martincath

12 hours ago, Kevin's girl said:

Okay, I called Flights by Celebrity and they got our flight changed to the next day.

Yay! A flight that early you'll have much less traffic whether you go by cabuber or SkyTrain, and airport queues are minimal compared to when the cruise buses roll in. Personally I would advise against being the full 3 hours early unless you enjoy pointless queueing - while CBP in theory will have started work (4:30am), their shift briefing adds anywhere up to 15mins before they actually begin processing the several hundred people unware of the Prescreening hours who showed up 3+ hours ahead of 6/7/8am flights only to find the doors locked! Even once they actually open, it can take a good half hour to process the big queue of TooEarlies but after that things go pretty fast until at least 9am, so the sweetspot is hitting CBP no earlier than 5:15am - at 5:30am and you might walk right to a kiosk, bu 5am probably means still waiting 10-15mins in a queue!

Since everyone can book fasttrack Security now thanks to YVR Express, 90mins is actually a pretty safe margin to aim for with your flight time even without NEXUS/Global Entry... padding that to 2 hours since you're unfamiliar is more than adequate, so that means leaving downtown around 5am whether you cabuber or SkyTrain. You'll most likely end up with time to eat a sit-down breakfast and a couple of coffees before heading to your gate, which you might feel the need of with a ~4:30 alarmcall... but that's still an hour extra sleep compared to the official advice!

3 hours ago, regan3 said:

... How far is the airport SkyTrain station to the airline check in counters?

Dagnabbit - I had to run out to the dentist, remembered I didn't actually answer this part, too late to Edit my first note now...

Definitely much shorter than the walk you made earlier from cabin to SkyTrain - exact distance will depend which desks your airline is allocated, plus an extra walk to bag drop that again varies depending on desk location, but worst case is still ~a quarter mile. If your ship is in the furthest berth and airline the furthest desk and plane the furthest gate you might rack up not far off a mile in total, but more like half a mile max while encumbered by big suitcases.

5 minutes ago, regan3 said:

Thank you.

 

What is the process at the airport?

How far is the airport SkyTrain station to the airline check in counters?

When do you drop off your bags, at airline counter, or at U.S. customs (before or after)?

I'm assuming you check in at airline, go through airport security then U.S. customs?

That's the right order - but if time is in any way pressing, you should check-in online (literally on the way to the airport if you can't manage to to it aboard, there's WiFi on SkyTrain now!) so you can avoid the sometimes-long lineup for the desks to check-in the old way.

Pretty much everything you want to know is available on the YVR website - right down to which steps you do, in which order, literally for your exact flight(!), via the Departing Flights page... just find your flight and click 'My Journey' at the far right of the row. You can even see it in advance just by selecting your same flight but today/tomorrow, e.g. this link will probably stop working tomorrow once the Seattle-bound flight disappears off the screens but if you click it right now you'll be walked through an example of everything from how to get to YVR, to which check-in desks are for your flight, bag drop, security, Preclearance, all with reminders about Express and MPC and checking in online first, plus some Food options that you'll pass both Pre- and Post-Security! There are even links throughout to give you more details on what to expect from CATSA, CBP etc.

Just in case, since everyone and their granny seems to have TSA Precheck, you won't find it any use here (no TSA!) - only Global Entry and NEXUS programs will count you as a Trusted Traveler here for the shorter lines (although as I mentioned before, YVR Express does let you choose a timeslot in advance for Security - and you don't need anything special to use that, with zero downside if you make a reservation and fail to get there within the +/-15mins (if you're too early, worst case is join the regular long queue; too late and they might let you through anyway if you're close to missing your flight... nobody wants people to miss a flight!)

16 hours ago, regan3 said:

Thank you. 

 

Approx. how long would it take to get from Canada Place to the airport?

Sunday in July, three ships in port, would self disembark, take SkyTrain and flying to U.S.?

 

First folks off ship probably around 7:30am; unless you have been naughty or get very unlucky, CBSA aren't really interested in Customs duty for folks heading straight to the US, and all Immigration happens 'offscreen' before the ship even arrives in port - so if you don't hear your name announced to report to room X for a chat with CBSA, you will probably find that customs form handover takes seconds with perhaps a brief "How long are you staying in Canada?" type question. In fact, depending what the cruise route was, you might not even see CBSA at all (e.g. if you stopped in Victoria the day before, customs forms are usually handed it to reception aboard and ship staff given them all to CBSA).

From front door of pier to SkyTrain entrance is maybe 7 minutes on foot; worst case on Sunday you just miss an airport train you might have to wait another 20 mins; travel time as mentioned above is 26mins and almost never varies as trains are 100% automated; the other variable is distance from ship to curb, as depending which berth you are in you might have to walk almost a quarter mile with some zigzagging, so lets say worst case an hour from ship to airport unless CBSA want to chat with you.

Noon is certainly a safe timeframe for a same-day flight, but for self-disembarkers regardless of other ship volumes you can usually reach YVR within 90mins of docking time if you take SkyTrain, and by doing so you immediately avoid the worst queues (which happens when all those cruise transfer buses start disgorging hordes en masse around 9:30am, building for the next hour or so as YVR cannot process that number of people mostly all hammering a selection of noon to 2pm US-bound flights so all using the same bag drop, security, and of course CBP prescreening).

If you have Global Entry, I'd have no concerns about you making a 10am flight - even without it, thanks to YVR Express you can at least guarantee a quicker Security experience so a 10:30am flight remains very low risk for self-disembarking SkyTrainers.

But my recommendation is always to spend as many post-cruise nights as your time and money budgets allow! We've got more stuff here that you can do on foot or by dirt-cheap public transit than every port in Alaska put together even if you include their lengthy bus and train rides, and every thing here is discounted about a third for folks used to greenbacks!

Plus, you can book a ludicrously early flight if you stay overnight, which IMO are always the best flights - rested crews who overnighted here, usually cheaper fares than the noonish flights, and as long as you remember that CBP don't start work until 4:30am (and the start-of-shift briefing means they don't actually do any processing for another 10-15mins) and avoid turning up much before 5am because '3 hours before my flight is 3/4am!' you won't even have to wait in line much for anything - as long as you meet the bag check threshold (minimum 1 hour preflight for any checked bags), you WILL get through security and Prescreening in time to make your flight unless you've been naughty by US standards and CBP want to give you the rubber glove treatment!

10 hours ago, BeachFamily1989 said:

We will be ending our cruise on the Norwegian Jewel in Vancouver.  Our plane home doesn't leave until 11:57 pm.  I have read about a lot of things to do in Vancouver but can anyone give some advice on what we can do in just a few hours.  I don't want to plan on traveling all over town. I heard there was a section right off of the cruise ship area? Is this true? Thank you!

Your problem is that most of our tourist sites are walkable from the pier, or have a shuttle bus that leaves from right outside! So even if you discount the things you need to get in a vehicle to go visit you still have to cut a list of dozens of possiblities down to maybe 3 or so...

So I'll provide my standard answer - get everyone in your group (well, probably not the youngsters who don't read well yet!) to hit up TripAdvisor. Given your single day, you shouldn't need to dig beyond the Top Ten listings to figure out at least three that sound really good to you - compare everyone's lists and see where they overlap, negotiate a little (or just split up for part of the day, free city WiFi #VanWiFi enables messaging and maps even without a dataplan) to help firm up your short-tlist.

Then if you don't want to wait just fire up Google Maps; with the pier (Canada Place) as your starting point, you can easily find all your sites and how close they are on foot, by bike, by transit (full schedule datasets are provided to Google, they now power our official transit website so the data on G-maps literally is the same as on Translink) or by car (cabuberlyft). You can even check pricing on the latter, although in general if you don't leave the core it's pretty hard to get a cab fare into double digits.

Or you can come back and tap local expertise - sometimes it's not just absolute distances and directions, but e.g. time of day because of commuter traffic, so we might be able to suggest doing your top three in the most efficient order and putting you somewhere that you have have good food options at the appropriate times of day, that sort of thing, so even if you have pre-Googled yourself we might be able to add some extra value.

If still in doubt, just book the HOHO for the day and store your bags at or near the pier (e.g. Pan Pacific hotel inside the building, $10ea last year) - transpo between many popular sites, flexible schedule so you can get off for as long as you want, and a handy spiel about what you're seeing from the bus - and get off at the places it stops at that seem interesting.

While the last run is usually done by 6pm even in summer, that's good enough for your purposes as you'll want time to get some dinner and collect your bags before heading out to YVR (<30mins and <US$3pp by SkyTrain, not much longer by cab but about US$30 on the meter, Uber might save a couple of bucks) for about 10pm. You won't Preclear on your flight, CBP stop work at 8:30pm, so you only have bag drop and security which should both be quick at that time, so the official 3 hour preflight timeline really is a waste of time for redeyes.

On 3/18/2024 at 11:17 AM, Milhouse said:

...Didn't disappoint but didn't align with our memories of them. 

I think that the current Hons may not actually be connected to the original Hons except in name - I can't recall offhand the details of the minor scandals around ownership changes, but we always felt that Olympic Village was more like a food court version of the original, shorter menu and everything just tasted a little more meh. Enough so that we only tried it twice - and it seemed the same, not bad but not as good as it was (so for OP, if you enjoyed it last time it will probably taste the same again this time, consistency doesn't seem to be an issue!)

Man, it must have been three years that Congee Noodle House was closed, between the collapse of the parking lot and 'vid related delays- dark times indeed! I guess you must be closer to King than we are - I haven't been there for years, since they closed Carleton school; King and Jambo were the staple 'go for lunch with the teachers' choices because they were both tasty and quick (your mention of King made me check what's still open over there - still a lot of good options on those last few blocks of Kingsway before Boundary that tourists never get out to - and I was very excited to see that Jambo is back to buffets at least during Ramadan, for what looks like the best-priced Iftar meal in the city at $25 a head! So thanks for the very random chain of co-inky-dinks your post set off, cheap and hopefully tasty blast from the past dinner for me on Friday!)

19 hours ago, NavyVeteran said:

I've changed my plans completely. I booked the Princess transfer from the ship to SEA and a flight leaving SEA at 6:07 pm. The information on the Princess Travel Summary on TRANSFER VANCOUVER TO SEATTLE AIRPORT says "Passengers making their own arrangements out of Seattle must depart no earlier than 4:00 P.M." so I should be OK with a 6:07 pm domestic flight. The total cost of the flight and transfer is less than the cost of a flight from Vancouver. We do have a five hour bus ride however.

Your timing should be fine - just be aware that unless you get lucky and they start offering 'sealed bus transfers' again (where you technically never enter Canada, boarding a bus within the pier while still under US jurisdiction, literally having a sticker placed over the closed door, then only the sticker needs checked at the border to ensure it remains intact and nobody needs to get off) expect that you will need to get off at the border, schlep your own bags inside to be scanned then back out to the bus again after you've been processed - with no trolleys or porters available, and if anyone gets secondary questions/owes duty the lot of you wait and wait until CBP make their mind up about letting foreigners in/figure out how much duty is owed for US residents etc.

It's not a long distance, usually about a bus length to the door and a similar distance inside to the scanners; and sometimes you get lucky with CBP only wanting to see people not bags, or even having an officer board the bus and walk the aisle having a quick shufty at everyones passports (especially if it's reeeeaaalllly busy the rules get relaxed - but only for Yanks & Canucks; one time we had a South African couple aboard so that meant everyone had to go inside while other buses got to drive past us... man, were those folks unpopular!!!)

So I'd say that if you have minimal border wait, you might be at Seatac within 3.5 hours; 4hrs is a realistic estimate for midweek; but if you assume 5hrs and some bag-schlepping you should only be pleasantly surprised!

On 3/18/2024 at 9:31 PM, julia said:

We will be embarking our cruise on the Noordam on Sunday, May 5th. Arriving YVR at 11am, and taking SkyTrain to Waterfront Station...  hoping to arrive Canada Place around 1:00-1-30 (after immigration and such, only carry-on luggage).  It doesn't appear that the marathon will affect these plans.... correct?  Not correct?

In theory the marathon shouldn't impact you in the slightest - all the road closures are west of Canada Place, and whether you disembark at the back of the train and pop out at Granville & Hastings, or the front and come up through Waterfront station itself on Cordova, you should be able to walk without anything preventing you accessing the direct routes... but there will be many people walking from the finish toward SkyTrain, or just to go for brunch somewhere in Gastown, so the sidewalks will be unusually full of sweaty, tired people with medals on! Feel free to congratulate any of the finishers you pass, and try not to trip anyone up with a wheely bag! 😉

Hopefully your inbound flight is on time and your passage through CBSA is smooth - I would consider precompleting ArriveCAN if I were you (it's no longer required, BUT it allows you to predeclare your customs paperwork and skip to head of that line - when scanned at the kiosk, instead of answering all the questions you should just see 'You already completed this - any changes or still the same?') It's not a big time saving, you answer the same couple of minutes worth of questions as at the kiosks, but literally every second might make the difference if your flight ends up delayed so doing that preflight, on your own phone at home, is one less worry for the airport as the clock counts down toward "Oh crap, the ship sailed already!" o'clock...

1 hour ago, maggiev said:

THANK YOU gentlemen - I will take your advice & look at a few options first.
Party of 4, 60 - 67.  Walking around town is an option but biking & hiking are out.  We would not be opposed to renting a car to see the “outskirts”. 
I’ll be back with questions I’m sure

If you're considering a car rental, then with four bums on seats the cost of parking becomes far more reasonable - in particular, check Lynn Canyon park (inconvenient on transit for visitors, but with a car the free-except-parking cost compared to almost US$200 for 4 senior tickets is a helluva steal) and consider doing Stanley Park piecemeal by car - parking rates are for the entire park, you can move spots as often as you like within the time you buy, which greatly cuts down on walking distances... totem poles and prospect point have parking right next to them, most other popular spots like the rose garden are a short walk from the nearest lot).

I'd also look into the Squamish sites - Britannia Mining Museum, waterfall, gondola ride all work out much more convenient with your own car and you can drive through Stanley on the way out or back - and Steveston village in south Richmond, Burnaby Village Museum, Fort Langley.

Heading out of town southward, or coming back, Queen Elizabeth Park is another spot that's easier to do by car (transit is frequent, but you have to walk uphill!) even though it's in the city - likewise, UBC campus museums and gardens are worth paying parking for compared to bus fares, as campus itself is pretty big!

22 hours ago, NavyVeteran said:

...Should we just take the later flight and not try to make the earlier one? Any advice on how long it should take to get from the cruise terminal to the airport in a taxi on Wednesday morning?

Honestly, given your mobility issues and a four ship day (if yours is the last ship to begin offloading folks queues get big fast), there's definitely going to be some fairly significant risk involved with that early flight.

So let's assume you arrive on time, first folks start getting off by 7:30am, your first Help Needed Independent Flights group is more like 8am, it takes you a full 30mins to get to the cab lineup due to mobility issues/no porter available so you have to drag bags slowly, cab lineup hits an hour, drive time the same because there are roadworks on a key route, a vaguely realistic 'not the worst possible, but a plausibly bad series of delays' has you arriving at YVR with barely 10 minutes to get your bags dropped - there are at least plenty of big wheely trolleys at YVR so getting bags from curb to drop remains just about doable as long as one of you can walk pushing a trolley... but then you still need to get through Security and CBP prescreening and to your gate. Tricky if you can't move fast!

If all goes reasonably well (a short wait for a cab, no traffic issues at all so the drive is <45min, finding a porter quickly) you should be at YVR before the 2 hour preflight mark which should still be plenty of time; but you could not possible manage to hit the 3 hours that YVR recommends for your flight, so it really comes down to how comfortable with risk you are...

Personally I don't think that you should risk it unless you have Global Entry or NEXUS - which at least guarantees a short queue for both Security and CBP. If you were able to self-disembark this flight is very low risk - but being forced to wait for bags to be taken off, find them, possibly struggle a bit with getting them to the cab, you only need one thing to go badly wrong or a few things to go very slightly wrong and your plane could be taking off without you...

Otherwise I'd consider prebooking a limo (ballpark $100+) so that you know when you get off you can get right into a vehicle... or instead look at flights the next day, which might even open up an early morning nonstop to you that's cheaper than a noonish one and use those savings toward a cheap hotel for the night. Extra time in Vancouver is never a bad thing, and a flight next day before 10am avoids all of those pesky cruisers!

51 minutes ago, Kevin&#x27;s girl said:

You are saying exactly what I was thinking. I would have never booked it myself. Celebrity did not even explain what the change was. They said in the email that there was a change in this Record Locator and they would notify me of the details in 30 days. I had to go to the American Airlines website to see what was happening myself.

To be fair, in 29 days there might have been another schedule change or three! But Celebrity not specifying it was a flight that early makes more sense than them knowingly trying to put you on a flight which their own transfers are incapable of getting you to the airport in time for (1st buses for all the lines almost never leave before 9am, and since 3 hours is the preflight arrival recommendation to US/Int'l at YVR and the drive is 30mins...)

If this was your only option, I'd keep an 11:40am (anything after 10am is in theory doable provided you self-disembark and take SkyTrain - and if you are phsycially capable of the former, you can always manage the latter) but with another option on the table the sensible choice is to take a later flight. You might even have time to Do A Thing post-cruise then too!

You will hopefully get some replies, naming specific guides used, but as a general note: the company is totally legit, they actually began here in Vancouver but now operate all over the world. Like Uber and similar 'gig economy' setups though, you are not working with employees but independent guides with some degree of scrutiny, at the end of the day every guide is an individual - reviews of the company are nearly worthless (unless it's a compliment or complaint about the website, billing, other centralized matter), it's reviews of the specific guides you want!

We've personally found that even with detailed research on specific guides, sometimes you just get a person who comes across differently than you assumed they would 'on paper' - a weird sense of humour, quirky food issues (we have twice ended up with guides who insisted on joining us at the lunch table after we asked them to recommend a good resto - but not eating despite our offer to join us as our treat! They just sat there watching us eat, which was extremely weird - and no, it wasn't during Ramadan or similar, one just said they weren't hungry and the other that they didn't like the resto... which they had of course just recommended to us, so we were very pleased that the food was perfectly decent when it came!)

Unfortunately back in the day when we came here as tourists we didn't use TBL - and since we started living here I've given far more tours than I've taken!

Not so much more details Dennis - instead more questions! While you do have at least a full Saturday plus Friday evening/Sunday morning @maggiev that's still nowhere near enough time to see close to everything, so prioritization is a must.

Unfortunately one man's Must See is another man's What A Waste of Time That Was... not knowing you or yours Maggie, I'm loathe to suggest anywhere specific. Stanley Park, and the Seawall surrounding it and much of downtown, are probably the most Vancouvery Things - but maybe you don't want to walk or bike for miles to see them, in which case no matter how good they are as parks and seawalls go they're no use to you!

I'd suggest hitting up TripAdvisor - separately, have everyone in your group look for themselves. Pick 5 things (start with the Top 10 listings, maybe also check some of the short itineraries posted like '1 weekend in...' or '24/48 hours in...) that sound good to YOU - then compare with your companions. Anything on all the lists = Must See For Your Group!

Split opinion? Split the group - just like when cruising, it;s easy to go do your own thing then meet up again for lunch, dinner etc. Transit is clean, safe, cheap and goes lots of places, unbeatable value for solos and even small groups - but distances are so short between many attractions, as downtown core is extremely compact, that walking is often best or a cab is cheaper than transit tickets with 2 or 3 people in the vehicle.

Where us locals become really useful is optimising HOW you visit your selected Want To Do Sites - we might know that traffic is always a problem in place X at time Y, so doing certain combos works best in a certain order, or know some great food spots that are a bit off the radar but convenient to visit while you're doing site Z at lunchtime.

And if you are happy to share more about your group, your interests, your budget, I'd be happy to make some specific suggestions once I have an idea of how your tastes might overlap or differ from my own.

With several Ifs, it might be fine - but since you have another option just take that! Worst case you are indeed mobile enough to drag all your own bags off, use SkyTrain, are the only ship in port and end up at YVR very early... but if you don't check off all of those boxes, there's definitely a risk of missing it.

I really don't understand why Celebrity would even give that option, all the lines generally use 'arrival time plus 5 hours' here in Vancouver and even if it's a theoretical 6am docking, they know that nobody gets cleared before CBSA show up to start work at 7am so the earliest 'safe' flight time is never before noon!

3 hours ago, luv2camp04 said:

Has anyone taken their RV up to Vancouver and found a place to store it while on a cruise.  I know of an RV park outside of Seattle that we can store ours at and then drive or take the train up to Vancouver but I was curious as to if there is something in the Vancouver area.

 

Thanks!

This came up a few years back, and given nobody built any new RV-capable parking downtown since the answer remains that there really aren't any parking lots proper - but if you call one of the local towing companies, they will usually let you store vehicles in their secure impound lots! The closest one to downtown is Busters, behind Pacific Central (Amtrak) station, so approx a $15 cab ride - or if you are traveling light and avoid peak times, you might even risk SkyTrain (technically no big bags allowed on that line, as there is nowhere to put them that doesn't violate transit bylaws by blocking an aisle or wheelchair/bike spot or a seat, but a lot of folks successfully cheat the system due to lack of enforcement on the unmanned trains...)

Agree that Cordova is the easiest - Granville also works, but involves walking uphill while Cordova is down. Howe St is the worst choice but even then, you'll get there eventually! The platform under Howe is for the wrong line - obviously you can change platforms within the station, but given the hassle of making multiple level changes up and down it's much easier to just walk right past the obvious Howe St entrance and take the first left (onto Cordova).

There aren't many train departures - as long as you are both on a train that does enter Canada, it's easy to have some folks return by train while the rest go by bus, just make sure you book the same train timeslot for everyone.

I'd suggest Chilkoot - more options, cheaper, smaller buses than cruiseline, and they sell various combos, and every we used 'bus only' some folks got off or on because they were doing a combo with the train. One time we even ended up giving a ride to a whole mess of extra folks who couldn't return by train because an engine burst into flames on the way up!

Hopefully you'll get some more personal feedback OP, but failing that I suggest perusing last years trip reports and roll calls - if you focus on just the ones in April/May you'll get a better idea about early vs. late season issues.

Personally I think your plan of let the hotel deliver bags, do lunch, come back later is a good idea - but I would add that you should request a wheelchair for your missus. Organizing one on the day without booking it in advance will be challenging - much better to request it right now. When it comes to ortho issues, sleeping in an unfamiliar bed after a flight is likely to magnify any kind of bone and joint pain/stiffness - better to play it safe!

21 minutes ago, Yo Adrienne said:

...Any thoughts/recommendations on a good asian restaurant that would deliver to PPV on a Saturday night...?  (We'll arrive at the hotel late in the afternoon--so will just wanna be able to order in for delivery, rather than venturing out.)  We've ordered from Hon's before (about a year and a half ago when we were last at PPV)...and it was excellent.

A couple - plus, if you are recalling the date correctly the Hons you ordered from is still in business (Olympic Village location would be the one closest of the two current restos, they use Uber/Dash etc. rather than their own delivery - the original and Robson branches both closed over4 2 years ago, so odds are near 100% it was Olympic Village who cooked last time).

ChongQing downtown and Szechuan Chili both deliver to the core, would be open until at least 9:30/10pm on a Saturday, have their own delivery people, and I'm familiar with them - I've had very consistent food from the latter for several years, whereas CQ went a little up&down during and after the 'vid. If memory serves, last time this came up Milhouse had been using them more than I was so you might get a better answer soon!

Use the SkipUberDash type third parties and do you have more options - personally I don't order delivery via any of those any more, so I can't say whether the speed/keeping it hot part of the experience will be good or not, but the food in Chinatown BBQ is excellent and it's close enough that delivery should be quick. Peaceful might also be of interest - Northern cuisine, much harder to find in most places compared to Cantonese & Szechuan, wheatflour and lamb are key ingredients - but I honestly can't say what their delivery is like these days to downtown as both downtown and 3rd Ave branches closed a while back; the latter was just a few minutes from home so when they used in-house delivery staff from there I ordered frequently and everything was great... I'm not sure if they even have any delivery staff now or just use 3rd parties, but if you stuck to softer meaty and noodly dishes the food should survive a longer drive OK (Cumin lamb on noodles is one of their specialties and it even reheats well; the beef rolls and XLB though suffer texturally if not eaten quickly so I'd eat those in the resto...)

12 minutes ago, julia said:

Oh my....  our cruise ends in Vancouver on May 12th, and we are staying on for three nights in our favorite city. Although our hotel is adjacent to the famous Medina, we won't attempt it on Mothers Day, but wondering now if places might be booked up for dinner as well.... ?  @martincath  ?

Some places absolutely will be more heavily booked at dinner as well - on the swankier end of things though I find it's the joints that have been open for decades, that generations of the family regard as their regular celebration resto, that get hit hardest, with e.g. Grannies taken out as well as Moms by the family (Sand Bar, Teahouse, Seasons in the Park, Blue Water Cafe for example) - but given it's a Sunday, I would say that mostly dinner is more of a 'perhaps as busy as a typical Fri or Sat' situation rather than 'OMG if we did not book 3 months out we are not getting a seat!' like brunch...

And even then if you are someone who likes to eat say dinner at 8pm rather than 6pm, you might not notice much trouble finding resos at all, as (stereotyping alert!) in my experience 'Mom Meals' whether for mothers day, birthdays or whatever are far too often daytime meals with the kids/grandkids present, rather than romantic dinners... So book something newer, edgier, romantic, super low brow divey, or just in a dodgier part of town - anything that doesn't have a Mom Vibe basically - and you should have a plethora of options across a variety of pricepoints on the day.

4 minutes ago, Yo Adrienne said:

Thank you...I was wondering if that was the case...! 🙂 (I saw/read somewhere that they were accepting reservations beginning 60 days in advance...but I've been trying long before that, to no avail...so maybe that wasn't accurate.) 

Guess we'll just find something else fun to do in Vancouver instead...! 🙂 

No worries - I have a vague recollection about someone asking if/when the PPs buffet would return a couple of years ago, while Covid rules were still in place... if that was you then at least you know it did come back! I think it might be technically the only actual Buffet-service fancy hotel brunch now, as Arc in the Fairmont Waterfront did indeed ditch self-serve entirely and now operates a 'keep ordering small plates from the menu for 2 hours' table service version - incidentally I checked, and they are also sold out/unavailable for this AYCE brunch on May 12th. The fancy-hotel-buffet prices also climbed heftily, to $65pp from the prior $39 if I'm remembering rightly from just pre-Covid, and frankly the menu  looks a rather pale imitation of the glory days of yesteryear despite costing more!

For that cash, even if it was available I would instead suggest you should make a reso ($10ea charity donation to avoid the easily-an-hour wait, and that's on a regular weekend morning!) for still the best breakfast in the city at Medina; take a cab both ways (<$10ea); splurge on ordering two breakfasts each (~$40ea), then waste half your food because it's far too much to finish even if you didn't want to add on a waffle (which you do - there's at least one other real Liege waffle place in town now, with the imported pearl sugar to give it the crispy-crunchy caramelized shell, but Medina still has the best sauce to fill the holes with in their lavender chocolate). Total price pretty much bang on the same as the buffet brunch would have been... or just walk over and put the cab fare toward another waffle 😉 

But you could also call the hotel directly - maybe they got a bit delayed in opening booking for it (if so, expect an even gougier Mothers Day Special Menu Price when it does open as this is traditionally the biggest brunch day of the year for most of the continent) or if it did sell out there's a good chance at least some seats will have been held back for hotel guests, since after all Mother's Day is an American invention that has yet to spread much beyond Canada - everywhere else in the Commonwealth sticks to the original Mothering Sunday date of 3 weeks before Easter Sunday.

Even if the religious side has been overwhelmed by the Female Parent meaning of Mother, fellow guests from basically every Anglican country except the US and Canada will be genuinely surprised there's some special Mom holiday brunch in May instead of March and get annoyed if they can't have their expected eggs & bacon except through room service...

On 2/20/2024 at 11:35 PM, ArbyDarby said:

Very excited about this 31 day cruise.  But my question is, do I need a visa for this?  I keep reading yes, and stuff about ETA, but not sure which is the proper way to go and not overspend.  Some places say $20, some say $140.  Not sure what Visa type either.  If anyone can "sesame street" this for me, it would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

Without knowing your citizenship it's impossible to say whether you need a proper Visa or simply an ETA - but the official Aussie government website for such things has a handy bunch of info, including this page which should walk you through what is needed if you answer the questions.

Note that Australia, like NZ, Canada, USA etc. who also use online 'electronic visa free' travel permission tools, only ever charges one fixed price on the government's official site or app. Every single place you found a higher rate listed is a scam - at best they will apply on your behalf so you still get the ETA, but with their commission on top but at worst they steal your very detailed personal info and payment method!

Never, ever buy an ETA or Visa from anywhere other than official sources... if you are a US Citizen (or another nationality allowed visa-free entry) then the ETA only costs an AUD$20 admin fee. If you need an actual Visa to be allowed in, the costs are higher and greatly variable depending on type.

Hope this info isn't too late for you, or you managed to find the info elsewhere in the meantime - I think most of this years Australia-US repo cruises are leaving in about the next month!

It's Mothers' Day - so it's sold out! All the swanky brunches in town sell out on Mothers' Day.

Also watch out @Kingsmom - especially if using a mobile device - for Amtrak's less-than-clear icon use; there is only one morning train with the rest being buses, but since they opted for showing the 'face' of the vehicle as an image they are both little rounded square shapes! Amtrak buses are not only a worse onboard experience than the train, they usually cost more too as you cannot buy Saver tickets...

Hotel-wise, while we mostly blow right through Seattle these days so double-check current reviews, the neighbourhoods we mostly stayed in were around Lower Queen Anne/Seattle Center - we walked to everything around downtown that we visited, only using transit or driving for more distant things like the zoo. Mediterranean Inn and the Pineapple hotels (the Maxwell, Hotel Five) were our most-often-booked hotels, but Hampton/LaQuinta/Homewood all featured at least once on various pre/post-cruise or weekend trips, and we have always loved taking the train.

Exactly which hotel will be most convenient of course depends on which attractions you plan to visit in your X days there, but I'd put proximity to the station as your lowest priority by far - you're only going there once after all, and cabuber fare is unlikely to go over $20 unless you're staying well outside downtown. I don't think we ever broke $15 between Amtrak and hotels mentioned.

3 hours ago, captainjak said:

Many finding this thread are probably wondering, on average, or reasonable min-max range, time from ship arrival to arrival at YVR airport.  The crazy thing is after reading this thread twice, I couldn't believe no one simply provided this information?

 

The thread confirms:

1. Skytrain is fastest way to the airport but you have to walk a very short distance to the station.

2. Taxi/Uber wait time is variable and hard to predict.

3. Princess bus transfer is not well organized and most likely takes longer than using the Skytrain

4. If you have a late flight you can check bags for $10/ea at Pan Pacific then tour downtown Vancouver.

 

So what's a reasonable range estimate for time from arrival to arrive at YVR if using self-disembarkation and Skytrain on a 7:30A arrival?  2-3 hours max?

Self-Disembarking and taking SkyTrain you can safely assume that for a ship arriving at any time after 7am you should be at YVR within an hour to 90mins... depends which slot you are allocated, as these days Self is very popular so on bigger ships there might be several waves.

If you hustle and walk right onto a train about to depart, from the sidewalk outside Canada Place to getting off the train at YVR could be as low as 35mins; walk slow, just miss a train, Sunday morning have to wait the maximum possible time for the next one you might be looking at 55mins worst case.