Walk to Canada Place to board cruise ship

[ta917901]

I'm booked on a Royal Caribbean cruise in Sept and will be staying at the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle the night before departure.  The hotel appears to be a short walk to Canada Place.   Are there any issues or lessons learned that anyone can offer about walking to Canada Place to board your cruise ship?

[martincath]

The hotel to pier part is a slight downhill, nice wide sidewalks, pedestrian crossings... not really much to say except don't just wander out into traffic! At the pier though there is a useful bit of info - don't go in the doors. Walk a little further (go past the Pan Pacific and Starbucks) and you'll see the best pedestrian entrance, a downward ramp on your left, where you'll see folks directing traffic in and out of the pier. The sidewalk is separated by a sturdy barrier from the vehicles, and it feeds you directly to luggage drop making it the simplest way to get to where you have to go first.

[Tranquility Base]

3 hours ago, martincath said:

and it feeds you directly to luggage drop....

Is it customary to tip the luggage handlers at the port ?

[martincath]

24 minutes ago, Tranquility Base said:

Is it customary to tip the luggage handlers at the port ?

Not only is it not customary, it's not supposed to be done at all - signs specifically state NOT to tip. While I'm not at liberty to share how I know what the Longshoremen earn, they ain't hurtin' for cash by any stretch of the imagination. Besides, if you walk down the ramp you can literally hand the bag over right at the conveyor belt heading to your ship instead of having to give it to some dude wandering about with a trolley, so the only work done by anyone you actually see is moving your suitcase about two feet vertically...

 

Unless you plan to glue a few singles and a sign to your bag saying "Please take one of these $ bills if you handle my case" you can't fairly tip the guys who unload at the bottom of the belt, so why tip the guy at the top? He's at the top precisely because he has seniority over the guys at the bottom so got to pick where he worked first, so he can win some free cash from tourists who don't pay attention to signs 😉

 

[lax19]

Google Map Street View of the ramp Martincath mentions.

 

[POF1234]

Very helpful thank you.  We are stayin at the Sheraton walle - which is about .8 mile walk to Canada Place.  According to my travel agent - we have a transfer, but I really think ti will be easier and quicker to hoof it.  

[martincath]

No worries - and if that transfer is with any mainstream cruiseline, cancelling it will likely net you a refund of $25-29 per person... Could be worse value than from the Wall though - I know of folks who paid to be transferred from the Pan Pacific Hotel, and the walk from there involves just going downstairs!!! 😉

[przyk]

On 8/19/2019 at 7:36 PM, POF1234 said:

Very helpful thank you.  We are stayin at the Sheraton walle - which is about .8 mile walk to Canada Place.  According to my travel agent - we have a transfer, but I really think ti will be easier and quicker to hoof it.  

 

We were booked at the Sheraton Walle Center, but I scored a great deal through Hotwire on the Sutton Place so we ended up staying there.  We had heavy bags, so we took a taxi from Sutton Place (about 2 blocks closer to Canada Place than the Sheraton).  The fare was like $6CD, I rounded it up to $10 because the driver lifted our bags into and out of the taxi.  The taxi dropped us off like 2 feet from where we checked our bags.  It could not have been easier.

[Knighton]

We're staying at the fairmont waterfront after our cruise.  If we each have 2 pieces of luggage and a backpack, would we be struggling to walk to the hotel?

[martincath]

2 hours ago, Knighton said:

We're staying at the fairmont waterfront after our cruise.  If we each have 2 pieces of luggage and a backpack, would we be struggling to walk to the hotel?

If you can manage to walk from where you get your luggage to the street, you'll already have covered significantly further than you still need to go. The hotel is literally just across the street, so even with the pretty wide sidewalks on Canada Place maybe 30 yards away. If you behave yourselves and cross at an official pedestrian crossing you'll probably multiply that by four...

[scottbee]

On 9/15/2019 at 4:55 AM, Knighton said:

We're staying at the fairmont waterfront after our cruise.  If we each have 2 pieces of luggage and a backpack, would we be struggling to walk to the hotel?

 

It's directly across the street, perhaps a 20-30m (18-27 yards) walk from the entrance of the Canada Place cruise facility.

 

[Knighton]

Thanks!  That looks easy.