Taxi service in Vancouver

[TeanneTX]

I will be traveling to Vancouver for a cruise and will be alone when I arrive.  I will need transportation to the Westin Bayshore.  Uber and a taxi are about the same price.  How is the availability of taxis and Ubers at the airport.  Also how safe and clean are the taxi's?  Just trying to find the safest and best option for me.  A private town car is too pricey now.

[martincath]

Fixed rate cab to Bayshore is CAD$38; credit cards should be accepted by all cabs; don't let them run the meter or pretend the hotel is in Stanley Park ($41 zone), as the zone boundary is at Denman which is just west of the hotel. Like everywhere, we have our share of weaselly drivers who 'forget' the fixed rate zones exist or where the borders are - every airport can should have a laminated map. Check this page again before your trip - rates do change, occasionally the border streets have been shifted too, but the most up-to-date one is always found there (right now that's from April 2022, it's unusual for rates to go up on consecutive years so probably what you see will still apply this May).

 

A swanky new car being used as an Uber/Lyft will likely be a lot nicer than the average cab, but I've never actually had a crappy cab in Vancouver - compared to fleets even elsewhere in Canada they're relatively new as they're predominately Priuses and we have very mild winters, no 40 year old rustbuckets - and no need to worry about Surge pricing dragging the rates up from a few bucks less than a cab to way more than.

 

We've never taken rideshares, so can't comment on how many of them tend to be lurking - but cabs roll in slowly but constantly unless there's some huge demand event going on elsewhere. If you have the apps installed,  you could always check how close the nearest Uber/Lyft is and whether any Surge applies - if you can get a nice new car and save a few bucks without wasting a lot of time, why not?

[em-sk]

On 1/17/2023 at 8:42 AM, TeanneTX said:

I will be traveling to Vancouver for a cruise and will be alone when I arrive.  I will need transportation to the Westin Bayshore.  Uber and a taxi are about the same price.  How is the availability of taxis and Ubers at the airport.  Also how safe and clean are the taxi's?  Just trying to find the safest and best option for me.  A private town car is too pricey now.

 

There is a taxi stand at both domestic and international arrivals.  I would not be worried about lack of taxis.  Your likely to get a Toyota hybrid and not a town car as a taxi.  A certain percentage will be van taxi's that are able to take a wheelchair.   The airport has some standards for things like vehicle age, driver training and how clean the taxi is.  They are safe, drives are trained and your heading to a fairly high end hotel in a nice part of the city.  As martincath said it is fixed price.  

 

Uber at airports always involves multiple people waiting looking for their car.  

 

I would not have security concerns about either option.