Canada Place 24/7, so unless your cruiseline is going to pay for a lot of overtime neither bags nor people will be disembarked until regular shift start time. You might be allowed off earlier than most, and there's a good chance your ship will be the first to start disembarkation as they'll have had lots of time to ensure all the paperwork is done - but multiple-ship days could still screw with your plans... If the ship entered Canada at Victoria first, you should be OK for immigration purposes so you could probably walk off whenever you like - but you'll have to move your own bags unless the longshoremen are having cash thrown at them;-) That's something you'll have to ask your cruiseline! As long as you can self-disembark with your bags you will be among the first pax off your vessel even if you wait until 'normal' disembarkation time, and you will beat all the folks on cruise transfers. If you can physically move your bags from cabin to pier, you can also take them to SkyTrain - which avoids the issues with cab queues too. Walk off by 7:30am and you could easily be through security and at your gate before 9am even on a day with lots of ships - if the cab queue is short join it (metered, ballpark a little under $40 as fares just went up a smidge recently) if you don't want to schlep your bags, otherwise just follow the sidewalk left (ignore the first entrance you see on Howe, it goes to the wrong platform) until you hit Cordova St, turn left onto that and Waterfront Station is a couple of blocks and easily spotted. If you can't cope with moving all your own bags then things will get a lot tighter as you'll definitely have to wait for longshoremen, and then be disembarking after all those who are able to self-disembark which could be literally thousands on a busy day - so the cab queue could already be long and Security at YVR could already be clogged... Long story short - unless you can schlep our own bags, check how many other ships are docking the same day... if it's 3 or 4 you should seriously consider a later flight, even on a domestic itinerary.

I don't think catamarans are that common in Victoria compared to traditional hulls - and the small print allows swapping of boats for operational reasons so if a cat is important book one of the companies that have multiple, like Prince of Whales or Eaglewing. It's been quite a while since I took a tour and I haven't come close to using all of the companies so I'm loathe to say there's a best - I've been very happy with PoW (zodiacs), but the sadly-no-longer-posting BudgetQueen always swore by Eaglewing and she took a LOT of whale tours!

Not right at the pier, but there are downtown rental agencies that are definitely walkable or a short, cheap cab ride away. Right behind the Empress Hotel you'll find 4 of them scattered along a few blocks of Douglas Street - that seems to the unofficial 'car rental zone' of Victoria! I linked the route map to Avis, which is the furthest of the 'name brand' franchises there - you'll walk right past Budget first, National is tucked just down a side street (Courtney), and there's even a Canadian 'rent-a-wreck' place, Practicar, a little beyond Avis inside the multi-storey parking garage on View St which should have very keen pricing... but given the need for a reliable return to the ship on time, unless you have plenty of padding in your port day I'd personally rather rent something with lower mileage!

I honestly couldn't say - back in TheBeforeTimes I can't remember really seeing any tour touts around as they seemed to be pretty darn popular! How things will be these days... we'll have to wait and see. Butchart tours are definitely a thing you want to book in advance too - whether independently or through the cruise line, buses do fill up and they won't add a whole other bus unless there's a significant number on the wait list. CVS now even want to lock you in to specific return times from Butchart rather than shuttling you out on the bus you book but allowing a return on any bus. If your group size would fit into a single rental vehicle, or you have enough 25+year old drivers to rent multiple smaller cars, Butchart done by rental car is likely the best pricing as well as the most flexible in timing.

What do you think is good in an overnight stay? Things to do or see? Chillaxing downtime after a busy cruise? Nice views - ocean, mountain, rivers? Without knowing what you want out of such a trip, hard to say what whether a given spot would be a great suggestion or a godawful one!!! I'll take a stab in the dark though - unique stuff nearby but not in Vancouver, conveniently visited with just one overnight, no ferries to avoid any risks for your return to the airport... any chance you enjoy fishing and/or spa time? Harrison Hot Springs is a short trip with access to sturgeon fishing as well as the more typical salmon/trout angling, and those who don't want to drag hundreds of kilos of dinosaur out of the river can lounge in the 'healing' waters...

HI express is better located - 8min/700 yard walk to Bridgeport Station, so if you can handle trundling bags then using SkyTrain to get there and back is viable. At the very least your 'head for the hotel first' plan gets much more efficient with a short walk after check-in! Handy hint for Google Maps - flip to Bike as mode of transit, as this gives an elevation tracker, and even if bike & walking routes are not identical you'll still get an immediate indication of any big hills en route! Of the garden-based options, Seasons at QEP is vastly superior to Shaugnessy's at VD - the former suffers from the usual 'good but overpriced' like all of the Sequoia group, but at least the view makes up for it (caveat - I have not been since TheBeforeTimes, so it's possible quality of food and service has taken a hit...) whereas I've heard nothing but bad about the decline of Shaugnessy's for the last decade, with more than enough reports from foodies I trust to avoid them like the plague...

I'm fairly sure you mean Queen Elizabeth Park, which does have several gardens? If so, the only things to warn about are the relative steepness of the hill from King Edward station up to the park (it's the highest point in the city) and the time inefficiency of heading to your YVR hotel then back into town. If it is the Holiday Inn, rather than the HI express, you're actually going to be the same drive time (13mins without traffic) to YVR or to QEP - so balancing time and money I'd be inclined to cab to the park and avoid that hill as well as a possibly long shuttle wait, as no hotel has more than one vehicle available so even on a constant loop it would be running at best once every ~40mins given the bottlenecks of limited bridges to YVR, most likely once per hour if it's a scheduled shuttle. Coming back from QEP or thereabouts, the walk downhill to King Eddie is fine so save some cash by Skytraining back - I'd ask at the hotel first about whether their shuttle will collect you from SkyTrain and if so which station (either Bridgeport or Aberdeen could be the most convenient depending which way the drivers go to get to the airport). In case you weren't already aware, you can walk between QEP and the popular Van Dusen botanic gardens easily - it's less than a mile and pretty flat too. Walk the other direction to Main Street and there are a lot of restos, especially if you head down the hill toward King Eddie. Sun Sui Wah's original location is here - unless you're a big group then the Alaskan King Crab Feast won't work, but they are also justly famous for their Squab as well as inventing the whole AKC feast concept. Personally I'd consider this the ideal circumstances to use PorterGenie - hand over your bags at the pier, get them delivered to your hotel later on. Base rate of $25 for a Vancouver pickup, Richmond dropoff plus a per-bag fee of $8-10 - but that would mean you could then take SkyTrain from pier to King Eddie (transfer to a bus most of the way up the hill or flag a cab for a few buck ride to avoid the hill entirely) and SkyTrain back out to YVR without any bag hassles. The savings from avoiding a metered cab ride from pier to the HI would give you about $40 which almost entirely funds the bag transfer for a couple - and saves you time...

All over downtown - the pier itself has always had a rental kiosk in season, but even if a cruise-specific desk doesn't open this year the Pan Pacific hotel is in the same building so you should find 999 Canada Place listed, just perhaps not with ideal hours for cruisers. Given how compact our downtown core is, I'd book the best day rate with any franchise downtown then just walk over - Google using directions from Canada Place will show you walking distances and routes with near 100% accuracy. Leave the bags and other pax close to the pier if you have a lot of stuff (e.g. walk ~100 yards to the other half of the Convention Center, where folks can wait under a wide awning for shade/rain avoidance) and go collect them when you have the car - as long as you go at least one street over from Howe you won't get caught up in the bottleneck of cars entering the pier itself. Just checked who is currently listing 999 Canada Place, as the franchisee did change occasionally even in TheBeforeTimes, and it seems Ascent is currently based there in the PP Hotel lobby. Never heard of them so can't recommend one way or the other, but they're definitely the closest! Thrifty is next at a couple of blocks away at 413 Seymour St, Avis (757 Hornby) about half a mile, and several other small local rental places are as close or closer than these big brands.