2 and a bit days in Vancouver advice please

[Cathygh]

Hi

We are flying in from the UK, eta 12 noon Canada time. It will feel like 8pm to us. We are staying at the Holiday Inn Downtown so I think the first "day" will be a local walk around, dinner then sleep. We then have 2 full days to fill before we start a cruise, leaving our hotel about 11am

On the 2 full days we are thinking about doing the hoho bus or the Landsea Vancouver Delights Tour to Capilano and Grouse Mountain or the Landsea Vancouver Tour which seems to cover most of the city plus Capilano. Or a combination.

Can anyone help us narrow this down a bit or what to do in what order? We are trying to work out when jetlag will hit us and trying to factor this in as well.

There seems to be 2 hoho providers- which is best?

Finally are there any decent restaurants close to our hotel?

Thanks

Cathy

[martincath]

1. Dining - yup, you have many options for good food (frankly, ANY downtown hotel has!) but exactly which fit your criteria of 'decent' and 'close' as well as your price-point and food type preferences mean you need to supply more info before I or anyone else can give you an accurate answer...
2. Jetlag - the most important thing to do is STAY AWAKE on day of arrival! Get out and about, keep physically active rather than sitting on a bus, eat dinner at 'normal local time' (if you are on fixed dining for your cruise, try to match that time and if not eat at your usual hour but on local time) and go for another walk after dinner unless you are 'dinner at 9pm' types. Most of our family is in the UK, we're very used to dealing with the 8hr diff UK to PST, and if you can stay awake until at least 9pm local time the day you arrive it's a huge benefit to being able to function normally ASAP! Don't nap unless you are normally a napper - but do grab some caffeinated beverages on arrival to help out (stop drinking them after ~4pm so it's out of your system before normal sleepy-time locally).
3. Impossible to say re: HOHO quality, as Landsea literally just started theirs on May 1st. I did contact them re: the route, as it's MUCH shorter than the Westcoast - they confirmed that since Granville Island is not visited by their buses, you get 2 ferry tickets - but only for the Sunset Beach to GI and back to Sunset Beach legs. Since Westcoast have cut their prices already to lower than Landsea I'd say stick to Westcoast unless you see a lot of superior reviews for Landsea appearing - you get almost twice as many stops on Westcoast, and currently for $6 a head less. The minor hassle of having to change between the City and Park loops is more than offset by the larger number of stops. Factual differences - canned commentary on Westcoast vs live on Landsea, variable vehicles (small trolleys and big buses) for Westcoast but identical double-deckers on Landsea, and frequency is better on WestCoast (Landsea may improve this in future, but right now due to size of fleet/number of drivers it's going to be 30-40min freq compared to ~20min).
4. You can add Capilano and/or Grouse to either HOHO, and they both have free shuttles from downtown so even if you want to do them you don't need to factor that into your choice of HOHO - they're both popular sites, but whether they are best sites for you to visit requires more research! It's impossible for me or anyone else to say what's best without knowing you and your party's tastes. There are far too many options to take in everything, so prioritizing what is best for YOU is crucial. Tripadvisor public rankings are a good starting point - if you work your way down the list of 'best things' in order and read the spiel on each, see which grab you as a Must Do, and talk among your party to see if everyone wants to do the same things or if it's sensible to split up.

[Cathygh]

Thank you Martincath

1 So my husband likes Indian & Chinese but not seafood, apart from Fish & Chips. I just like to eat food I would not cook at home or get from a takeaway with a preference for French and Italian. We both like burgers! I am not intending to splash out on food, but I do like to be looked after. I don't really know how much things cost so maybe C$35 -40 for 2 courses?

2 Jetlag- noted, thanks for the advice

3 Westcoast seems to now be the obvious choice

4 I had missed the additions to the HOHO so will investigate further to see what is the best option for our 2 days. From TripAdvisor I noted the most popular seem to be Stanley Park, Granville Island Market, Gastown, Capilano and Grouse Mountain. I am not too bothered about wildlife as I am hoping to see some on the cruise. Seaplane trips are way over our budget.

I am quite keen to plan this trip as we for our last holiday we did a cruise and stay in Dubai and wasted the time in Dubai due to poor planning so missed lots of stuff. We both dislike planning this sort of thing but now I have learned I really do have to put the hours in.

Cheers

Cathy

[martincath]

The 'what to do' part is short so I'll give you that first this time:

4) Stanley Park and Gastown you can see pretty well via HOHO (with multiple stops inside the former, especially the WestCoast HOHO). NB: that given the wait time between vehicles, it's more efficient to walk around in Stanley between stops that are close to each other - e.g. get off at the Rose Garden, walk to the Totem Poles and board again there instead of waiting for a bus then getting off it just a few hundred yards away. Likewise to transfer between the Park and City loops - if you change at Canada Place it will be very busy, but if you walk between a couple of the stops which are just a block apart in the middle of downtown you'll find those quieter so more likely to be able to get straight onto the next bus.

If you want a good photo of the Steamclock you'll have to get out in Gastown and join the hordes - it puts on a show every 15mins that always entices a crowd - but if not you can probably just do the drivethrough and listen to the spiel. The park and GI though you will definitely need time off the bus on foot to experience - GI has tons of shops, almost all unique, and plenty of food options too. There are even official buskers that put on regular shows - if you grab a picnic you can watch them while you eat outside on a nice day (but be sure to tip - the faster the cash comes in the quicker they get on with the good parts of their acts usually!!!)  Granville Island with WestCoast HOHO has a stop just on the south side of False Creek (it's not actually an island!) but they also used to give out one ferry ticket, so you could cut out the big loop over Granville Bridge to get to GI, then you only have to do the walk once.

 

Grouse and Cap are most efficiently visited together, rather than coming back downtown to get on the other shuttle - they're on the same road over in North Van. Hitting Grouse first means you can use their shuttle to get to Cap - just ask the driver to let you off when you pass. If you do Cap first, the odds of a Grouse shuttle having empty seats on the way TO the mountain are very slim, so taking a cab (<$10) or jumping on a bus ($2.95pp) will be required unless you fancy an uphill walk.  Grouse has way more stuff to see & do - but if it's a cloudy day you might not see anything from the top! Some of the attractions are also animal-focused - grizzly bears, wolves, falconry show - but other than that it's mostly about the views, so since you have a couple of days I would not prebook but instead look at the weather and choose the clearest day to visit if you do decide to hit Grouse. Cap the views are really just down into the canyon from the bridge and cliffwalk - so weather is pretty much irrelevant.

 

Other spots you didn't specifically flag already - in Chinatown there's the big ceremonial gate, and the delightful Dr Sun Yat-Sen park and garden (park is free, gives a good idea whether you'll find it worth paying for the garden as you can see part of it across the shared koi pond). Personally I think this is the single biggest Don't Miss attraction in the city, as unless you go to Suzhou, China you will never see a more authentic one (every component except the water was brought over from China for the giant Expo we had back in 1986, and assembled on-site by specialist artisans - and it's less than a tenner per person including a guided tour). Unfortunately neither of the HOHOs take you to Vanier Park any more, so you need to budget time & money for that if you want to see the Maritime Museum (cruisers often tend to enjoy these!), Museum of Vancouver (possibly the most interesting permanent exhibit here is the old neon light display - at one time we had more neon than anywhere else in the world!) and Space Centre (very popular with kids). Easiest way is to take False Creek Ferries from Granville Island ($8 return, less for kids/seniors).

 

Food I've got way more to say:

1) Close to your hotel though I don't rate any of the Indian restos at all highly, you need to get out of the downtown core for that (and even then, it'll be very different from UK curries - or if it's a buffet restaurant, a very crappy version of UK curry!) What you could definitely try though is Malaysian food - with hubby liking both Chinese & Indian there's a very good chance he'll enjoy that, and it almost certainly fits the bill of food that you wouldn't cook at home/order from a local takeaway unless one of you happens to be of Malaysian descent. There are some very convenient options that are pretty decent: Banana Leaf makes a good intro, broad menu and definitely within your price range - and they've got three downtown core branches including one just a couple of blocks up Davie Street from your hotel. I'll stick all these spots on a map at the end of the post for you.

 

Chinese - Greater Vancouver is arguably the best place in the world outside China to eat Chinese food, and we have a good variety of styles and pricepoints downtown. Chinatown is, oddly enough, not the place to go for it though! There are a couple of interesting options - Chinatown BBQ for very old-school Cantonese food, Bao Bei for very modern cocktail-matched share plates of Shanghai/Taiwanese food - but most of the good spots are elsewhere in downtown. If you like noodles and a bit of spice then a branch of Peaceful should be one of your stops - hand-pulled noodles and a mostly Northern Chinese menu, very different than the typical UK Chinese menu with Cantonese and maybe a bit of Szechuan on it. Hon's closed their Chinatown branch a couple of years ago, but still operate on Robson Street - they're a solid Cantonese spot with a huge menu, and especially good for vegetarian options as they operate two separate kitchen areas to keep the meats away from the veggies. ChongQing is a solid Szechuan resto - this is where I'd suggest trying a very Canadian dish, Ginger Beef (it's very similar to 'deep fried crispy beef in hot sauce' that I recall from many UK menus, but with lots of ginger in the sauce to bring the heat rather than just chili powder). If dumplings are your thing, then Dinesty downtown will definitely satisfy. All of these options are good value and you'll definitely be able to stay under budget.

 

French - there are a lot of 'French style cooking' restos on the fancier end of things, but few that are unabashedly French rather than local, seasonal food cooked in classic Continental style. Even fewer that would fit your preferred price point, but we do have a couple of viable options - Prix Fixe menus at Provence can be an excellent deal (while they are seafood-heavy, there's other stuff too especially in their Wine Bar - which is a great way to sample local BC wines as they will sell as little as 1 ounce from their draft wine system), and if you order carefully at Tableau (or dine during Happy Hour) you should be able to keep the food <$40pp. If you're here in mid-May through ~mid-June, the Spot Prawn prix fixe at Provence is by far the best value way to sample those beasties - and no need for hubby to also order, he can stick to the regular menu it's a per person, not per table, choice.

 

Italian - if it's value/portion size rather than quality that entices, Old Spaghetti Factory is in the heart of tourist Vancouver on Water Street and is always popular (personally I find OSF very meh on the flavours, but it's a fun interior and the price is extraordinarily low). A wee bit into the scruffy side of Gastown you'll find pretty much the exact opposite philosophy at Ask For Luigi - portions are modest but the flavours are intense and delightful! While not cheap, you should manage to get under your budget and every bite will be packed with taste. Several excellent Neapolitan style thin crust pizza joints are available too - Nicli Antica and Pizzeria Farina are probably still top dogs for that style of pie.

 

Burgers - since you both like these, I left the best until last 😉 There are a lot of burgers available around Vancouver, and generally the standard is good with decent beef used and many and varied attempts to make it interesting with all sorts of different buns, cheeses, toppings. The best in the city though for a classic cheeseburger IMO is the Dirty Burger from Upstairs at Campagnolo (which is a great italian spot, but might be difficult to stay under budget). When they opened their hidden 'speakeasy' cocktail bar upstairs, they added this beast of a burger as well as an enormous 'secret menu' to order it just the way you like it - but the basic burger as it comes is so popular that after selling out daily for a couple of years they started assembling them in greater quantities and selling them without all the bells & whistles as the Monarch Burger, available inside The American Sportsbar up the street.

 

Homemade Scotch baps, hand-chopped and seriously-aged beef neck, a slice of cheese, 'secret sauce' and a few slivers of pickles, a lettuce leaf and one big tomato slice (or sometimes two small ones in winter) adds up to the juiciest, most flavoursome burger I've yet to eat this side of the pond - you can also add things like a fried egg, crispy chicken skin (instead of bacon - all the crunch without the overpowering-the-beef flavour), and even a slab of seared Foie Gras. The rest of the menu changes - it's written on a big roll of butcher paper hanging at the bar - but usually includes some charcuterie, a salad or two of very seasonal items, and usually at least one obscenely-meaty special like beef ribs or a big on-the-bone steak, but if that's not enough you can also ask for access to the Campagnolo menu from downstairs (if it's busy they do restrict what they're willing to bring up, but we've never failed to get access to at least a few - one of our friends who comes here regularly with us is a vegetarian and the salads and chips are about the only edible items for her Upstairs).

 

The only downside is it can be painfully Hipstery later on - and the door is not properly listed to give it that 'speakeasy vibe'! It's right next to Campagnolo though, plain black door with a little scrap of leather marked with a hobo sign - open that and it's a curtain and a set of very creaky stairs. The burger and the cocktails are worth the idiocy! Both regular bartender/servers know their stuff.

 

Fish & Chips - every pub in the city has these! Every citizen seems to have their own favourite too! Personally I'm all about the haddock, but you guys should definitely try Halibut at least once as that's common here (probably the second most common after Cod) but almost unheard of elsewhere. If you're on Granville Island there's a little shack by the docks - instead of crossing onto GI to/from the HOHO, head along the Seawall past all the fishing boats - called Go Fish that has some outstandingly fresh produce.

 

Japanese - it's not just sushi! You didn't mention it, but it's one of our strengths - Vancouver is one of the few Western cities with lots of Izakayas (these are kind of like Japanese Tapas Pubs). Wide range of food, including some very 'normal' pub staples like chicken wings and sausages as well as sushi, noodles,  etc. Good value, and you don't have to order any sushi unless you want to 😉 Guu and Hapa are local chains; Kingyo is the one that foodies tend to gravitate to. There are also some cheap, filing lunches available thanks to our many Ramen bars (noodles) - dozens of these, all with choices of broth and noodle size plus what proteins and veggies get added. My fave remains Ramen Jinya's premium pork broth - it's just got such a depth of flavour to it. Then there's the unique-to-Vancouver Japadog - little food carts all over and a sitdown resto on Robson, serving quirky hotdogs (beef, port, and veggie, with MANY topping choices - I recommend the Kurobota Pork Terimayo as it comes).

 

Tacos - Mexican food proper is weaksauce here, but we have a ridiculous number of tasty taco joints with mostly very untraditional fillings. Tacofino is probably the biggest local success story - they literally have a Michelin starred Chef doing their menu planning! Might not work as well for hubby, but the fish tacos tend to be the most reliably good across the city - though there are some excellent traditional fillings available at La Taqueria. These kind of snacky and lunch options, especially if you both want to eat different stuff, is where our Food Cart scene really comes into it's own - there's an app & website that tracks which carts are where each day and usually where you see one there will be a few others in the same area, so it's easy to buy one item from a few trucks and do a little impromptu 'share plate' lunch.

 

Maps - the spots West of your hotel are here, and those on the East side here, both with your hotel as the starting point (I think I got them all, if not the websites are linked above so finding them should be easy enough).

Edited May 4, 2019 by martincath

[Cathygh]

Wow, Martincath that's brilliant advice. Lots of choice of things to do and eat .It's certainly made me feel more prepared for decision making

Regards

Cathy

[martincath]

No worries. When folks narrow down their parameters I'm happy to type lots of suggestions. The absolute best advice though, especially for Brits with your billions of vacation days, is to stay for a couple of weeks and do ALL the sights, then you don't need to worry about prioritizing anything 😉

Edited May 5, 2019 by martincath

[laverendrye]

So, Martincath, the burgers at Campagnolo, do sound like something very special indeed and I’ll have to try them next time I’m in Vancouver. I’m curious to know, however, where you would put the ubiquitous White Spot burgers in your galaxy of Vancouver burgers. 

[martincath]

1 hour ago, laverendrye said:

So, Martincath, the burgers at Campagnolo, do sound like something very special indeed and I’ll have to try them next time I’m in Vancouver. I’m curious to know, however, where you would put the ubiquitous White Spot burgers in your galaxy of Vancouver burgers. 

They're certainly a step up from McDonalds, but it's not something I'd ever feel the need to order again after trying once. In general I'd say they hover near the top of the 'fast food chain' pile, though not as good as Vera's locally. If I'm passing a White Spot and in need of a bite, I'd go for their Salmon 'burger' instead of the classic beef myself.

 

Burgers really aren't a major part of my diet (for a burger to really work, it needs the whole package of bun/meat/toppings to be appropriately-balanced - since discovering I was diabetic I'm basically not going to waste my carb allowance on a boring burger bun when I can use it for much tastier options!) but the Dirty Burger as a package is just so well thought-out that I find myself going back every couple of months, carbs be damned. Like with curry, I find folks are always trying to persuade me to try X, Y or Z place that is 'super awesome' but I've never come across another remotely-regularly-priced burger that I've found worth going back for (obviously some of the obscenely-premium options out there involving wagyu, truffles, and the like are gosh-durned delicious but you really can't compare a $40+ burger with a $10 version fairly!)

 

The other local standout from a relatively purist burger perspective is Save On Meats - if you haven't been there it's definitely worth visiting for classic diner fare without the hipster markup, and you will not find a better burger around here for under $10.

[Cathygh]

12 hours ago, martincath said:

No worries. When folks narrow down their parameters I'm happy to type lots of suggestions. The absolute best advice though, especially for Brits with your billions of vacation days, is to stay for a couple of weeks and do ALL the sights, then you don't need to worry about prioritizing anything 😉

Billions of vacation days... I wish.  We all moan we only get 20 days, less for me as I'm self employed! I guess 20 days seems like a lot in some countries. 2 weeks in one place would be good, I'm just trying to cram a lot in al at once

[laverendrye]

Martincath, my late wife grew up in Vancouver when White Spot still had car-hops and every time we were in Vancouver or elsewhere in B.C. with a White Spot she liked to have one of their burgers (with extra sauce) and I’d have the same. Like you, I’m not a great burger eater but I do agree that they are a cut above Macdonalds and the other international chains.  I think that White Spot has reasonably good fast food, though when I eat there it’s usually something other than a burger. 

[martincath]

6 hours ago, Cathygh said:

Billions of vacation days... I wish.  We all moan we only get 20 days, less for me as I'm self employed! I guess 20 days seems like a lot in some countries. 2 weeks in one place would be good, I'm just trying to cram a lot in all at once

You want to have a word with that boss of yours - she sounds like a tyrant!!! 😉 Remember that after that court case a few years back, minimum UK time off is now listed as 28 paid days (as some weasels were counting bank holidays toward meeting the previous minimum of 20 which was proven to be unlawful). But I guess if you're not being paid for any time you take time off it's tempting to minimize your Pre/Post-cruise days, the downside of self-employment...

 

Things are indeed much worse this side of the pond though - I really missed my vaycay allowance when I emigrated. Between working every possible bank holiday & taking a day in lieu, choosing flex-time instead of overtime pay, I managed ~7 weeks of discretionary time off; my wife had 6 weeks but could also work remotely at times so we traveled a ton, taking one 'big holiday' of ~3 weeks each year somewhere exotic, a week or two in Greece every year, and a few short breaks around the UK. Even after negotiating an extra week of paid leave and a week unpaid from day one in Toronto, that was still just 20 days which seriously crimped our ability to take long vacations. Unless your employer is very nice, most start on 10 and get increased to 15 with 5-6 years of service. Our southern neighbours who make up the vast majority of cruisers have no requirement to be paid for any days off; IIRC the average paid out to those who actually get any paid leave is ~15 days per year, but almost a quarter of employees still get none at all according to a gov't study in 2018.

[martincath]

2 hours ago, laverendrye said:

Martincath, my late wife grew up in Vancouver when White Spot still had car-hops and every time we were in Vancouver or elsewhere in B.C. with a White Spot she liked to have one of their burgers (with extra sauce) and I’d have the same. Like you, I’m not a great burger eater but I do agree that they are a cut above Macdonalds and the other international chains.  I think that White Spot has reasonably good fast food, though when I eat there it’s usually something other than a burger. 

Ah well, once you factor in the emotional resonance of a childhood treat I can see why she'd think the Triple O is the bees knees! Depending where in Ontario you are, Golden Star in Thornhill (technically Markham these days) still offers handmade charcoal-broiled burgers and super old-school thick shakes that are way better than White Spot - that was my regular Friday lunchtime 'hang with the boys' spot before we moved to Vancouver (and before I knew I was diabetic, or I definitely wouldn't have had the shakes!)

[Cathygh]

Hi Martincath

Yep, my boss is the worst in the whole world!

We have the EU to thank for our paid holiday allowance, but as the whole Eu thing is a bit of a dangerous topic I will leave it there.