Vancouver Tours, Landsea Tours

[sarahruby]

I am looking to take the North Shore tour. If we book this on our own, we'd pay $200, but if we go through the tour company we are looking at 149 pp.

 

I did search the forum about the company, but seemed to only find outdated reviews.

 

Is paying the extra money worth it? This is our first cruise, I don't want to screw anything up!!

[Budget Queen]

I am looking to take the North Shore tour. If we book this on our own, we'd pay $200, but if we go through the tour company we are looking at 149 pp.

 

I did search the forum about the company, but seemed to only find outdated reviews.

 

Is paying the extra money worth it? This is our first cruise, I don't want to screw anything up!!

 

You're talking about booking through a booking agent and not direct? Check your credit card details, if they cover outside the US, first. IF they do, you can go ahead and book the tour- get the booking details, then contact the vendor direct and verify your booking. IF a problem- verify with the booking agent the exact details. IF you have further problems and no tour- request a refund. First from the booking agent, then from the credit card company.

[Suzanne123]

I can't remember what I paid, but I know that I booked with them directly through their web site. It was really convenient because we were picked up right outside Canada Place with our luggage after the cruise and dropped off at our airport hotel after the tour. As I recall, we started around 11 and ended the day around 5 or 6. We really had a nice time.

[sarahruby]

I'm talking about either booking thru the tour company, or my husband and I getting tickets on our own, and not using the tour company. Does that make sense?

 

I'm looking at the price difference between using the tour company, or purchasing tickets and getting transportation on our own to the pier.

 

Is it worth it to spend the extra money.

[travgurl]

We have booked this company for 2 days. I personally booked them on the phone with Land Sea Tours. We are going to do the Sea to sky tour and the 4 hour city tour the next day. We are using them for convenience and logistics. We will be there on Aug 2nd, the day of the Pride festival parade. So knowing that they will pick up right at the ship, keep us and our luggage for the day is a great help to us all. The reviews for their trips are wonderful.

[martincath]

I'm talking about either booking thru the tour company, or my husband and I getting tickets on our own, and not using the tour company. Does that make sense?

 

I'm looking at the price difference between using the tour company, or purchasing tickets and getting transportation on our own to the pier.

 

Is it worth it to spend the extra money.

You're going to have to clarify this, as Landsea = Vancouver Tours (company is Landsea, website is vancouvertours.com, but all branding, logos, etc. are for Landsea) so I have no idea who 'the tour company' is that you mean...

 

Landsea charges $149pp for their 'peak and canyon' tour, which I believe used to be called the North Shore tour - perhaps your cruiseline is offering the same tour for $200pp and calling it by that name?

[Putterdude]

I have no idea who your cruise line uses for this tour but I can assure you that Land/Sea Tours (Vancouver Tours) are a very reputable company who have delivered a quality product for a number of years. While I am a local who has no need to use them, for the past 8 years that I have been posting on Cruise Critic I have never read a negative review on the company and in fact people have some back and said what a great time they had with this company. As long as their tour provides you with what you are looking for in terms of an itinerary, I would have no hesitation in saying book directly with them and save the money.

[xlxo]

I am looking to take the North Shore tour. If we book this on our own, we'd pay $200, but if we go through the tour company we are looking at 149 pp.

 

I did search the forum about the company, but seemed to only find outdated reviews.

 

Is paying the extra money worth it? This is our first cruise, I don't want to screw anything up!!

Hmm....

• I assume this is the $149 package you are looking at...
  http://vancouvertours.com/tour/pre-cruise-northshore-tour/
  
• Grouse admission is $44
  
• Capilano is $38
  
• tour mentions drop off at airport. This can mean $18 savings per person ($35 carload)
  
• how much would you pay for luggage storage at the cruise terminal?
  

Going through the math.... it's about $30 extra to use LandSea's post-cruise tour. If you value your time and can't wait for the free shuttles that can get busy.... the LandSea tour option may be justifyable.

[pklein9747]

We just arrived in Vancouver this past Saturday off the Grand Princess and privately booked LandSea for a pickup and a 4 hour City Highlights tour. Cost: $75 each. They picked us and about 14 other people up at Canada Place, loaded all our luggage onto their van and off we went. Traveled throughout Vancouver and viewed many sites with our driver, Jeff, who had a great sense of humor. We got out and went to the top of the highest building to do a 360 degree view of the city. We also stopped three times in Stanley Park for various scenic views and the totem poles. We were then dropped off directly at our hotel and our tour guide even helped with the luggage. I would recommend them highly. Oh, and with the US dollar being stronger than the Canadian dollar, the price in US $ was less than $140 for the two of us. That being said, be sure to use a credit card that doesn't charge an international fee.

[sarahruby]

Hmm....

• I assume this is the $149 package you are looking at...
  http://vancouvertours.com/tour/pre-cruise-northshore-tour/
  
• Grouse admission is $44
  
• Capilano is $38
  
• tour mentions drop off at airport. This can mean $18 savings per person ($35 carload)
  
• how much would you pay for luggage storage at the cruise terminal?
  

Going through the math.... it's about $30 extra to use LandSea's post-cruise tour. If you value your time and can't wait for the free shuttles that can get busy.... the LandSea tour option may be justifyable.

 

 

Thank you!! This is the information I was looking for.

[travgurl]

http://vancouvertours.com/ Just go to this website and phone them on the toll free number. This is what I did and I got great service booking our excursions. Check out which one interests you the most. Enjoy!

[Cheryl H]

We just arrived in Vancouver this past Saturday off the Grand Princess and privately booked LandSea for a pickup and a 4 hour City Highlights tour. Cost: $75 each. They picked us and about 14 other people up at Canada Place, loaded all our luggage onto their van and off we went. Traveled throughout Vancouver and viewed many sites with our driver, Jeff, who had a great sense of humor. We got out and went to the top of the highest building to do a 360 degree view of the city. We also stopped three times in Stanley Park for various scenic views and the totem poles. We were then dropped off directly at our hotel and our tour guide even helped with the luggage. I would recommend them highly. Oh, and with the US dollar being stronger than the Canadian dollar, the price in US $ was less than $140 for the two of us. That being said, be sure to use a credit card that doesn't charge an international fee.

 

They didn't stop at Granville Island? I think the 4 hour one I booked said there's a stop at Granville Island. We were hoping to get a bite to eat for lunch there. Ours is post-cruise and it ends with drop off at the airport.

[sweetsleep]

I booked a 4 hour city tour with Land-Sea online.

They had good reviews but our tour was really bad with them. We had Sean/Shawn-showed up 20 minutes late and said it was because the other passengers "weren't ready to go when he picked them up?" But even after they "showed" it still took him forever to get the rest of us at Canada Place. His knowledge of Vancouver was abysmal-couldn't recall most facts and just started telling stories. He seemed to rule be a jack of all trades and master of none-this is just a side gig for him and it was very obvious that it was not important to him to do a good job.

Not happy that we paid for a 4 hour tour and barely got 31/2 hours of really bad information.

I am really glad we didn't book them for the Victoria tour the next day-they were already booked solid anyway.

I can't really say anything good about them after what we experienced on Wednesday of this week-June 10.

[Cheryl H]

I booked a 4 hour city tour with Land-Sea online.

They had good reviews but our tour was really bad with them. We had Sean/Shawn-showed up 20 minutes late and said it was because the other passengers "weren't ready to go when he picked them up?" But even after they "showed" it still took him forever to get the rest of us at Canada Place. His knowledge of Vancouver was abysmal-couldn't recall most facts and just started telling stories. He seemed to rule be a jack of all trades and master of none-this is just a side gig for him and it was very obvious that it was not important to him to do a good job.

Not happy that we paid for a 4 hour tour and barely got 31/2 hours of really bad information.

I am really glad we didn't book them for the Victoria tour the next day-they were already booked solid anyway.

I can't really say anything good about them after what we experienced on Wednesday of this week-June 10.

 

Oh no! We are booked with them. Did you still see Stanley Park? Did you get a stop at Granville Island with enough time to grab something to eat? Did he get you to the airport in time? This is the second bad review I've read about them in a week. Wish there was an alternative. We need this tour to kill time before our evening flight.

[chawkjewel]

Oh no! We are booked with them. Did you still see Stanley Park? Did you get a stop at Granville Island with enough time to grab something to eat? Did he get you to the airport in time? This is the second bad review I've read about them in a week. Wish there was an alternative. We need this tour to kill time before our evening flight.

 

I have the same issue. Haven't booked anything yet so may end up going back to the HOHO tour from the cruise line. I will wait for more reviews from this year. It may just be that tour guide and if they get enough complaints, perhaps there will be a different guide by the time we cruise in August.

[Dawn1004]

We used them twice on our holiday in April and May - first was up to Whistler, which was fantastic, saw lots of places, got just enough info (anymore would've been too much), had more than enough time at each stop - we were rapt we got snowfall at Alexander Falls and in Whistler Village - which they said was unusual for that of year - and saw our first black bear ever - a real delight for us.

 

Our next tour with them was ok as well - I don't think it was as good - but Whistler is so scenic and we had such a fantastic day there - we went to Grouse Mountain and Capilano Suspension Bridge, for our 2nd tour with them. we like to do our own things even on a tour - and we did find it a bit uncomfy to be herded around in a group - i.e everyone had to go on the cable car at the same time, everyone had to walk to the top of the hill - near bears together - and you then got about 45mins to 1 hr (I can't recall exactly) to wander around/get lunch etc - we wanted to go down the cable car and look around there and wait for tour but were not allowed to.

 

The same happened at the bridge but everyone split and did their own thing there, so I think perhaps everyone felt the same and wanted to do things individually not en masse.

 

Enjoy your tour.

[pklein9747]

They didn't stop at Granville Island? I think the 4 hour one I booked said there's a stop at Granville Island. We were hoping to get a bite to eat for lunch there. Ours is post-cruise and it ends with drop off at the airport.

 

Yes, forgot to add that we stopped at Granville Island for about 45 minutes. Our driver made it our first stop as he said he gets so busy in the afternoon that it is very difficult to walk around and enjoy. We just shopped as it was too early for us to eat lunch. We liked it so much, we made it a point to go back the following day.

[Putterdude]

I booked a 4 hour city tour with Land-Sea online.

They had good reviews but our tour was really bad with them. We had Sean/Shawn-showed up 20 minutes late and said it was because the other passengers "weren't ready to go when he picked them up?" But even after they "showed" it still took him forever to get the rest of us at Canada Place. His knowledge of Vancouver was abysmal-couldn't recall most facts and just started telling stories. He seemed to rule be a jack of all trades and master of none-this is just a side gig for him and it was very obvious that it was not important to him to do a good job.

Not happy that we paid for a 4 hour tour and barely got 31/2 hours of really bad information.

I am really glad we didn't book them for the Victoria tour the next day-they were already booked solid anyway.

I can't really say anything good about them after what we experienced on Wednesday of this week-June 10.

 

Well I would certainly inform Land/Sea of your experience. Your review is the first time I have ever read of any one having an issue with them...in fact people have some back and said what a great experience they had with them. I know that post cruise there is a lot of confusion and people do not always get off the ship or processed by customs on a timely basis which can cause delays in departure but the other issue is not acceptable.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Putterdude

[sweetsleep]

I was also very surprised about how bad our tour was. The "late" couple were at another hotel-they obviously were not disembarking,should have been there on time but when the guy who was herding us at Canada Place had to call "Sean" 3 times to get his butt over to us I grew increasingly concerned. Very poor service.

Traffic is bad in Vancouver which only made the tour worse.

 

There was another party of 5 people who were also VERY late at Canada Place. If our bus had been on time we would have also been wasting even more time waiting for them or they would have left without them. People are so inconsiderate. The same group also were the last to reboard at our stops and kept us waiting. I finally said something to them since our lousy tour guide would not.

Many people on this tour did need to get to the airport-this was very inconsiderate of their limited time in Vancouver-both by the company and the selfish people on the tour.

If I were to do this again, I would book the HOHO bus as it had more stops,you had more flexibility to stay at locations that interested you, and I would also bet the narration would have been much better. It was also probably much cheaper.

We did stop at Stanley Park-not enough time to really enjoy this wonderful park and we did stop in Granville island-again barely enough time to really see anything there(because the tour was running behind time). Had we done the HOHO we could have really enjoyed our times at various places much more than Land-Sea allowed.

I will contact them about the poor tour we had.

We did not fly out that day so had ample time to spend anywhere we wanted. Really regretting the decision to use this company.

[Cheryl H]

Yes, forgot to add that we stopped at Granville Island for about 45 minutes. Our driver made it our first stop as he said he gets so busy in the afternoon that it is very difficult to walk around and enjoy. We just shopped as it was too early for us to eat lunch. We liked it so much, we made it a point to go back the following day.

 

Thanks! Good to know you got to stop. We may try to grab something to eat, even if it's early. Not sure we'll get a chance at the airport afterwards, especially if the tour runs late.

[xlxo]

Post-security... there are lots of choices to eat at the airport.

[Cheryl H]

Post-security... there are lots of choices to eat at the airport.

 

Thanks! Good to know. Last time we were in Vancouver airport, it was after the 9/11 tragedy and there were large glass panels installed so we could see places to eat, but we couldn't get to them, except one hotdog place. It was so frustrating. That was 12 years ago or so.

[Putterdude]

Inside the security at the U.S. departure lounge area you will find a Starbucks, Tim Horton's, an Asian food kiosk, a sandwich shop and a sit down restaurant....you won't go hungry.

 

[xlxo]

Check this link for YVR eatery ideas...

http://www.yvr.ca/en/shopping-dining-services/food-beverage.aspx

[Cheryl H]

Thank you both. Looks like Delta is terminal E. We'll find something. But I hope we get to grab some food at Granville.