Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver?

[lisagro]

I found a decent deal for the PPV Hotel for the night before my cruise. However, it is still about $100 more than the other hotel we have reserved. For those of you who have stayed there, is the extra money worth the convenience? Thanks for the input.

[AlanF65]

6 hours ago, lisagro said:

I found a decent deal for the PPV Hotel for the night before my cruise. However, it is still about $100 more than the other hotel we have reserved. For those of you who have stayed there, is the extra money worth the convenience? Thanks for the input.

Its a nice hotel and being able to not take a cab on the morning of the cruise is nice.

The food was good and the views are great.

I really liked being able to have the bellman pickup the bags in the room and have them in the stateroom.

[Langley Cruisers]

Well, what's the other hotel? How would you get from there to the pier in the morning? Does it include breakfast? Plus taxes, you are looking at more than $100.00 extra. Just asking to get a sense. Sometimes, money or convenience mean different things to people. 😊

[rkacruiser]

I have stayed at the Pan Pacific several times and will be doing so again in July.  It's well located with killer views of the harbor and mountains.  Restaurants are nearby and well within walking distance of the hotel.  There is an underground connection to parts of Vancouver that has a food court with many food options at food court prices.  The hotel restaurants' offerings are very good, but they are at "hotel prices" that are typical everywhere one travels.

 

If one arrives before your day of sailing and other ships are departing from Canada Place, it's fun to watch the sailaways from the exterior walkways on Canada Place.

[martincath]

I went straight to the same place as karen - without knowing the other hotel and what it offers in compariosn this is impossible to answer!!!! If you're literally asking just about convenience, it's not worth paying more than cab fare extra for. But many PP rooms have nice views, which you may be willing to pay an extra premium for if the other hotel does not have views...?

 

Bear in mind that a) the PP isn't actually the fanciest hotel in town by a long shot (never been rated better than 4*, whereas we have multiple 4.5*s around), so you might be trading down rather than up in quality of room/service etc. and b) a cab from the furthest-possible downtown hotel should hit $20 about the same time I manage to smack Satan on the snoot with a snowball...

 

 

[rkacruiser]

1 hour ago, martincath said:

Bear in mind that a) the PP isn't actually the fanciest hotel in town by a long shot (never been rated better than 4*, whereas we have multiple 4.5*s around), 

 

But, its location, the convenience for helping a guest to embark their ship, the views from the Bar, Restaurant, Terrace, and the public walkway around Canada Place:  it's a hotel that I truly look forward to returning.

[martincath]

10 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

But, its location, the convenience for helping a guest to embark their ship, the views from the Bar, Restaurant, Terrace, and the public walkway around Canada Place:  it's a hotel that I truly look forward to returning.

I'm sure you do, and I'm glad you like it - but that public walkway is exactly what you called it, public! Nor do you need to be a guest to eat or drink in the bar or resto (we've popped in for a cocktail at sunset spontaneously more than once, and Five Sails is a great resto with one of the nicest-looking dining rooms in town... but its quality of food and service, and choice of decor, is all down to the excellent husband & wife team of Ernst & Gerry who actually run the place, renting space from the hotel just like David Hawksworth over at the Georgia).

 

The view from your room is actually the only factor that can't be replicated by simply staying in another hotel and using your own hotel's bellhop to take your bags to the lobby, the cabbie to load them and drive you and unload them, and the longshoremen at the pier to take bags from there - so unless OP wants to pay for that room with a view the hotel is (assuming an equally-good-service-and-comfiness-of-room in the prior hotel choice, rather than a better or worse one, which we still have no idea about) only worth the cost of the cab (plus tips for the cabbie and bellhop - longshoremen are extremely well-paid and the official signage clearly states not to tip at the pier).

 

Incidentally the Fairmonts across the street both also offer that same 'bags to the ship' service, in newer buildings with consistently better-rated service, plus a town car to drive you if you're so fancy or lazy you can't cope with the couple of blocks walk from the Pacific Rim 😉 Several other fancier boutique hotels will send you & your luggage with their car and driver too - it really is just about the views at the PP.

[rkacruiser]

martincath,

 

I have stayed and dined at the Fairmont Waterfront more than once.  Great property and I'd have no quibbles about another stay there.

 

Your praise of the Five Sails Restaurant is of interest to me.  I have not dined there in all of my previous visits.  Why?  The menu online that I saw seemed pretentious and not of interest to me.  Should I consider making a booking for my upcoming stay?  I intend to dine at Steamworks Brewery my first night in Vancouver and have a reservation for the Alberni Street's The Keg on my second night.  I first dined at The Keg in Montreal prior to a Maasdam cruise from Montreal to Fort Laudersdale.  My dinner/service was exemplary. I am looking forward to another pleasant dinner.  Critique of my plans would be appreciated.  

[AlanF65]

4 hours ago, Langley Cruisers said:

Well, what's the other hotel? How would you get from there to the pier in the morning? Does it include breakfast? Plus taxes, you are looking at more than $100.00 extra. Just asking to get a sense. Sometimes, money or convenience mean different things to people. 😊

For me I can't haul lots of luggage on the streets, so it was worth it for convenience, had I known other hotels had the same give the bags to the bellman  service it might of changed my selection but I wanted to be downtown near the pier, so I could walk around or cab to somewhere close and didn't want to fight traffic and cabs getting to the pier. I was also traveling for about 9 hours (drive to airport, flight, customs, luggage gather, cab) so when I got to Vancouver I wanted to eat where I was staying and not go out again. Price is important but there are always other considerations and those are individual.

 

I enjoyed my stay there, if I had it to do again I would get a room with a view towards the bridge. Sometimes I just want a clean room and quiet stay and some times I enjoy an upscale hotel. When we travel for business for trade shows we usually stay at the upscale hotels because of location to convention halls. If its just a meeting or a project, we just find a nice place.

 

 

 

[Keith1010]

We have stayed at this hotel numerous times and love it.  The staff is wonderful and the location is perfect.

 

On the day of embarkation we had one of the bellmen come to our room to take our checked luggage over to the ship.  It worked perfectly.

 

This hotel will continue to be our go to hotel when we visit Vancouver.

 

Keith

[martincath]

4 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

martincath,

 

I have stayed and dined at the Fairmont Waterfront more than once.  Great property and I'd have no quibbles about another stay there.

 

Your praise of the Five Sails Restaurant is of interest to me.  I have not dined there in all of my previous visits.  Why?  The menu online that I saw seemed pretentious and not of interest to me.  Should I consider making a booking for my upcoming stay?  I intend to dine at Steamworks Brewery my first night in Vancouver and have a reservation for the Alberni Street's The Keg on my second night.  I first dined at The Keg in Montreal prior to a Maasdam cruise from Montreal to Fort Laudersdale.  My dinner/service was exemplary. I am looking forward to another pleasant dinner.  Critique of my plans would be appreciated.  

Things do get tricky when it comes to food - one man's 'pretentious' is another man's 'barely swanky enough' 😉

 

I'd describe Five Sails as classic Continental cuisine - in fact, with less fripperies than straight-French spots like, say, le Crocodil. There's a subtle Germanic thread running through the menu so dishes are certainly much more generously portioned and sauced than you might fear from some of the terminology (Nouvelle Cuisine has a lot to answer for in driving people away from French food IMO!), and while the menu is not strictly locavore and doesn't change as often as the restos where that is more of a focus (e.g. Forage) they are good at using seasonal seafood, game, and veggies. Nothing fundamental has changed in a decade - I would not class Five Sails as a regular haunt for us, but it's a staple when we have a celebratory dinner that is more important to have exactly what we expect happen than to push dining boundaries so we're in there once or twice a year.

 

Until Botanist opened in the Pacific Rim I regarded Five Sails as the best kitchen close to the pier. Preparation is much less adventurous than Botanist - so given your comment above and marked preference for the Keg I would strongly recommend NOT trying Botanist, as it's probably the most pretentious resto in the city right now (they have the kitchen chops to make up for some of the flights of fancy they go off on, but personally I feel they could dial it back at least 20% and I'd enjoy the food more - bringing food in a fish bowl full of smoke to the table is just theater when the food itself doesn't actually take on any useful flavour from that smoke!)

 

If you ate in the Waterfront then you should enjoy Five Sails more - it's always been stronger than whatever the main resto was across the street which has actually always been the weakest link in the Fairmonts dining-wise; they've changed the main resto twice in a decade and it's still just not as good as the surrounding hotel restos, even others in the chain - whereas the Fairmont Vancouver really upped their game when Notch8 opened, and frankly the Pac Rim's Oru was plenty good enough not to need changed so I thought that opening Botanist was an utter waste of resources and was very pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong.

 

Given your Keg experiences - and I'm in total agreement with you there, the Keg has always delivered a consistent product with very solid service and on the rare occasions it faltered there were genuine-feeling apologies and robust efforts to make good so I never hesitate to recommend them to anyone asking about Steakhouses unless that person demands nothing but Prime grade beef - I would say that Five Sails just might be the best choice anywhere around the PP to step up a level of swankiness from the Keg. There are actually some very simple meat & fish dishes - and anything that sounds too froo-froo you can get sauce on the side - and while we've never ordered a beef steak there (they always have at least one elk/caribou/venison dish and fish/seafood that entice us more) any kitchen that can put out a perfectly medium rare piece of caribou can easily prep a slab of cow 😉

 

But really there are plenty of good kitchens in town, it's the service that tends to let places down (Bauhaus, I'm looking right at you!) Gerry though runs a tight and pretty old-school FOH so the waitrons are well-trained and also good at taking cues from customers - we like to get into the menu, discuss things, ask for suggestions on wines by the glass to accompany each course (and my diabetes means I always have to check whether there's any hidden sugars or starchy things that do not get listed in the short descriptions on the menu) and they respond and get into the back & forth some, whereas I see other tables being waited on with much less gusto as those folks expect their servers to just take the orders and bring the stuff so that's what they get. Waitrons aren't as openly passionate as some of the more casual-but-foody places (e.g. L'Abattoir), because there's a baseline expectation of decorum in the dining room (IMO average PP clientele tracks pretty well with average HAL suite clientele so that does skew somewhat older and more traditional - while I don't think you'd be told off for wearing your hat into the dining room, I can tell you from personal experience that if you enter the room with a hat the coatcheck peeps ask to take it from you without prompting and that doesn't even happen in Blue Water!)

 

Probably the biggest reason that I don't go more often is that I find the menu not 'pretentious' enough!!! Mostly classic dishes and a relatively slow rotation means mostly the same old, same old to me so we have to be in the right mood - after some insanely bad luck with my wife's birthday dinners over the years (we've suffered through two total kitchen walkouts in protest at the chef or management and two restaurant closures ON THE DAY that we were booked so no notice given - once with ten friends from out of town who came in to surprise her! - as well as a litany of more minor hassles like a brand-new waitron or running out of the exact things we came specifically to eat) we have really come to appreciate a kitchen that does the 'same old, same old' food (since obviously birthdays and anniversaries means the same stuff is in season every repeat visit!) with reliably competent service.

 

It's not the best in the city at any given aspect but it has a great overall combination of a quiet and spacious dining room, great service, great food, and great consistency. I think the highest praise I can give is that even if there was no view at all I would still visit and I'd pay the current menu prices happily - unlike the Sequoia chain (Carderos/Sandbar/Teahouse/Seasons) who are at least 20% too expensive for the relative quality of the experience if you deducted the view, Five Sails strives for excellence not just 'good enough' and doesn't jam tables on top of others to maximize the number of window seats.

 

Oh, and perhaps Steamworks has finally upped their game but considering that a near-identical menu is available across the car park in Rogue that was consistently prepared better, I'd suggest eating in the latter and just drinking in Steamworks. Both owned by the same folks so your money still goes to the same people! We haven't eaten a bite in Steamworks for at least five years because literally every time we did we were able to directly compare the same item to Rogue - and even when they were cooked just fine, they weren't cooked quite as well... of course chefs change, and I'm not personally familiar with the behind-the-scenes folks in the group so maybe it's flipped around now, but I would definitely suggest you try Rogue (it's also a lovely space, inside the old station) or even better order the same dish in each to compare and contrast for yourself 😉

[RocketMan275]

12 hours ago, AlanF65 said:

For me I can't haul lots of luggage on the streets, so it was worth it for convenience, had I known other hotels had the same give the bags to the bellman  service it might of changed my selection but I wanted to be downtown near the pier, so I could walk around or cab to somewhere close and didn't want to fight traffic and cabs getting to the pier. I was also traveling for about 9 hours (drive to airport, flight, customs, luggage gather, cab) so when I got to Vancouver I wanted to eat where I was staying and not go out again. Price is important but there are always other considerations and those are individual.

 

I enjoyed my stay there, if I had it to do again I would get a room with a view towards the bridge. Sometimes I just want a clean room and quiet stay and some times I enjoy an upscale hotel. When we travel for business for trade shows we usually stay at the upscale hotels because of location to convention halls. If its just a meeting or a project, we just find a nice place.

 

 

 

I share a lot of your points.

Having the  hotel get the luggage from my room is great.  Far more convenient than taking it to the bellman, cab, porter, etc.  

We'll have been travelling for over 14 hours.  We may even order room service.  (Pretty much the Ocean's menu).

As we've gotten older, there are things worth paying for.

 

[krisdamom]

My husband & I will be staying there for our cruise at the end of September. I frequently need to walk with a cane due to arthritis if I'm walking more than a couple of blocks. I've arranged for wheelchair assistance to get to the ship itself but I'm wondering how far I actually need to walk after exiting the Pan until I get to baggage drop-off point for the ship. Yes, I know the hotel will deliver our luggage however, that is likely where I will meet the wheelchair. Thanks.

[martincath]

3 minutes ago, krisdamom said:

My husband & I will be staying there for our cruise at the end of September. I frequently need to walk with a cane due to arthritis if I'm walking more than a couple of blocks. I've arranged for wheelchair assistance to get to the ship itself but I'm wondering how far I actually need to walk after exiting the Pan until I get to baggage drop-off point for the ship. Yes, I know the hotel will deliver our luggage however, that is likely where I will meet the wheelchair. Thanks.

One thing that cannot be denied about the PP is the lack of walking required for guests. The biggest factor in your total walk is likely to be where your room is - the walk from room to elevator may actually be longer than from when you get out down below... not knowing the exact layout of the PP I'd guess that your worst case would be a couple of hundred yards walking before you get to where you can likely find your wheelchair.

 

You will not need to go to bag drop yourself if you hand them over in your room - go straight to Hall C (well, just in case there's a different procedure I'd ask the bellhops when they come for the bags if it's still Hall C today) for the first part of check-in. That's where you will likely find your wheelchair and pusher (or where you will wait until one is available) as then they know that you are you - bag drop is faceless, even if you drop bags yourself the Longshoremen only care that it has a label stating which ship it goes to, so nobody there knows you have booked wheelchair assistance! Wheelchair assistance is run by your line, not the pier - so until you reach the part of the process that your line has any staff at they can't do diddly.

[krisdamom]

Wow! That was extremely helpful!  Thanks so much! 🙂

 

[AlanF65]

30 minutes ago, krisdamom said:

My husband & I will be staying there for our cruise at the end of September. I frequently need to walk with a cane due to arthritis if I'm walking more than a couple of blocks. I've arranged for wheelchair assistance to get to the ship itself but I'm wondering how far I actually need to walk after exiting the Pan until I get to baggage drop-off point for the ship. Yes, I know the hotel will deliver our luggage however, that is likely where I will meet the wheelchair. Thanks.

If the bellman gets your luggage in your room, it will be in your stateroom on the ship. Its about a block or so (inside with places to stop and sit) from the hotel to the check in area where you want a wheel chair depending on the customs line.

 

For our departure the customs line was about 20-30 switchbacks with a bit of waiting and walking but right when you enter you can access  the wheel chair line which circumvents the wait in the customs line. Either the hotel or the cruise should be able to prearrange wheel chair access.

[martincath]

9 minutes ago, AlanF65 said:

..Either the hotel or the cruise should be able to prearrange wheel chair access.

Due to your pusher taking you through both Security and Immigration Preclearance, they have to have full security clearance for the port AND both US  & Canadian governments to come & go - which means only cruise staff can do it since the Longshoremen never go onto passenger decks only into the hold. This lack of available people is why there are complaints about long delays for wheelchairs, and why it's absolutely crucial to prebook the service through your line. The PP is fancy enough that they may be happy to send a bellhop to push you down from your room, but I doubt they have their own wheelchairs just sitting around - hotels guests who need such things tend to travel with them!

 

Honestly I'd strongly advise your own travel chair OP, since you won't find Alaskan ports easy to walk around in either - this will expedite you getting onboard (no delays waiting for chair), no walking needed at all during embarkation, and also ensure if you have a flare-up that you can still enjoy sightseeing in ports (assuming that you are traveling with someone able to push you around of course... if not, a motorized chair/scooter rental seems like the best way to 'insure' yourself against missing out on opportunities during your cruise).

[rkacruiser]

martincath,

 

Many thanks for your informative reply to dining at Five Sails!  As well as my plans for dining at Steamworks and The Keg.  Your comments about The Keg fully confirm my impressions of the business when I was in Montreal.  Looking forward to another visit!  I  had not heard about the Rogue and its connection to the Steamworks.  I will check that out.  

 

Based on your information, a visit to Vancouver just for its dining scene would make sense for one so interested.  I only wish my tummy could hold what it did 20 years ago.

[martincath]

1 hour ago, rkacruiser said:

... I only wish my tummy could hold what it did 20 years ago.

For some strange reason mine seems to look much bigger, but hold less than it used to...!?

[rkacruiser]

49 minutes ago, martincath said:

For some strange reason mine seems to look much bigger, but hold less than it used to...!?

 

😀 You got that observation right!

[lisagro]

Thanks for all of the advice. The other hotel that I have booked is the Blue Horizon, by the way. So, are there any other hotels besides the Pan Pacific that are close enough to the port that you can walk?  My mother is 80, however, and I don't think she could handle a long distance.

[Langley Cruisers]

Oh man, Blue Horizon is fabulous! As locals, we have stayed there twice. 😊 Did you pay extra for a higher floor?  

 

To search for nearby hotels, you can use Google Maps - I did it for you - click on the link below and see the hotels that are close to the pier.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pan+Pacific+Hotel+Vancouver/@49.2879435,-123.1152406,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m8!3m7!1s0x54867182daa3cfd7:0x511bd0c9c1bbc59e!5m2!4m1!1i2!8m2!3d49.28794!4d-123.1130519

 

However, given your Mom, I would want to be close to the pier as well - perfectly understandable. Like I said earlier, sometimes money and convenience mean different things to people.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Langley Cruisers

[martincath]

You're the best person to guess if your mom is happy to walk the distance from any given hotel OP, and Karen's link to a map of the area around the pier enables you to see the choices (just click the ones you're considering and check Directions back to the PP, Canada Place, or Canada Place Cruise Terminal on google (they're all in the same location!). Personally I'd plough $90 of those hundred bucks into a nice dinner and stick to Blue Horizon (the other $10 is cab fare) - if you are on a high floor the views will be even better than anything the PP can offer with the exception of seeing ships berthed on the East side of the pier.

[AlanF65]

The "yellow" line is from inside the hotel, the line with orange is outside the hotel. The little purple rectangle is about where the elevator comes down in the hotel.

[david,Mississauga]

Unless I have missed it, no-one has mentioned the Pacific Club. The Pan Pacific is now our regular hotel, not just for a night or two before embarking a ship, but also when travelling on VIA's Canadian.

 

The rate for the Club floors can be quite high, but every time we have stayed there it has been considerably cheaper than the Gold levels at the Fairmont hotels. In fact, on all but one of our stays the Pacific Club was cheaper than a basic room across the street or at the Hotel Vancouver.  I should also mention that we have always booked initially many months in advance and the rate has dropped siginficantly a few months later so we have re-booked and saved between $100 and $200. We will be back on the night before a transcontinental train trip in November. The rates are a lot lower, of course, but even so they usually are reduced a few months in advance.

 

The Club has the usual goodies that executive sections of hotels offer. The staff are charming, as would be expected. The view from the lounge is west, so we do not pay extra for a "harbour-view" room,  meaning facing west. Almost all of the "city-view" rooms have a harbour view - to the east. Early availability of rooms cannot be guaranteed to those who arrive in the morning, of course, but two weeks ago on the night before our cruise we had to wait only until 12:15 for our room to be available. Our friends got their room a half hour later. Until a year or so ago one free alcoholic beverage was offered in the Club lounge, but this has been discontinued.

 

We have never dined in the hotel's restaurants. We are not hungry when arriving in Vancouver by VIA Rail or Air Canada's Business Class service, so we have no desire to have a full dinner. The goodies in the lounge and a drink are quite sufficient. The breakfast offerings are excellent. There are even some hot items, not always available at other chain's executive floors.