martincath

They're both going to give you a guarantee of whale sightings, but Juneau has a lot more alternatives available - so unless you are mad keen to do either the huge zipline or a bear tour in ISP, there's pretty much nothing else except a whalewatch in ISP that would eat more than an hour (wandering into Hoonah proper is quick and easy, there's a cultural dance performance at the pier several times a day IIRC, and the cannery that the cruise tender dock was built from has a 'museum' which is basically like a Disney ride queue zone, various little exhibits to look at as you shuffled slowly along waiting to board your tender - now that there's a proper pier so you won't have that experience unless you're unlucky enough to be on a multi-ship-day it would take maybe 15minutes to read all the signs in the building)

Firstly, being a Torontonian you'll likely be awake at oh-dark-hundred thanks to your body clock so you should take advantage of that extra local-time hour or two! And unlike others, you don't even have to check your own bags so no need to wait for the drop to open, early or regular... hand over your bags in your room to one of the bell staff, it's one of the perks of being in the PP. Others have posted pics in prior seasons of the little reminder card you may find in your room, which helpfully gives the suggested tip per bag for this service - you do need to ask for the service the night before, so I'd just do that as soon as you have your room number at check-in. Secondly, Granville 'Island' despite the name isn't one - it's firmly attached to shore, just on the wrong side of False Creek. You can ride the 50 bus back to the core for dirt-cheap in <30mins, or take one of the wee water taxis for about $4 across to the right side of the creek and walk <3klicks total, or walk about half again as far if you walk over a bridge (you have to backtrack a lot up a hill to reach deck level). Long story short, it's WAY less risky than being at e.g. Capilano, over Lions Gate with its notorious traffic disasters on a regular basis. I would have zero worries about getting from GI to the pier with 2 hours in hand - but I would not be taking a small boat trip right before that deadline! Anything at all goes awry on that boat ride and who knows how long you bob around awaiting a tow or transfer, or how much extra time limping back to port takes... unless it's a tour around the city's waterfront, rather than say up Howe Sound, in which case you'd never be far from somewhere to land and call a cab or even hop on a bus back to downtown and there would be loads of other boats around to lend a hand. If it is an out-of-town tour, and the same tour goes in the morning, take THAT one - you could easily walk from the PP to GI to board it before 9am. Every time we fly back here from TeeDot we're up at 6am next day whether we want to be or not, so if you make use of the PPs bag delivery you could be out hunting down a decent brekkie by 7am easily, and have plenty time to either walk the long way or have a nice wander around GIs industrial achitecture while you wait until boat-boarding time... To illustrate, here's a Google map with the default 'walking' route from PP to GI (not sure which pier your boat would leave from, but most of the tours tend to be on the side of the island I ended the map at, and while you do need to use a water taxi it's almost a straight line!) - flip it to Transit to see the bus route, choose Option: Avoid Ferries to see the longer routes all-on-foot. In T.O. terms, it's pretty much like visiting Centreville from somewhere near Union Station in terms of distance/difficulty to get back to the core (i.e. about 4Klicks, could use transit or just walk it, best to spend a few bucks for a boat unless you're a great swimmer!)

You will probably walk further from your plane to the train, and again 'curb to cabin' at the pier, than the distance from SkyTrain platform to pier! Google Map for the best route with bags is here - this assumes you pay a little attention on the platform and take the exit to Granville Street (if you board the rear of the train, it's that end of the station, but there are signs). Worst case and you follow the crowds to pop out into the main Waterfront station lobby, it's actually an even simpler route just a little uphill instead of a little downhill! Walk out the doors onto Cordova Street, walk to your right/uphill until you reach Howe St, turn right again, follow the sidewalk, arrive at pier. Train itself ~26mins end to end, you are boarding at one terminus and exiting at the other so the train stops and waits - let any crowds clear before pulling your bags out from under the seats rather than fighting your way through to near the doors while the train is moving!

It depends how early you arrive! Anyone cruising that day can drop bags, but since the official start time is listed as 'between 10 and 10:30am' any time before that for early bag drop is a bonus, there is no official policy about when it starts but logic dictates it can't possibly be earlier than the longshoremen show up for work (unlike the industrial docks, the cruise pier is not a 24/7 operation). I've personally used it ~9:30am and have seen others report using it around 9am several times, so if your flight is say 8am or even a little earlier you should give it a go, it'll probably take at least an hour from touchdown to get through immigration, baggage pickup, customs, then SkyTrain downtown even if the queues are very light (~26min ride). Look for signs at the pier telling you which level to head to on the elevators, and there should be big metal wheely cages and some longshoremen supervising them, with (quite small!) signs indicating which cage goes to which vessel - they'll also have luggage tags. Personally I would use the tags the line sends you by email, print them at home and bring them along already written out - you'll have ample time to pull off the plane tags and replace with the cruise tags while riding the train in, one more little bit of efficiency improvement! If you have a flight at say 6am though, then I'd consider spending a few bucks and using a nearby luggage storage option - the Pan Pacific hotel bell staff are on the ground floor, right above the pier, so it doesn't get more convenient than that... reported rates last season were $10 (CAD if you have it, no change given for USD) per bag, and the hotel does run 24/7! Note also that Vancouver is not a city of early-risers! Anything involving tickets almost never opens before 9am even in peak summer season, but fortunately our parks are not locked up after hours so even if you arrive pre-Dawn (officially parks are open 'dawn to dusk') you could wander the seawalll to catch the sunrise (head for Brockton Point Lighthouse, but anywhere along that sweep of land from the yacht club past HMCS Discovery and Hallelujah Point looks back toward the city and should give a nice view when the sun pops up) You can also use that map link to check bus schedules - quicker than walking! If you wanted to wander Stanley Park, then as early as possible is the time to do it. Avoid Seawall crowds, and have plenty of time to get back to the pier - I would save the closest things which entice you to the period right before you plan to board, especially if you're trying to push it as late as possible... with US CBP to deal with on top of regular cruise check-in/security, 2 hours before your ship is supposed to leave is as late as you should attempt, but in general the later the better for lighter queues. FlyOver Canada is right at the pier, takes about 45mins for the whole program; Gastown is only ~10mins walk away and is very popular for cruisers to wander Pre and Post; maybe the Harbour Centre lookout, also <10mins walk? These are the places you want to be visiting as your boarding time approaches to avoid risk of traffic delays - never a good idea to be on the other side of a bridge from the pier with less than an hour to go!!!

Hmmm - even a full week of extra time you could entertain yourselves in Vancouver without going anywhere else! But without knowing you, your other party members, the things you all enjoy most it's really hard to say what would be best for your group - there's no such thing as a Must See anywhere IMO, and while a week would give you enough time to probably do everything you might like in Vancouver, as soon as you start considering road trips then a week becomes incredibly short and it's absolutely necessary to focus on your priorities. Given that you indicate it's split into pre- and post-cruise though OP, so you need to be in Vancouver at least twice right before and after, I'd be inclined to consider open jaw flights for efficiency if it's not too late to (re)book those... you may actually save both money and time by not flying across the border and opening up more non-stop flight options, even in summer there are not many nonstops YVR-MCO. If you flew in and out of different airports, you could easily avoid retracing your route within a fortnight. If you're stuck with expensive-to-change flights both in and out of Vancouver, then consider spending some days either Pre or Post on Vancouver Island, with the other time sticking local to Van proper - if there's even just two of you, taking a rental car over on the ferry gives flexibility of timing and routes; head from Vancouver to Tsawwassen, RORO to Swartz Bay for a night in Victoria, then head further north to see Cathedral Grove, maybe even across to Tofino on the outside (great surfing and storm-watching) or Campbell River on the inside (excellent Orca watching, with trips into spectacularly narrow waters of the Inside Passage in daylight unlike most cruises) for a second night. Return on the Nanaimo-Horseshoe Bay ferry, and head up to Squamish, maybe Whistler before coming back to Vancouver and you'll add a lot of mountain viewing, which tends to be popular with Floridians in my experience given you guys live in the flattest state!

If it just was a choice between fancy hotels @KY_Tom, I'd do the Fairmont YVR rather than the PP in your situation - even if the flight lands on time, that's a 2am arrival by body clock and while immigration shouldn't take too long it could be another hour from touchdown to leaving YVR... picking the hotel right at the airport instead of right at the pier makes more sense to me. But if you're looking for a more budget-friendly option, the time you'll wait for a shuttle to cheap airport area hotels could easily exceed the drive time for a cab downtown in the wee small hours - that time of night you'll have to call, the driver will have to be found and stopped doing whatever else their other hotel duties are, fire up the bus, and drive to YVR (most 'airport' hotels are across a bridge, with a traffic-free drive time anywhere from ~10 to 20+ minutes) then drive you back again to check-in. Whereas cabs are lined up waiting and can get downtown in <30mins at that time of night - so if the YWCA Hotel still has a room available to book, that's your win for a good-but-cheap hotel hands-down!

The Clipper operates a whalewatch in tourist season from downtown - all the above arguments about distance apply, and it's absolutely not designed for whale-watching, but it does go from right downtown! Depending how many other pax are onboard you might find railspace easily or have to go claim a space while it's still moving (fast, windy!) to ensure you can see the water well without glass in the way. Personally I'd rather rent a car for the day and drive up nearer the San Juans; if you can spare a day there's lots of pretty places around to visit as well as getting out on a smaller boat that's actually designed for the purpose...

Sorry, bad grammar and wrong street, I should have said Pender rather than Cordova - and I thought I'd managed to link a map last time around - doesn't look like that worked, so here's a second try with both walking routes listed, from pier to park and back by Seawall or most direct route. You can just flip the mode of transport to Transit to explore which bus stops are convenient, and it will also provide an accurate schedule as Google has all of Translinks route data. Renting a bike is also an excellent choice, as while that will be pricier than a bus it means your travel around the park is significantly speeded up without losing access to anywhere (all of the trails and paths are bike accessible, although interior ones can be steep so if you want to see Prospect Point either an eBike or strong legs are a good idea!), and if you stick to Seawall and park trails you won't have to ride in traffic.

Princess would not accept that time if your flights are through them - the earliest flight slots in Vancouver tend to be 12:30pm, and on a busy day you can need that long if you wait for those slow-as-molasses cruise transfers! If you are independent travelers though, and as Bruce says are mobile (at least enough to carry your own bags off with one hand free to hold escalator rail) I would not worry about a flight at 11:45am in the slightest. Personally I'd always recommend a flight next day, avoid all the hassle, hang out in one of the best cities on the planet - but if you must get home same day, that flight is low risk unless you need help with bags... Princess will prioritise pax booked on their own flights for all those slots, then high status folks, but given it seems like 75% of Princess AK cruisers are Platinum or Elite I would hesitate to assume any chance of leveraging Status alone to get an early slot if you cannot walk off...

Yes - in fact I'd strongly advise pushing your arrival even later, aiming for 2pm (the later the better for lack of crowds, but you do not want to risk missing the boat - with both CBP preclearance and Canadian authorities also needing pax manifests you really want to be there by the 2hr predeparture mark) so while the park is fine to visit, I'd advise planning lunch or something very close to the pier (Gastown, maybe ride FlyOverCanada right on the pier) as your thing to do in the 1pm-2pm slot! Earliest I know I've been able to drop a bag is ~9:30am; officially it doesn't start until some time between 10 and 10:30am but that's the normal location, there is always an Early Drop down in the bowels of the parking levels, literally some longshoremen with luggage cages, probably one for each vessel in port that day. Make sure you hand your bags to the right guy! Walking along the Seawall (scenic) is ~45mins, a straight shot back along Georgia and Cordova saves at least 10mins, so allow 60-90mins walk time there and back - personally I'd hop on a bus to save time! The 19 has a stop right inside the park, near the Rose garden and pavilion, but several others also stop at Denman & Georgia just outside the entrance. You might also consider a bike rental - you'll move much faster but still be able to get anywhere in the park you can walk to. It's been a while, but the gym at Canada Place west (Club16) used to rent bikes, it doesn't get much more convenient from the pier than that, but if they don't there's a Spokes rental on Cordova just the far side of the Fairmont Waterfront hotel, so only a block away.

You'll have to ask the mods to kill your other one @kayehall - 'report' the post! As to an informal brekkie, when in Rome (or rather, Canada)... eat at Timmies! - there's one in the mall across the street, you can even use tunnels under the road to avoid crossing Canada Place. I'd suggest dropping bags, then going for brekky given the minimal distances. Personally I think the best super-casual brekkie these days is at A&W - we have a different menu in Canada, which includes almost a real UK Fry Up (if they had black pudding, I'd never eat anywhere else...) if somebody wants a more substantial affair, plus the usual biscuity brekkie sammich type options that MickieDs, Timmies etc. offer. The nearest A&W is inside Waterfront Station, so if any of you are coming downtown by SkyTrain it's a super-convenient meetup location.

Shortest walk to the garden and clock, back to hotel, is ~1.5miles - various other sites could be included on this day's wander easily enough. Walking to the park isn't really a problem if you can handle the above; a little under 2 miles to the Rose garden, even less to the park entrance... it's the walking around the park itself that really adds up! Just the Seawall loop is an extra 8km, depending which interior sites you want to visit you could spend hours and walk miles! Personally I'd take the bus - you can walk to a 19 stop easily (just change the google map to Transit mode) and get dropped off inside the park, and several other buses also stop just outside the entrance on Georgia. Then at the end of the day, if you aren't totally puggled and want to rack up more miles, walk back along the Seawall - e.g. directions from Second Beach There's so much that you COULD do, I'm loathe to make any specific suggestions - two days isn't much time so you really need to consider the kind of things YOU enjoy most and target them. Other visitors on here may reply, and you can Search for 'Vancouver' to get some ideas from past trip reports, questions etc., but honestly so few people use this board on CC compared to broader sites that you will get a much wider opinion from Tripadvisor ratings, which for anything remotely touristy here you can assume are rock solid as any fake reviews disappear to irrelevance among the thousands of ratings for big hits. Resto wise, if budget isn't an issue and you eat anything, I'd suggest that Blue Water Cafe is probably the best overall seafood place, for both raw and cooked dishes, in the city and that's a sensible genre to aim at in this neck of the woods. Top-notch service too, a lot of seriously long-term waitrons. But if you want something more unique, Salmon & Bannock would be a cab ride away but significantly less spendy - so overall you'd probably end up still spending less even with 2 cab fares. Indigenous restaurants are incredibly rare, there aren't any other sit-down ones in Vancouver, and while the service is a bit more casual it's very genuine - while still owned by the original lady and several friends/family work there, there's now a maitre d' and the dishes run a little swankier than back in the day. If there's a few of you to enable consuming an entire King Crab, a very special evening could be had here feasting on your very own, live from the tank, AKC - but unless at least 6 of you are dining, it's going to be frighteningly pricey as crabs can easily run 10+lbs and the meal is priced per pound plus a modest extra pp cost for the veggies, rice, dessert etc., so you could easily be looking at a grand total for a big crab feast and a bit of booze! If none of those jump out at you, I'd really need more details of what you love/hate to eat and what sort of budget you are willing to allocate to your nice dinner!

That was the bridge toll, not a fee to enter Canada 😉 If you cross the Rainbow Bridge on foot, you pay leaving Canada; if you drive across you pay leaving the US; it's really common here for bridges and small, local ferry routes to only take fees in one direction as it cuts back on admin and infrastructure costs... these days the cost is different, CAD$6.50 but still US$5. For our Kiwi OP, as long as your US ESTA has not expired you won't need to pay at any of the Vancouver-relevant land border crossings in either direction - unless you are over DutyFree allowances of course! Personally I would fly into Vancouver - we have nonstops daily AKL-YVR, whereas SEA will need at least one layover for any flight from NZ - if you plan to visit before boarding a cruise in Seattle, so you would need to get a Canadian eTA for that, but just CAD$7 so not remotely significant compared to flight or cruise costs!

You're welcome, and I'm happy to help with further info - but the more specific the request, the more likely I can be accurate with a response. In general, a short stay like this I always offer the same advice - get each of the party members to have a look at Tripadvisor and make their own shortlist of things they want to see, compare lists, decide if you're willing to split up the group, and then us local types can be of most help with things like how to combine X, Y, Z sites most efficiently. All the big hit attractions have hundreds or even thousands of reviews, so their relative enjoyment levels for Joe Q Public is a pretty fair comparison - simply reading the Top 10 sites and tours may be all that you need to do to fill your entire time with stuff you have the best possible chance of enjoying. Even without dataplans we have a free city-provided WiFi network that covers a lot of Vancouver (broadcasts as #VanWiFi), Translink manage to get passable signals even on trains in tunnels and moving buses, so it's pretty easy to use maps on phones or tablets and use messenger apps to stay in touch for free - so if one of you really wants to do a thing the others don't, you can easily coordinate meeting afterward without always having to go back to the hotel to meet up! Another local logistical tidbit is that if everyone can ride a bike, even if you're not used to riding in traffic and want to avoid that, things like the Seawall are made vastly more efficient - depending on hotel choice, it might be ten miles to do the full loop and back and you can see exactly the same stuff at least three times faster on wheels. Adult tricycle rentals remove balance issues, and a tandem could let Granny do less pedaling with younger legs providing most of the power, but these days eBikes are easy to find too - spending a few bucks to save a few hours is generally wise when your time is short! The other suggestion I'll make now is that for next time, have a look at flying Open Jaw into YYJ and out of YVR or even SEA - or the reverse depending on schedules. Not many nonstop flights from Atlanta area, but a ton of connections in Seattle, mean that you may be pleasantly surprised how little extra it costs to get onto the Island at the start or end of your cruise... and many folks enjoy the Clipper, which conveniently goes from downtown Vic to downtown Seattle on a 'Fast Cat' with border clearance done at the pier in Vic! For this trip though, you're here for the final night of the Celebration of Light which is hugely popular - one of the biggest & best fireworks shows in the world - so I would strongly advise getting your hotel booked yesterday as the already-busy summer weekend nights will be compounded by not-actually-local 'locals' who don't want to commute home late at night after the show with hundreds of thousands of other people and thus book a hotel in the city that Saturday!

First bit's easy - absolutely not. Even if you have money to throw at the logistics and fly both ways it's an awfully long day, and basically you'd need to be on your feet almost all the time. I speak from experience on this - our first visit as tourists we were here for a full week, spent a day apiece in Vic and Whistler, and in hindsight regretted both despite enjoying all the stuff we did in Victoria (Butchart, whalewatching, Royal BC Museum all took about 3 hours each and we also squeezed in quicker visits to Craigdarroch, Miniature World, and an art gallery whose name escapes me at the moment for approx. 12 hours plus the short but very scenic flights). Next day we needed a lie-in and abandoned our original plans of hitting UBC campus so we could actually relax! If you were thinking of one of the cheaper, but still pricey, coach-and-ferry trips to the Island (same total time as we spent, but an extra 3 hours traveling to and from so much less time actually Doing Things) then you will find that even if their schedule works perfectly you probably won't have enough time at Butchart to really enjoy it, and if there's traffic or a ferry delay it will be further compromised... I always recommend spending at least one night on the Island if you visit at all. On the hotel front, there's no badly-located downtown hotel for restos, shopping, or sightseeing in Vancouver - and you'll probably be out and about the whole time, so paying for a view or fancy facilities doesn't seem like great value. We stayed at the YWCA Hotel ourselves as tourists, it was excellent then, it's had a reno and a whole new tower wing added since and continues to be among the best-reviewed hotels at any price despite being almost always cheaper than any suburban option. Granville Island hotel, or across the water in North Van the Lonsdale Quay Hotel, are both located basically right next to the public markets - but personally I'd look at a proper downtown core location for minimal time wasted traveling on a short visit! The Y also has the most flexible room options - if none of you want to share a bed, they are unique in offering 'Jack & Jill' paired rooms sharing one bathroom (with a Queen or 2-beds on each side) for even less spend than 2 regular en suites, plus Family Rooms with 5 single beds which sometimes cost less than a pair of rooms. There are even single rooms - which ordinarily all use a shared hallway bathroom, but if you also have a twin room the solo could use that bathroom! No dorms - the 5pax family rooms are as big as it gets - but there are proper laundry and kitchen facilities to save a few more bucks making brekkies, packed lunches, even dinners if you want. What to do? Unless you're from an even younger city, 'old' doesn't describe much of our architecture fairly in Van or Vic! We do have quite a bit of nice early interwar and some quirky more modern stuff around, and Gastown while might have had a lot of modern retro-twee-additions with the cobbles, lamps, and steam clock all being 70s installed just styled like Ye Olde Districte but it does have our highest concentration of Victorian/Edwardian buildings... your first contact on architecture should be with AIBC, who I just heard back from myself this week about their walking tours restarting this summer (unfortunately no specifics yet, but if you reach out they will also add you to list of folks who will be first to know when routes and dates are announced!). But even the free* ('tip what you want') walking tour from Toonie Tours covers the basics of our most iconic downtown core buildings, and while exactly what info you get depends on the guide they always follow basically the same route including Gastown and visit the Marine Building (one of our most interesting interiors and exteriors). There's also some useful info on the local Heritage Foundation website, like a map overlay app that flags where many and varied sites are - the actual tours these folks arrange tend to be more of a 'visit bunch of peoples houses so they can show off how nicely they have renovated the place' but they've also done some involving larger residential buildings and even some commercial sites, you might get lucky and find something that works for your dates. There's also the free private custom tour option with Stroll Buddy (full disclosure: I am a local Buddy, but since it's a completely free, No Tip service, I don't feel any conflict of interest mentioning them!) which, if you're not familiar with the 'Greeter' concept can be summarized as 'imagine you have a friend who lives in City X, who connects you to a friend of theirs you don't already know to show you around town Like A Local' - who is available on your exact dates is a random factor, but if it's one of us who also likes architecture and gardens, like me, you may end up having a near-perfect-for-you tour without spending a dime on the guide! Vancouver-proper gardens I'd advise Queen Elizabeth Park and Van Dusen (easy to walk between these) for a lovely mix of Old School Botanic (VD even has a hedge maze!) and a Butchart-Lite taster (QEP has 2 Quarry Gardens and the bigger one captures some of the same vibe, plus a waterfall if they ever fix the water recycling issues) with the bonus of an indoor Tropical garden under a glass dome. Less than US$30pp to visit both of these, including cost of a transit daypass! The other site you absolutely cannot miss given your preferred things to do is the Dr Sun Yat-Sen garden in Chinatown - unless you visit Suzhou in China you will never see a better example of an authentic Scholar's Garden anywhere in the world, and this is the single finest garden style around when it comes to harmoniously melding architecture and 'managed nature' as every building, every plant, every rock, even the pond and the surfaces you walk on are specifically chosen. Free docent-led guided tours run pretty much hourly in summer. UBC Campus - technically not part of the city - also offers a bunch of interesting architecture (movie and TV location shoots love the local campuses due to how wildly different some of the buildings are) even if none of it is old, the world-class MOA (reopens in June) as well as several other museums, a small but beautifully located Rose Garden, and a better-than-Butchart Japanese Garden as part of their extensive Botanic garden, which even has proper tea ceremonies if your timing works out. There's even an elevated treewalk out at UBC and a working farm - and in summer the buses and campus sidewalks are a lot less busy due to far fewer students. The only other thing I'll add right now is a potential caveat - it sounds like this is likely a 'girls trip' for 3 generations of the ladies in the family, and your profile doesn't indicate your normal home or gender, so if you yourself @Debate are a big, burly streetwise guy or the whole family lives somewhere urban and gritty feel free to ignore the rest of this paragraph! But just in case you are indeed a trio of females, perhaps from a nice suburb or small town, be aware that many of the most interesting and historic parts of Vancouver are in or adjacent to the poorest urban area in North America and there's a lot of potentially-uncomfortable, even scary, things to be seen... we are however an extremely safe city with crime stats against people lower than most 'nice' US college towns! If you had a car or rented an apartment anywhere near Gastown I'd be warning you about our pretty high property theft rates, but going car free and staying in any real hotel those won't be relevant - just apply normal, sensible behaviours like you should in any urban area on the planet and keep bags, phones etc. secure and you should be fine. Thanks for tagging me in Andy @Heidi13 - I'm trying to check CC at least every few days now that we're getting closer to cruise season, but something that pops up in my inbox guarantees a prompter response!

I can only comment indirectly about them, but since you've had no other answers yet it might be at least somewhat helpful... Firstly, they have been around at least 6 or 7 years in the Vancouver area - but frankly I had no idea they offered 'regular' sightseeing tours, I only know them as a booze tour company... they've done various 'sample several breweries/wineries/distilleries responsibly by minibus instead of drunk-driving' things over the years since our booze laws loosened up and a whole raft of new licenses for making it were issued, and while I cannot say with any confidence it was them specifically I rode with (there have also been other companies chartered by e.g. local CAMRA branch for events), I know a fair few local boozehounds who do lots more of these day trips than I do, and none have complained about any of the buses, drivers, or companies used so they are at least competent at this niche. Secondly, taking a deposit for a private tour is not at all unusual here - in fact I would be frankly shocked if you could book direct with any local company without having to do so! For a 'book seats on a tour already operating anyway' situation, absolutely a refundable or even no deposit is possible - there's always going to be some folks looking for ad hoc tour tickets to fill a few seats, but private tours here have been struggling to recruit drivers for years so to entice and keep the good ones, a level of certainty in terms of minimum shifts paid really helps. The fact it's not due until 10 days before rather than at time of booking is frankly about as good as it gets in my experience! Unfortunately the most relevant qualitative info I can't help with - safe, timely drivers getting folks around breweries don't necessarily know diddly or squat about entertaining, historic, touristy type tales! Skimming their TripAdvisor reviews there seem to be a lot more 'corporate transfers', 'bachelorette booze bus' and the like reviews than folks actually mentioning touristy guided trips, so their positive ratings skew heavily toward 'was it a clean bus, on time, safely driven?' than 'was the guide hilarious and informative?' So all-in-all, while I'd be inclined to say that odds are good if you hire them you will get a bus and competent driver with all the insurance etc. properly dealt with, I'd be more comfortable pointing you toward a private tour specialist - booking someone on e.g. toursbylocals you will see exactly who you will be guided by, reviews of that person and their vehicle that are confirmed as having been taken (no reviews allowed without a booking, so far more reliable than Tripadvisor on this scale of review volumes). Hope that helps some at least!

GE gets you into the short queue without an appointment for both Security and CBP Precreening; YVR Express is thus pointless for you, as it only gets you into the Security short queue you are already entitled to! Even if it's a very busy cruise day, if you make use of free WiFi (all over the city these days, even on transit) or aboard ship to check yourself in for your flight you can walk right over to the bag drop and then go join the short Security queue with GE, so there's a good chance you'll find arriving 2.5hrs early means killing 2 hours at the gate... but since it sounds like this is your first time at YVR so you won't be familiar with the layout, giving yourself 2+ hours is sensible

Princess may - they and other lines have done so in past seasons anyway - offer a combo of 'take bags to airport, sell you tix for HOHO bus, sell you tix for transit' that's ludicrously overpriced. Unfortunately there is no longer a comparative 'take bags to airport' independent service available, but cost of simply storing them downtown then taking them yourself to the airport in the evening shouldn't cost more than $10 per bag. Even if you take transit, the Canada Line trains easily handle a big suitcase and carry on (there is space under seats and extra legroom compared to our other light rail, as it was built with consideration for air travelers). I cannot recommend a specific storage service - I live close enough to walk so bag storage has never been relevant locally! - but googling will bring up several websites that hook you up with local locations like hotels and stores for stashing a bag. The official pier storage is the only one I don't recommend, because they are a) more expensive than anyone else [$13 last season, though discounted if you buy a West Coast/Gray Line tour]; b) have the most resticted hours. For someone with an evening flight, being forced to go back for bags by 4:30pm then drag them with you to dinner and any other sightseeing renders the service truly terrible! If you don't want to preselect and book through luggage hero, bounce, and similar services then the Pan Pacific hotel bell staff will hold them for non-guests as long as you like, $10/bag. If your flight is early evening, some day-tours might work - longer ones involving some out of town sights like Grouse Mountain would be dropping you off at the airport around 5pm with your bags coming along on your bus all day - but if it's a redeye you really are best advised to arrange your day independently, as none of the packaged trips, indy or cruiseline resold, run long enough to work well (except a coach & ferry day trip to the Island which runs TOO long, delivering you back around 13-14 hours after you leave which cuts it too fine even if your flight is at midnight!)

I'd concur with the 2 taxis - fixed price of exactly CAD$37+ whatever you want to tip per vehicle - if you have any mobility issues in the group, but SkyTrain would save a few bucks if you don't mind a bit of a walk... closest Canada Line station is City Centre, about 700m away. But with 6 people and the inbound AddFare, even if it's an evening or weekend (1 zone, $3.15pp) the extra $5 each means you won't save much over a cab unless you've got some kids in the mix (free under 13) - older kids and seniors save about a buck per ticket... If it's an RT though, going TO the airport is significantly better value on transit - no Addfare! When the Canada Line opened, the local 'shuttle from airport to downtown hotels' businesses all quit - nobody price sensitive was going to pay extra compared to the now super-fast and convenient transit, and as soon as you hit 2+ people cabs were the same price as what the shuttles had to charge to stay in business.

You can always bring at least one 'medium' (~25") bag plus a small personal underseat one on all the Windsor-Quebec corridor trains, even with Economy tickets. Since passengers have been very understandably complaining about the new restrictions, with fees for all cheap-ticket checked bags and even large carry on bags introduced for the first time, those fees are not currently being taken... but I would assume that they will be in place by the time you cruise, i.e. 'plan for the worst'! If you are bringing a bigger-than-25" case that would mean $25 fee whether you carry it aboard yourself or check it in the baggage car, if one is available on your train, unless they are Oversized or Overweight. Note also that all carry-ons are supposed to be liftable onto overhead racks by you - although I would expect VIA will remain compliant with laws on disability access and still have at least one porter available to schlep bags on and off at each station for folks with mobility problems, and I seriously doubt they would get too picky if e.g. you just look older. Frankly I'd also be shocked if anyone struggling to lift a bag wouldn't be offered help by other passengers.

@PJ1254, I see that you tried to 'flag' me not long after my post, but it seems to have stayed plain text so I didn't get a notification! No harm done, as most of what I'd have said was already covered by @SCX22 - I too feel like the value of Cap is poor for visitors, you guys subsidize us locals significantly (we literally pay what you do for one day to get an entire year of access!), and frankly it's a bit of a circus. Lynn Canyon is not only quieter, but IMO a superior experience due to the much more natural surroundings, actual park rangers in an informative little museum/eco-centre, and the cafe is IMO better and verifiably a lot cheaper than food at Cap! The only downside is the hassle of getting there without your own vehicle - transit is possible but lengthy with at least one transfer, on the day you embark it's not a risk I'd take unless you did the rental car thing or found somewhere to stash bags so you could get there nice & early. As to transit to Cap, a regular Translink bus from downtown literally stops right outside - which is why I mentioned the $3 ride if you really want to go (it does have a couple of distinctions, being much longer and higher than the Lynn Canyon bridge, and maybe the various modern froo-froo bits actually entice you!) Bus 246 is the one you want - Google Map with directions from a nice, central intersection - for CAD$3.15pp, even less for seniors and kids. If it's still something that entices - or doing Lynn by transit or Grouse Mountain or some other North Shore site - then with an airport hotel I'd say that the only way to improve your timing is to spend some money, and stash bags downtown at cost for the morning. The Bell desk at the Pan Pacific holds bags for non-guests and in theory operates 24/7; there are also various luggage storage options in other hotels and shops you can find via Google - bounce, luggage hero, several others operate - which have a more formal system with a hefty guarantee against loss for probably a saving (last time I checked, rates per bag went ~$6-10 vs. $10 at the PP). The official cruise storage at the pier is even pricier, starting at $13! Depending how many people you have, how many bags need stored, a rental car might work out well financially compared to stashing a bunch of bags for a fee though if you already have good insurance through a credit card, use your phone for GPS etc. to avoid all the bells & whistles. Parking is cheap at Lynn, even cheaper at some other places out of town (with a car, going as far as Squamish would be low risk if you left early enough - so the gondola ride or Britannia Mining Museum might be enticing), and while the cost in Stanley Park is higher a car is actually a pretty efficient way to quickly hit some highlights, as parking rate includes ALL locations so you can stop at Totems, drive on to Prospect Point, then round to the Beaches, the Rose Garden etc. in short hops and the cost is the same for one person or if there's a bum on every seat of the car. Best thing(s) to do though? That's too dependent on your personal tastes for me to say - if you've never been here the temptation is of course to ask about Must Sees, but with just the morning you can't possibly do more than a tiny amount, so far better to try and figure out what's the best bang for YOUR bucks. Tripadvisor's great for popular site comparisons, a solid idea of what Joe Q Public thinks is 'best' comes from just reading the top ten rankings. Get everyone in your group to look separately, choose their personal top three things, compare lists, and see how close to being on the same page you all are about which things are best for you. Personally I don't even think Cap is a must-see at all, others rave about it because they get more from the experience of being on the highest/longest bridge, looking down through the glass floor of the cliffwalk etc. whereas for me woodlands should be more about the 'forest bathing' quiet ambience and a really narrow canyon with frothing white water is more attractive than a wide-but-boring one, so Lynn checks my boxes much better. And definitely be back in town by lunch if you do decide to roam further in the morning. You really want toi be walking into the pier at 2pm for your planned 4pm leaving - CBP take the pre-screening just as seriously as any other border crossing, and the passenger manifest has to be locked down and transmitted IIRC at least 90minutes before the ship leaves! If it's a busy day with some other ships leaving later, there may still be a bit of queueing even at 2pm unfortunately - but far less than there would have been earlier...

I haven't taken any whale-watching boats out of Seattle, Friday Harbor (where I'm guessing that you are seeing 'chopper or floatplane me here' tours to), Anacortes etc. so I'm afraid so can't offer any specific company reccos - but certainly the same resident pods that are seen out of Vic & Van cross the border frequently, and in May we have lots of non-residents Biggs' also roaming throughout the Salish Sea with the new crop of bite-sized baby seals and salmon runs, so there's definitely a good chance of seeing Orca from many places both sides of the border - but the most reliable area for Orcas in this neck of the woods in May is probably around the San Juan islands, which you can get to on (longer) trips from Seattle or Vancouver but are much closer to Victoria and Anacortes. If you rent a car and drive up to Anacortes you'd be sailing from the east rather than west to the San Juans (the biggest island of which is called Orcas, but entirely coincidentally as a shortened form of a Spanish name!) - without needing the additional time or premium cost of first getting onto the San Juans by ferry or air and then taking a whalewatch when you get there. By May most folks are already running two trips a day, so you could leave Seattle nice and early to avoid traffic, hang around on land in Deception Pass just south of Anacortes (one of the better places to see Orca from land - but you'd still need a whack of luck with just an hour or so!), take a ~10am whalewatch, and be back in Seattle before evening rush hour gets too bad. Seattle-based tours with guarantees exist, but not for a specific species - the Clipper even runs one daily from I think May-October - they'll almost certainly take you to the closest whales of whatever flavour, but you might get lucky and those could be Orca... There's a chance of land-based sightings all over the place - heck, Alki beach in Seattle has vaguely reliable sightings although more in Fall than Spring - and several other towns 2-3 hours drive from Seattle port whalewatching boats, so you could play it by ear, check websites of companies in each town every day before you arrive and decide which one to drive to based on who's been seeing Orcas most! Port Angeles and Port Townsend at least offer options. If you repost your Q on the West Coast board, you may find a helpful Seattle area local or two that can give more authoritative info than I can; there are a lot of very narrow waterways around the Puget Sound where Orcas would be easily visible from land if they were using them, so someone familiar with local salmon runs might be able to point you to some specific places that have high probablities on your dates? Oh, and since you mention beginning in Seattle I'm guessing it's a round-trip cruise from there rather than a one-way out of Vancouver - but just in case, May-June is peak Orca season up at the other end, with the likes of Major Marine offering Orca-specific whalewatching from Seward!

Officially bag drop begins some time between 10 and 10:30am, depending how many pax are being offloaded. Earlier-than-that drops involve schlepping down to the lower parking levels and finding a longshoreman with a luggage cage for your ship - but even that is extremely unlikely to be available before ~9am, and I can only personally speak to having done it once at 9:30am (at which point there were literally just a handful of other bags in the cages). If you can score a late check-out from your hotel, or simply ask them to hold your bags until later, then you can spend your morning doing the across-the-bridge-with-notorious-traffic-woes North Shore sites like Cap before heading back to your hotel for bags by noonish (even if you do all the stuff at Cap, 2 hours is plenty of time especially if you pay the $3 for transit so you are there when they open, rather than arriving on the first shuttle with the hordes). Go to pier to drop bags then go for lunch and/or a short, very close bit of further sightseeing (e.g. walking Gastown for the Steamclock & cobbles, riding FlyOverCanada right at the pier, basically the sort of places that you can walk to the pier in minutes rather than risk having to cross a bridge back to town) and you can safely shave the margins very tightly.

As long as you bring your physical card with you, it should (TSA Pre status prints on boarding passes so as I understand it you almost never need to show the card to anyone in the US, but there's no TSA here and the CATSA folks working the security queue up here don't have access to scan passports at point of entry, so you need to show your card to get in that line).

Unfortunately not any more @nitewolfgtr - several years ago the folks who look after bags at the pier were the same folks who do so at the airport, so they would transfer for a fee; when the pier franchise changed to WestCoast that service was lost as well as all the prices going up! PorterGenie filled the gap (they picked up, and dropped off, bags anywhere inclyuding pier and airport), but they don't seem to have returned after Covid - their website is still active though, so it's possible they might return for 2024, you could contact them... Hugely overpriced cruiseline excursions will offer this plus an airport drop-off of you - but unless you are a solo traveler just doing the exact same tour booked directly, paying to store a bag downtown, and then a cab to the airport in the evening is almost certainly cheaper as well as much more flexible, so better at filling your whole day with as much as possible! Most tours drop you at YVR either around 2pm or 5pm, and in both cases you will be far too early to even be allowed to check your bags - so now you're stuck hangining around outside the secure area until 3-4 hours preflight when you can check them in and proceed through Security. With a flight that late, I would store bags downtown at the Pan Pacific, or with a local store or hotel using Bounce, Luggage Hero or similar service found online (all should work out to ~$10/bag or less), enjoy your day out, have dinner, collect bags again by 9pm and then cab (if you can't manage bags easily) or SkyTrain (if you can it's both dirt cheap and faster!) to YVR, arriving 2 hours preflight. That late you will breeze through bag drop and security, and there's no Preclearance - wherever your first stop in the US is, you'll see CBP there for immigration and customs, so hopefully you booked a nonstop or have a reasonable amount of time for the connection!