Vancouver information, please

[nasa1974]

Ok, so I'm a good 10 months out from my cruise. But I'm looking for some information to help in deciding flight times and where to stay. My cruise is October 19, 2023 and I plan on flying in the day before. Do hotels offer transportation from the airport and to the cruise port? Where would be a nice place to stay near the cruise port but have some touristy stuff close by?  I know I could probably Google it but it's good to have firsthand information to narrow down the search.

 

Thank you

[princeton123211]

9 minutes ago, nasa1974 said:

Do hotels offer transportation from the airport and to the cruise port?

Only those that are directly adjacent to the airport. For a hotel downtown near Canada Place terminal there will not be any hotels offering shuttles from the airport. 

 

10 minutes ago, nasa1974 said:

Where would be a nice place to stay near the cruise port but have some touristy stuff close by?

This will depend entirely on your budget. The cruise terminal is right downtown so hotels are going to be more overall in the city but there is a wide selection of budget to 5 star hotels. We'd need more info to make a good rec. 

 

You can actually stay at a hotel called the Pan Pacific which is in the cruise terminal (so eliminating a need for a shuttle) but it can be pricey. For the night before your cruise is currently showing for CA$359 which is not bad for them and even better when you consider the favorable exchange rate from the US to Canadian dollar. 

[CruiserBruce]

The far better places for Vancouver info is the Canada board, here:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/23-canada-alaskapacific-coastal/

 

And the West Coast Departures board, here:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/315-west-coast-departures/

 

Hundreds, if not thousands, of related discussions there.

[nasa1974]

Thank you.

[martincath]

Bruce already linked you directly to the two most-relevant boards; Alaska board also often ends up with Vancouver postings so it's worth browsing there too.

 

We have very conveniently placed about 90% of our popular tourist attractions and hotels in the downtown core - so where to stay is always easy: downtown. Airport hotels, even ones close to SkyTrain, might save some coin but they cost you time - if you're here for a week, wasting 60-90mins a day getting to and from your hotel might be OK,  but for a short Pre- or Post-Cruise stay always, always stay downtown.

 

It's very hard to find a hotel that's actually in Vancouver (as opposed to North Van, Richmond, Burnaby etc.) that isn't close enough to walk to multiple sites - so in terms of the most convenient hotel for you, it's best to figure out which sites you want to visit and then pick the hotel to save walking. We're also one of the safest places to bid blind on a hotel - if you choose 4* in the west end/downtown core it's literally impossible to get anything except a really nice hotel.

 

Cheap we ain't, but since your dollar goes about a third further up here we can still appear a relative steal compared to, say, Seattle. Cab ride is fixed rate, CAD$34 to most of downtown - the swanky hotels right at the pier run $38 - with Uber/Lyft slightly less if not on Surge, so the lack of shuttles to downtown isn't much of a problem. Transit is clean, safe, fast and reliable - worst case about US$7pp inbound, due to an extra fee to leave Sea Island where the airport lives. From hotel to pier some fancy hotels have towncars, the Hampton Inn has a shuttle bus, but frankly 'free' transport is a foolish criteria to base hotel choice on here as the most expensive cab ride from any downtown hotel to the pier is unlikely to go much over $10 on the meter!

 

The best advice I can offer at this stage is to increase your stay here - however much you plan to do in Alaska, remember that Vancouver has more people and places than every single AK cruise port put together... logic dictates that a seven day cruise should therefore have an 8+ day stay here added! Unfortunately vacation days and budgets trump logic - but however you can massage your schedule and finagle a few extra bucks from your weekly budget, any number of days you can add will not be wasted!

 

Even if you have very niche interests, you'll be able to fill a couple of extra days very easily - and if you're looking at a round-trip cruise, do yourself a huge favour and add a night Post-cruise... being able to choose an early flight back east means you can avoid all of those super-annoying 'fly home same day' cruisers who start clogging up the security lines by about 9:30am!!!

 

 

[em-sk]

On 12/13/2022 at 10:33 AM, nasa1974 said:

Ok, so I'm a good 10 months out from my cruise. But I'm looking for some information to help in deciding flight times and where to stay. My cruise is October 19, 2023 and I plan on flying in the day before. Do hotels offer transportation from the airport and to the cruise port? Where would be a nice place to stay near the cruise port but have some touristy stuff close by?  I know I could probably Google it but it's good to have firsthand information to narrow down the search.

 

Thank you

 

martincath gave some great advise.... only thing I can add..

 

The building that houses the cruise ship terminal (Canada Place) has the terminal on a lower level, the convention center on the ground floor and the Pan Pacific Hotel above.  There is also two Fairmount across the street from the convention center.  They are fantastic hotels but expensive.

 

If you looking for a budget hotel there is a Days Inn about a block away.  I have stayed there.  It is 100 year old building and is similar to a European boutique hotel.  The rooms are smaller but it is well maintained and clean.   

 

Lots of mid-market hotels between those two.  Hotels in downtown Vancouver are generally a great deal in comparison to Manhattan but generally more expensive than most cities of a comparable size in the US.

 

I am generally a fan of the Delta hotels and slightly cheaper the Sandman hotels in downtown Vancouver.   

[nasa1974]

martincath and em-sk, thank you for the information. I checked out the price for the Pan Pacific for the date I would be arriving, the price isn't that bad. I have points with the travel group I use and should be able to bring the price down a little more. I'm taking a 3 day cruise to San Francisco and then a 7 day for a B2B. I might have to think about coming two days ahead of the cruise vs. one.

[princeton123211]

28 minutes ago, nasa1974 said:

I checked out the price for the Pan Pacific for the date I would be arriving, the price isn't that bad. I have points with the travel group I use and should be able to bring the price down a little more. I'm taking a 3 day cruise to San Francisco

You might want to consider preserving the points for San Francisco if the price for the Pan Pacific is within budget. San Francisco hotels can be breathtakingly expensive during some parts of the year. 

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

We have stayed at both the Pan Pacific and Fairmount.  Both were outstanding hotels and steps to the cruise port.  You are in the heart of Gastown, which is a fun place to walk/see/eat.  

[martincath]

53 minutes ago, ATSEAMYLIFE said:

...You are in the heart of Gastown, which is a fun place to walk/see/eat.  

Neither hotel is in Gastown at all, let alone the heart of it - even realtors, notorious for being flexible with boundaries, would say these hotels are in Coal Harbour if they were going to fudge the boundaries for marketing purposes.

 

Nothing is very far away in downtown though, it's maybe 500 yards from the street outside both hotels to the edge of Gastown (Water Street, where the cobbles start, is the north-western corner by most modern definitions - Steamworks Brewpub sits right there) and about the same again down Water to Maple Tree Square where Gassy Jack's statue used to sit; this is the true heart of the 'hood to most locals, although geographically it should be a block south on Cordova based on the original townsite platting.

[trbarton]

Any suggestions for a MUST see stop on a Hop-On & Off bus in Vancouver, Canada? 

Tom

 

[martincath]

14 hours ago, trbarton said:

Any suggestions for a MUST see stop on a Hop-On & Off bus in Vancouver, Canada? 

 

Tom

 

Sorry but no, and anyone who tells you that there is a Must See site anywhere is talking nonsense! Without knowing how your tastes differ from my own it's impossible to give a ranking of the best stops to alight at; if you don't have a lot of time to sightsee then it's even more crucial to spend your time in the places you are going to get the most enjoyment from! I could tell you my faves, if you get real lucky you may have another dozen or so locals and visitors do the same, but even then the dataset is tiny, so much better to go look at a larger dataset instead: Tripadvisor

 

Every major site downtown in Vancouver has enough reviews on TripAdvisor to give an accurate comparative ranking of what Joe Q Public's opinion is - and they're all accessible from one or more of those stops. You know you, I'm sure you have a good idea how your own tastes differ from Joe Q Public, so the best way to figure out what's the Best See for you is to read those reviews - skim the rankings, bump categories based on your own tastes, reorder the Joe Q Public Top Ten into the Tom Top Ten!

 

I would say that the most definitively Vancouvery things to see are the parks, especially Stanley and the Seawall (which goes entirely around the former), but if you are mobility challenged both of these would be a major hassle - and Stanley park is over a thousand acres, with only one HOHO stop these days, so even if you're fit and enjoy walking the only really convenient parts of it to visit via HOHO are the aquarium, Shakespeare garden, and rose garden; even the Totem poles are at least a 30min round trip from the HOHO stop. Back in TheBeforeTimes there used to be multiple stops - now, HOHO just plain sucks for visiting Stanley, you'd be far better off renting a bike for the day if the park is enticing to you.

[CruiserBruce]

@martincath, very well put. "Must see" is what interests the person, not what someone you don't know says it is.