Arriving in Vancouver on Canada Day - questions for local

[astrosfan1]

We are arriving in Vancouver on Canada Day this year on the Coral Princess at 7:30 am.  We are 5 females in our mid 50's - early 60's and mobile/pretty active.  We're spending 3 days post cruise in Vancouver (fly out on Saturday, 7/4 around noon).  I've done a lot of research and we're excited about seeing many sights around the city and we are NOT renting a car.  We like to use public transportation whenever possible when visiting cities.  We are staying at the Best Western Plus Chateau Granville.

 

Some of the items on our to see list are:

 

Stanley Park - walk around, totem poles, gardens, etc..  Not interested in renting bicycles.

Granville Island

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

Grouse Mountain - Gondola, Eye of the Wind, etc. - Probably like to spend half a day there

Gastown - dinner one evening and a tour with Lost Souls of Gastown

Olympic Cauldron

Queen Elizabeth Gardens or VanDusen Botanical Gardens

 

We are considering one of the Hop On, Hop Off buses for either 1 day or 2 days.  I understand the buses don't run on Canada Day.  So, I have a few questions:

 

What should we do on Canada Day?  Stay around downtown and do Stanley Park and/or Granville Island?  Or, get out of the downtown area and go to Grouse Mountain and/or Capilano?  How is the downtown area on Canada Day and is there anything special happening we should participate in?  Fireworks in the evening?

 

Any local advice would be fantastic.  Thank you in advance.

[cruiseryyc]

The Hop On/Off buses aren't working on Canada Day?  Seems strange but I guess they are worried about the crowds downtown.  Can't say for sure where any festivities will be taking place but my bet would be somewhere central downtown and there will be fireworks.

 

Hopefully one of the Vancouver regulars (Martincath) will be by soon with their expertise.

[scottbee]

14 hours ago, astrosfan1 said:

We are arriving in Vancouver on Canada Day this year on the Coral Princess at 7:30 am.  We are 5 females in our mid 50's - early 60's and mobile/pretty active.  We're spending 3 days post cruise in Vancouver (fly out on Saturday, 7/4 around noon).  I've done a lot of research and we're excited about seeing many sights around the city and we are NOT renting a car.  We like to use public transportation whenever possible when visiting cities.  We are staying at the Best Western Plus Chateau Granville.

 

Some of the items on our to see list are:

 

Stanley Park - walk around, totem poles, gardens, etc..  Not interested in renting bicycles.

Granville Island

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

Grouse Mountain - Gondola, Eye of the Wind, etc. - Probably like to spend half a day there

Gastown - dinner one evening and a tour with Lost Souls of Gastown

Olympic Cauldron

Queen Elizabeth Gardens or VanDusen Botanical Gardens

 

We are considering one of the Hop On, Hop Off buses for either 1 day or 2 days.  I understand the buses don't run on Canada Day.  So, I have a few questions:

 

What should we do on Canada Day?  Stay around downtown and do Stanley Park and/or Granville Island?  Or, get out of the downtown area and go to Grouse Mountain and/or Capilano?  How is the downtown area on Canada Day and is there anything special happening we should participate in?  Fireworks in the evening?

 

Any local advice would be fantastic.  Thank you in advance.

 

All of the local transit system will still be running on Jul 1, albeit with a Sunday schedule.  It should be fairly simple to visit Stanley Park (#19 bus), Capilano (Seabus followed by the #236 bus, or #19/246 - plus they operate their own free shuttle), or grouse mt (also Seabus/#236 bus).  If you're going to visit Grouse, it makes sense to visit Capilano during the same trip as you go right past enroute to the other

 

[martincath]

So firstly, yes, fireworks mean you should come downtown again in the evening (well, you're of course staying downtown already but views from the BW won't be worth diddly - so you need to head basically back to the pier on the other side of the core, as for Canada Day the fireworks tend to be from a barge in Coal Harbour rather than English Bay (where the Festival of Light shows happen).

 

It's not a big round number celebration, so crowds are probably going to be light compared to the huge 150th, and depending on whether or not there actually is a parade in the daytime and exactly what entertainment happens at the pier, plus weather, numbers could be quite variable - but most Canada Day celebrations see a ballpark of 150,000+ people crowding the pier, convention centre west (where the cauldron is), and the Seawall all along this stretch as views are good. To get an unobstructed view, unless you're all basketball players, you would have to show up pretty early for the usually-around-10:30pm show).

 

Note that while there are a few rerouted streets all day near the pier and HOHOs therefore have to run a different-than-normal route, skipping some stops, but they do run (LandSea, the newer player with smaller fleet, has announced a handful of Sunday closures this year but NOT on July 1 - none of them except August 2nd are actually big holiday dates - Aug 2 is Pride Parade day - so it's probably to save cash for the double-bubble OT that all drivers will get for working the holidays that happen close to each date like Easter, Victoria Day, Canada Day etc.)

 

Next, you have two natural pairs of activities - QEP/VanDusen, and Grouse/Cap. The former you'd just walk between - and don't forget that the one ticketed part of QEP has a combo ticket available with VD that saves a little cash if you are doing both. I'd say that this is your best bet for a quieter day on Canada Day - no dependency on shuttles which will also be impacted by routing changes, and while it's certainly not an UNpopular site for visitors because no HOHOs or regular scheduled day tours stop here it's much more about locals. While the park will entice local-locals who use it as their 'back yard' (many new condo buildings have gone up due to rezoning a few years ago, so population density around the park is steadily climbing) the draw of free bands, shows, food truck fest etc. down at Canada Place will siphon a lot of those folks away on their day off, so I'd say that both QEP and VD should not be packed with extra bodies compared to any summer weekend.

 

Your Cap/Grouse day - optimal combo of these is definitely to do Cap first, then take the transit bus up the mountain to Grouse (they're on the same road, there's no way you can miss the stops, literally every bus passing you uphill is going to Grouse, and with 5 folks it should be pretty easy to find a local $10 and $5 note - first person on just asks for 5 tickets, boom, no wasted cash or footling with coins for everyone to pay their individual $3 fare). A cab could work out even cheaper, but finding a cab with 5 seats is a serious challenge so bus is almost certainly going to be quicker unless you get lucky and an accessible Minivan delivers someone right as you want to leave, you have no qualms about taking an Accessible vehicle which someone else might actually require rather than merely desire, and one of you doesn't mind sitting in the fold-down jumpseat in the trunk area - minivan cabs have the middle seat row removed to make room for wheelchairs & scooters so there are only 4 actual passenger seats in virtually all of them. In short, since you won't have luggage to schlep, take the bus!

 

Why Grouse last? Easy - many timed shows, and few of them much before noon. Plus Cap, unless you get caught up in serious crowds, takes less than two hours to walk around the bridge, cliffwalk, treewalk, so you can easily use the first free shuttle and be done and up at Grouse by bus by noon, when you might want to eat lunch. And at Grouse you will have WAY more eating options than Cap (including some really top-notch food if you don't mind dropping big bucks at the Observatory).

 

As to Stanley park - since you want to take a HOHO, that's how you get around most of it. There are multiple stops, and almost all of the subsections within the park are a pretty short walk from the nearest stop. People will ALWAYS get off at the Rose Garden, Totems, Prospect Point etc. which means people always get on again too - but do note that with 5 of you, you may not all get on the same bus every single time... Personally I'd be strategic, look at the park website (detailed maps) and compare to the HOHO stops with the company you decide to book, and see if you don't mind walking between actual HOHO stops - for example, the Rose Garden you can walk downhill to the Totem Poles - to minimise the number of times you actually need to get on and off. Granville Island makes sense to do the same day as Stanley, since all the HOHOs circle around both (well, they either stop near GI so you can walk in, or give you a ticket for the little ferries, or both).

 

Statistically it's about as dry as it gets here even in early July, but you might want to hedge your bets on exactly what to do when based on weather just in case. Assuming no big diff between any of your 3 days, I'd pencil in July 1 for getting to your hotel, checking in, dropping bags, and then heading up to QEP & VD. I'd do them in that order, and even prebook Seasons in the Park for lunch if I were you - while it's not a cheap lunch, it has probably the finest views of any resto in the region as it's right on the highest point of Vancouver and looks across downtown to the North Shore mountains. The extra buck or two per item compared to similar-quality food elsewhere IS worth it at this one, unlike the other restos in the group which have much more limited views but still overcharge. Quality of the food is high, though menus run far from cutting edge - their bread & butter is local, old, rich, white folks with decidedly mainstream food tastes (but those are catered to very well - penguin-suited hosts, lovely dining rooms). Walk over to VD afterward - depending how into gardens you all are, you can probably hustle round both sites in a couple of hours each, or spend double that if you actually read about the different plants, sit and take in the ambience, or get really lost in the hedge maze 😉

 

Best way to and from sites on Canada Day depends what kind of shape you're all in after your cruise, and how tight your budget is. If you want to burn some of those unlimited-grub calories, just walk to your hotel - it's barely over a mile, a very small up then downhill section. Then take transit to and from QEP/VD - the simplest method is the 50 bus route - runs from Granville St, very close to your hotel, then over the bridge to Granville Island, then changes to the 15 (no need to get off) up Cambie Street passing QEP. $3pp can't really be argued with, but it does take ~40mins compared to walking to Yaletown-Roundhouse SkyTrain, then transferring at King Edward to the 33 (which means no big walk uphill) to QEP for a total trip of <30mins usually.

 

Coming back via SkyTrain is a wee bit trickier - long story short, if you buy a bus ticket you can ONLY use it on buses, so taking a bus to SkyTrain means buying another ticket, but you'll still end up spending less ($9pp) than a Day Pass ($10.50). You can also take the 15 bus, which turns into the 50, and drops you about a block from your hotel again if you don't mind the slower drive/lower frequency. On a nice day, I'd take the bus all the way myself - you'll see stuff instead of a tunnel!

 

There's also the possibility of taking a cab either or both ways - getting your hotel to call one just might manage to secure a 5pax car for you, and with Uber/Lyft now operating some folks driving for them may actually have bigger cars. I'd ballpark the trip at about $20 each way in a cab with virtually no commuter traffic on Canada Day - but Uber surge pricing could well be in effect since it's a holiday... in other words, two cab rides (if you can find 5 seaters!) will likely be less than 5 day passes, but paying 'as you go' on transit with a bit of walking will be the cheapest option, pretty fast as SkyTrain always avoids traffic, and is a definite, known price you can plan for (although do check back nearer your trip, as Translink traditionally jacks up fares each July 1st - probably just 25cents extra per ticket).

 

Edit - I see Scott replied while I was typing, and has handily provided a map that should show just how easy the Cap/Grouse combo is.

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by martincath

[astrosfan1]

Many thanks for the advice. We are looking forward to 3 days in and around your beautiful city.  We will definitely do Cap/Grouse as recommended in the same day. 

[scottbee]

47 minutes ago, astrosfan1 said:

Many thanks for the advice. We are looking forward to 3 days in and around your beautiful city.  We will definitely do Cap/Grouse as recommended in the same day. 

 

And while you can take a bus across the Lion's Gate Bridge, I think the SEAbus across Burrard Inlet is more interesting from a tourist point of view, as it's a view of the city you don't normally see.

 

[astrosfan1]

The SEAbus sounds like a good idea.  I'll check out their schedule and consider that on our trip to the North side.

[scottbee]

3 hours ago, astrosfan1 said:

The SEAbus sounds like a good idea.  I'll check out their schedule and consider that on our trip to the North side.

 

Seabus is part of the main bus system, (bus/seabus/skytrain), and a ticket (tap on, tap off) is good for 90 minutes for all three.  More details at https://translink.ca