Victoria Butchart Gardens

[hellokittyluver]

Going to be at Victoria on the Rhapsody of the Seas soon....what's the best way to get there (Butchart Gardens) off the ship without taking the ships excursion?:confused:

[Sequim88]

City bus if you have time. Need to allow for wait times for next bus. Otherwise go over to CC sister site TripAdvisor.com and search the forums there. As a destination expert at TA I can vouch for the info from the DE's for Victoria. Very helpful for land info.

 

It's a fair distance from the dock so don't cut too close on the timing. Not sure how long the stop at Victoria is but had heard it was usually pretty short, just to satisfy having an international stop on Alaska cruises out of Seattle.

[denamo]

Going to be at Victoria on the Rhapsody of the Seas soon....what's the best way to get there (Butchart Gardens) off the ship without taking the ships excursion?:confused:

We were on the Rhapsody last year, so here is my take.

We mostly use independent local guides rather than the ship's for our port excursions, but the gardens are pretty far from port. I'm thinking it was a 30 - 45 minute bus ride.

This is probably one excurion best done through the ship due to distance. Unless you can book a reliable independent local guide that can get you there with time to spare, I'd be a bit leary. Of course the good thing is that if you miss the ship, you can probably easily ferry over to Seattle. ;)

We did the tea and gardens excursion through the ship and enjoyed it very much. I would love to go back. We -(I) :cool: just wanted to do the tea. Not that it was probably equivalent to some of the other places in Victoria to do tea, but this was the best of both worlds for hubby and me. We really didn't want to have to get all "gussied" up for tea, and they allowed more casual dress there.

Hope this helps.

[knittinggirl]

We took the Butchart Gardens as a RCI shore excursion, and were late getting back to the ship (after the deadline), due to traffic. Some people were slow getting back to the bus, and I think that put us into rush hour. But since we were on a RCI sponsored excursion, they held the ship for us.

 

BTW, the same thing happened with the Dunn River Falls trip in Jamaica. There some people arrived 30-45 minutes after the deadline. Every 15 minute bathroom break took 30-45 minutes too. Our 5 hour (no lunch included) trip stretched to 9 hours.

[novalab]

I strongly recommend using the ships excursion for this. Normally, we never book through the ship, preferring to find our own excursions online months before our cruises. However, I am very happy we went with the ship on this one! We were on one of the Mariner PNW cruises last year. I believe the cost of the tour through RC was around $79 pp. Since we had lots of OBC due to the H1N1 reroute from the MR, we signed up for this excursion. Our bus was very close to being late in getting back to the ship. It is a bit of a drive & some of our group was not timely getting back on the bus at the gardens. No stress, as we knew the ship would not sail without us. Our tour also included the Butterfly Gardens which we all enjoyed.

 

This tour was really worth the extra $'s booking through the ship.

[scottbee]

Going to be at Victoria on the Rhapsody of the Seas soon....what's the best way to get there (Butchart Gardens) off the ship without taking the ships excursion?:confused:

 

City bus. Exit the cruise facility, and just to the left of the entrance, there's a bus stop (don't cross the street, take the bus on the same side of the street). It's $2.50; take the bus (which will be a #30 or #31) to "Royal Oak Exchange", and at the Royal Oak Exchange transfer to the #75.

 

Ask the bus driver, he'll tell you where to wait for the next bus. By city bus, it's just under an hour to Butchart

[Bonnie Voyager]

We also usually book our tours independantly, but did the Ship's tour (HAL) to Butchard Gardens, and we were glad we did...for all the reasons already listed. I don't know what the price difference would have been by traveling independantly, but any difference in price was well worth it for the peace of mind it gave me. We had a lovely city tour prior to heading out to the gardens. We had several hours at the gardens and then ended the night with a magnificent fireworks display. We decided to start heading back toward our bus a little bit before the end of the fireworks, and I was so glad we did! The mass exodus of everyone exiting the gardens at closing time, was amazing! We were safely sitting on the bus as we saw the hoards of folks piling out trying to find their buses (or any bus for that matter). Like others, we were late arriving back at the ship (as I suspect the city buses were too) so I was thankful that I was on a ship's tour and was delivered right to the gangplank and the ship was right there waiting for us to reboard! I can't imagine if we had been on a city bus and had to run from the bus stop to the ship late at night with my 75-year-old mother-in-law in tow! :eek: The gardens are beautiful though and well worth a visit no matter how you get there! Enjoy! :D

[cougfan]

Just returned from the Rhapsody May 28th cruise.

 

We were going to do the gardens on our own using the city bus, but decided on the ship to just do a ships excursion. With having to change buses we realized it was going to be more like 1-1/2 hrs to get there and the same back. With the ships excursion we saw the Butterfly garden and the gardens (for 2 hours). We were dropped off downtown, went to the Undersea Gardens and then walked back to the ship along the water. The weather was perfect and we had a great time.

 

Julie

[Nanaimobound]

I have to agree with everyone else here.

We took the Butchart from the Dawn Princess, and just made it back in time to be last to board the ship!

they will only wait for you if it is a ships excursion, and if it is a distance away, it's better to pay a few more dollars and be assured that wait.

[islandercruiser]

As someone who lives on the island and works in Victoria - take the RC tour. Traffic, like any place, is unpredictable and if you get left behind it's not as easy as jumping on a ferry to get to Seattle. Yes there are ferries to Seatle but... there's reservations to deal with if you are looking for a direct route, and that cost will most likely be more than the cost of the RC excursion. Or you could take the "lovely" BC ferry system over to Vancouver then find some other form of transportation down to Seattle.

 

Enjoy your visit to Victoria! Hopefully we will have nice weather while you are here???

[hcat]

It's a long way--take the ship's excursion & be safe... ours was a combined city tour, gardens & a winery with chocolate tasting- we had a great guide on the bus.. had plenty of time to see all the gardens & shop a bit & snack--it was a great day

 

we got back to the ship in the nick of time-(lots of traffic)-but of course the ship would have waited..... only regret was not being able to also enjoy the city...