Vancouver Airport. How early?

Staying post cruise in downtown Vancouver. Have an 8 AM flight on a Monday to return to the U.S. and we are citizens of the

U. S.

How early do you suggest we arrive at the airport and approximately how long will the drive be?

Thanks

You could Google Map the exact distance from the hotel involved (as we don't know) to the airport.

You will be going through US Immigration and Customs at the airport. That could take a few minutes, or over 30, easily. I would be adding time generously for that. I think I would want to be in the airport by 6am.

US Customs opens around 4AM for 6AM flights. Airlines open as required.

Plan on arriving 2 hours early. The drive from Downtown is approximately 30 minutes.

Hope this helps.

If it is a cruise day there will be other US cruisers off your ship or other ships in? arriving too. I would be there 2 hr for sure or earlier.

You have US Customs and Security to do before getting to your gate.

I'd agree that 2 hours early is a good, safe timeframe. An 8am flight means other cruise ships are irrelevant - nobody gets off before 7am, so no other pax can possibly have any impact on your commute to the airport or the security & immigration queues. 3 hours early is recommended by YVR - but that is immense overkill except when the airport is really busy.

Much earlier than that becomes counterproductive - since US CBP open at 4:30am officially, but can actually be delayed opening ~15mins due to their morning meeting once staff are 'on the clock' there is always a lineup of people who came too early! How long it takes to clear that lineup varies based on how many flights are in the 7:30am or earlier window - but in our experience if you show up at 5:15am the queue has been dealt with and things are flowing smoothly.

If you don't have Global Entry or NEXUS then booking a cab from your hotel at 5:30am (drive time from all downtown hotels does not vary more than a few minutes as we pack them all into a compact area), or heading to SkyTrain about the same time, would be the way to go. If you do have one of these then you can probably leave downtown at 6am without any concern as you'll speed through both security and CBP. We usually take the earliest possible flight to the US from YVR, as early as 6am on occasion but almost always before 7am, and arrive on the first SkyTrain of the day about 5:10am - with NEXUS we've always been through all the queues within 20 minutes including walk time, sometimes it takes longer to walk to the gate than to get through security and CBP!