Butchart Gardens Express Bus Times (Victoria, BC)

[zackarykeef]

Hi, all! We were thinking of booking this tour on our own, as it is cheaper than the ship tour. It's the express bus tour that leaves from the Empress Hotel. Has anyone used this?

 

The tour site shows times with 2 hours at the Gardens, but my question is...can you take any return trip (they are hourly), or do you have to take the exact return that corresponds to your drop off? I guess I don't know if you can catch any bus, or they have a certain amount of people on each bus and you are bound to your exact return time. If anyone has any info, I would appreciate it! Thank you!

[martincath]

12 hours ago, zackarykeef said:

Hi, all! We were thinking of booking this tour on our own, as it is cheaper than the ship tour. It's the express bus tour that leaves from the Empress Hotel. Has anyone used this?

 

The tour site shows times with 2 hours at the Gardens, but my question is...can you take any return trip (they are hourly), or do you have to take the exact return that corresponds to your drop off? I guess I don't know if you can catch any bus, or they have a certain amount of people on each bus and you are bound to your exact return time. If anyone has any info, I would appreciate it! Thank you!

Hopefully someone who has done it this year will confirm, but you need to clarify which bus company you mean - both Gray Line (Wilsons) and CVS offer Butchart shuttle bus routes I believe, and they may have different policies; all I can speak to is that from prior visits many moons ago, the CVS shuttle let you take ANY bus back, all you had to do was book the outgoing trip time in advance (or risk showing up to find no seats available). CVS simply tracked how many people boarded throughout the day on each bus, then they knew how many folks were left at the gardens and sent the appropriate size or even  multiple buses for the last run of the day (on firework nights especially there would be far more folks on that last return!)

 

Frankly though, even if someone else does reply I'd reach out to the two companies directly to inquire... get the info straight from the horses mouth as it were. Two hours has never been enough at Butchart IMO - if you're a slow walker it could easily take that long just to follow all the paths around the multiple gardens taking a few photos, leaving no time for tea, lunch etc. I always recommend 3 hours for first-timers unless you already know that e.g. you have no interest in certain types of gardens so plan to skip one or more of them, will definitely not want lunch or tea, to ride the carousel, or even stop in the gift shop.

[cruiselvr04]

CVS doesn’t appear to offering the bus this year.  Every time I check on their Butchart tour it redirects me to gray line.  I don’t want to be limited in my time at the gardens.  For me, this is the one big reason to visit Victoria.
 

A cab doesn’t look like it cost that much more.  I’m sure I can get a cab or Uber from the hotel but doesn’t anyone know how easy it’ll be to get back to Victoria?

[martincath]

6 hours ago, cruiselvr04 said:

CVS doesn’t appear to offering the bus this year.  Every time I check on their Butchart tour it redirects me to gray line.  I don’t want to be limited in my time at the gardens.  For me, this is the one big reason to visit Victoria.
 

A cab doesn’t look like it cost that much more.  I’m sure I can get a cab or Uber from the hotel but doesn’t anyone know how easy it’ll be to get back to Victoria?

Dang - saw your other post, answered there re: getting to/from Butchart independently, missed the tidbit here about CVS redirecting! That tells me they have definitely been either bought out or joined up... another casualty of the Covid tourism downturn!

Edited June 26, 2023 by martincath

[cruiselvr04]

I think we’ve decided to try taking the public bus.  Much less expensive although longer.  We have the day until 5 p.m. so can stay as long as we want.  I’ve written down the bus schedule and we’ll try it out.

[CYS]

How did the public bus work for you?  We will be there in early September and it seems the Gray Line bus is sold out.  Thank you for your assistance.