48 hours in Victoria Questions

[cruiselvr04]

We are spending 48 hours in Victoria post cruise next month.  We’ve got our BC connector bus/ferry over purchased so we’ll get into Victoria around 1 p.m.  It was actually less expensive to do hotels and fly home from Victoria than Vancouver.  While we’ll miss Vancouver, we’ve always wanted to get over to Victoria.  DH has never been.  I made a quick stop there once 20 years ago while on my way to wedding 4 hours north on the island.  I remember the beautiful harbor but that’s it.

 

So we have Friday afternoon and evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning to spend in Victoria.  We plan an early bus to the gardens on Saturday but need ideas on what to do with the rest of our time.  
 

Is the castle worth seeing?  The Royal museum?  Walking tours?  Would a walking tour on at 2 p.m. Friday be too risky to try to get too since we don’t get dropped off until 1p.m. near the hotel?  Are the connector bus times accurate or might they run behind?  
 

We plan on using our CC for purchases.  Do we need any CAD? Do we simply give them our card or do we have to tell them to charge a certain way?  
 

Do the cabs take CC for the trip back to the airport?  

[martincath]

9 hours ago, cruiselvr04 said:

Is the castle worth seeing?  The Royal museum?  Walking tours?  Would a walking tour on at 2 p.m. Friday be too risky to try to get too since we don’t get dropped off until 1p.m. near the hotel?  Are the connector bus times accurate or might they run behind?  
 

We plan on using our CC for purchases.  Do we need any CAD? Do we simply give them our card or do we have to tell them to charge a certain way?  
 

Do the cabs take CC for the trip back to the airport?  

Some of your questions are dead-easy to answer, others woolier, so I'll respond in order of simplicity:

 

Cabs should all take Credit, as will darn near everything in the city. The ONLY likely issue is the bus to the gardens - if you're taking transit then it's cash only aboard with no change given and no foreign funds accepted. A Day Pass each ($5) is the same price as 2 tickets so it's a total no-brainer, allowing you unlimited transfers for the rest of the day, so at the very least you'll need CAD$10 - you can pay with a $10 and ask for 2 Day Passes from the driver.

 

There used to be several businesses in downtown Victoria which had two tills, one in USD, so even gave change back in USD - but with Covid turning almost every business away from cash, even if anywhere still takes USD they will almost certainly be giving back change in CAD. A strategic purchase in Tim Hortons with USD might enable acquiring some CAD at a pretty fair exchange rate if you literally just want a few loonies & toonies for bellhop tips!

 

Almost all CC transactions involve a terminal being handed to you - some businesses may offer to process your card in USD, always refuse that if they do (rates generally run 4% worse, compared to 2.5% worse for a typical Foreign Transaction Fee, and many cards have no FTF at all). If you have not set up your PIN - do so! While in theory a signature override should be able to be done, it's rarer and rarer ever since the US joined the rest of the civilized world using Chips as most of your countryfolk who travel now have cards with tappable Chips and PINs. With retail staff hard to get and worse-trained than ever post-Covid, finding someone able to override your purchases every time will be tricky - you really should set up and memorize your PIN, although if it's small transactions those are usually 'tap with no verification at all' most places.

 

By 'the' Castle I assume you mean Craigdarroch, the better-known but much-less-castle-y Victoria 'castle'? (The other, Hatley, looks much more the part and has pretty spectacular gardens - depending on your exact dates you may be able to get guided tours of the grounds and building, or just a self-guided garden tour). Aside from the fact that they have a very cheeky name that's a straight-up lie, Craigdarroch isn't a bad building - it's a solid example of a Scottish Baronial Manor House, the stained glass is excellent, there are many nice furnishings, and it is an attractive home. If you've never seen a real castle you'll get lots of mileage - if you have visited many real castles though, it's weaksauce!

 

Since the BCFC coaches work around ferry schedules, and traffic on the Island is very well-known and nowhere near as bad as on the Mainland, your ETA for Victoria drop is unlikely to be more than 10-15mins wrong unless the ferry is delayed. July is not exactly a big storm month BUT the biggest issues around ferries have actually been staffing, not weather, since the Pandemic. There are no guarantees - a summer cold sweeping through the crew could wipe out a few sailings on just about any route! Personally I would not book anything for the afternoon unless it's free - e.g. a tour of Parliament - even though I would say you have very good odds of arriving on time.

 

What else to do? Personally, the Royal BC museum is well worthwhile visiting - but there have been some issues recently as it was supposed to be completely shut down for a new one to be built, and many of the exhibits were taken offline before the cost scandal broke and the plans were shelved - I have no experience of the museum since that planned closure, so I can't say how well the exhibits have been put back together! Check recent reviews and weigh it up.

 

Walky, bikey, eaty, and horsey tours are all available - if you like them elsewhere, you'll probably like them in Vic! The parts visited by such tours are pretty flat, easily walked or biked or pulled behind four-legged fart-factories. There's also a HOHO, which depending on the time you get back from Butchart might be of interest if you want to see stuff while someone talks about what you're seeing. If you're inclined to do the HOHO, I'd suggest doing that on Friday after you arrive (if you're on time) - I think a loop without getting off is ~90mins, so if you arrived around 2pm you could easily do the full loop with a stop somewhere that takes a bit of time to see (e.g. Craigdarroch) and this way you'd get an idea of where things are for when you're pootling around yourselves.

 

There's a bunch of other museums, galleries, 'cultural stuff' in Vic - being the seat of local government these kind of things go hand in glove with the presence of politicians! There are also a ridiculous number of gardens and parks - but how many of them are worthwhile visiting on the same trip that you do Butchart, especially same or next day, really comes down to a personal choice - could you look at pretty plants all day long? Or do you have a threshold that Butchart is going to hit all by itself? I can't decide that for you! The tearoom at Abkhazi Garden is a much more affordable, and frankly more scenic, alternative to the ever-more-overpriced Tea at the Empress - but if you want to take tea with the locals, just hit up Murchies or the White Heather and order what you want a la carte! Butchart is also about half the price of the Empress for tea.

 

Fisguard lighthouse, Fort Rodd, and Hatley Castle make a great trio due to their locations, the first two are right next to each other and have a joint ticket and the latter is on the same road from downtown - your Day Pass will get you here, but with a change or two required depending where your hotel is. If you're up for even more gardens, the oldest Japanese garden on the Island has been partly restored, is free, and is also on the way to these attractions from downtown Vic in Esquimault (pronounced "Esk-WHY-malt", not like Eskimo!)

 

Whale-watching is a great option from Victoria - multiple companies right in the harbour downtown, for a lower price than AK tours to begin with plus the ~33% CAD vs USD discount for an overall 40%+ saving and a vastly better chance of seeing Orca pods. With the long evenings, you could easily book a 5pm whalewatch after a full morning at Butchart and an afternoon downtown - you'll have good light until well after 8pm even later in July, and for taking photos on the way back into harbour might even benefit from 'golden hour' on the water!

 

Riding the teeny pickleboats around is a lot pricier than transit buses, but still not exactly expensive - so pootling around the inner harbour gives a nice water activity for a few bucks.

 

Chinatown is about the tiniest such in the world - but also one of the oldest, centred around an extremely narrow alley. I honestly cannot recommend any of the restos, although that's more down to Vancouver and Richmond being literally some of the best places in the world to eat Chinese food rather than that the food in Vic is bad - it's just comparatively pants!

 

What Vic does better than anywhere else outside the UK is make and serve Real Ales - there are two brewpubs which have paired cellars, so you can drink beer the way God intended (8-10C/~50F) instead of killing all the subtle flavours by refrigerating it like Big Beer in North America has brainwashed people to believe (if you've ever drunk a macro-lager after it warmed up, you'll understand why it needs chilled - nobody wants to actually taste the likes of Coors properly!!!)

 

In both Spinnakers and the Swan you can potentially sample the same beer chilled and made fizzy like in every bar on the continent, at correct temp with natural fermentation, and if you get SUPER lucky even from a nearly-room-temp wooden cask sitting on the bartop! Compare and contrast - and if you're not already a fan of 'warm beer' keep your fingers crossed that you don't like it, 'cos unless you move to Vic or the UK it'll be a major hassle to find!

 

If you like live music in pubs, you should find lots of options on your weekend - there are Fake Irish, Fake Scottish, and Fake English pubs around downtown within about a 10 minute walk from in the inner harbour. Fizzy cold beers in almost all of them - but the general vibe of Bard & Banker, Garrick's Head, the Cricketers etc. is a mix of locals and tourists. If you want to avoid all those horrible cruisers(!), just leave the inner harbour area - a short bus or cab ride and you'll find just 'local tourists' from elsewhere in BC (actual Victorians average about 75 years old, female, white, pearls and a twinset, gloves when leaving the house and home with a warm milk and to bed by 9pm!!!)*

 

*This is of course an exaggeration - but the scary thing is that it's actually not that MUCH of one! Victoria is the retirement capital of Canada, several downtown 'hoods are in the top ten oldest average populations in the country, multiple large hospitals, and any retail business that isn't a resto/pub or a tourist shop is very likely to close by 6pm even in summer!

[Urban trekker]

MartinCath - wasn't there the saying that Victoria was the city of the nearly dead and newly wed!

 

[cruiselvr04]

Thanks so much for all the detail!  

[martincath]

14 hours ago, Urban trekker said:

MartinCath - wasn't there the saying that Victoria was the city of the nearly dead and newly wed!

Haven't heard that one before Dennis, but it fits: we know a few folks who chose to elope to the Island to get wed, as indeed it seems OP does!

[Northern Aurora]

On 6/18/2023 at 12:07 PM, martincath said:

Haven't heard that one before Dennis, but it fits: we know a few folks who chose to elope to the Island to get wed, as indeed it seems OP does!

 

The first time I was in Victoria in the mid-1980s (on business) the phrase I heard was that Victoria was knowns for their flower beds, newlyweds and the nearly dead.  

[cruiselvr04]

On 6/17/2023 at 9:23 PM, martincath said:

Some of your questions are dead-easy to answer, others woolier, so I'll respond in order of simplicity:

 

Cabs should all take Credit, as will darn near everything in the city. The ONLY likely issue is the bus to the gardens - if you're taking transit then it's cash only aboard with no change given and no foreign funds accepted. A Day Pass each ($5) is the same price as 2 tickets so it's a total no-brainer, allowing you unlimited transfers for the rest of the day, so at the very least you'll need CAD$10 - you can pay with a $10 and ask for 2 Day Passes from the driver.

 

There used to be several businesses in downtown Victoria which had two tills, one in USD, so even gave change back in USD - but with Covid turning almost every business away from cash, even if anywhere still takes USD they will almost certainly be giving back change in CAD. A strategic purchase in Tim Hortons with USD might enable acquiring some CAD at a pretty fair exchange rate if you literally just want a few loonies & toonies for bellhop tips!

 

Almost all CC transactions involve a terminal being handed to you - some businesses may offer to process your card in USD, always refuse that if they do (rates generally run 4% worse, compared to 2.5% worse for a typical Foreign Transaction Fee, and many cards have no FTF at all). If you have not set up your PIN - do so! While in theory a signature override should be able to be done, it's rarer and rarer ever since the US joined the rest of the civilized world using Chips as most of your countryfolk who travel now have cards with tappable Chips and PINs. With retail staff hard to get and worse-trained than ever post-Covid, finding someone able to override your purchases every time will be tricky - you really should set up and memorize your PIN, although if it's small transactions those are usually 'tap with no verification at all' most places.

 

By 'the' Castle I assume you mean Craigdarroch, the better-known but much-less-castle-y Victoria 'castle'? (The other, Hatley, looks much more the part and has pretty spectacular gardens - depending on your exact dates you may be able to get guided tours of the grounds and building, or just a self-guided garden tour). Aside from the fact that they have a very cheeky name that's a straight-up lie, Craigdarroch isn't a bad building - it's a solid example of a Scottish Baronial Manor House, the stained glass is excellent, there are many nice furnishings, and it is an attractive home. If you've never seen a real castle you'll get lots of mileage - if you have visited many real castles though, it's weaksauce!

 

Since the BCFC coaches work around ferry schedules, and traffic on the Island is very well-known and nowhere near as bad as on the Mainland, your ETA for Victoria drop is unlikely to be more than 10-15mins wrong unless the ferry is delayed. July is not exactly a big storm month BUT the biggest issues around ferries have actually been staffing, not weather, since the Pandemic. There are no guarantees - a summer cold sweeping through the crew could wipe out a few sailings on just about any route! Personally I would not book anything for the afternoon unless it's free - e.g. a tour of Parliament - even though I would say you have very good odds of arriving on time.

 

What else to do? Personally, the Royal BC museum is well worthwhile visiting - but there have been some issues recently as it was supposed to be completely shut down for a new one to be built, and many of the exhibits were taken offline before the cost scandal broke and the plans were shelved - I have no experience of the museum since that planned closure, so I can't say how well the exhibits have been put back together! Check recent reviews and weigh it up.

 

Walky, bikey, eaty, and horsey tours are all available - if you like them elsewhere, you'll probably like them in Vic! The parts visited by such tours are pretty flat, easily walked or biked or pulled behind four-legged fart-factories. There's also a HOHO, which depending on the time you get back from Butchart might be of interest if you want to see stuff while someone talks about what you're seeing. If you're inclined to do the HOHO, I'd suggest doing that on Friday after you arrive (if you're on time) - I think a loop without getting off is ~90mins, so if you arrived around 2pm you could easily do the full loop with a stop somewhere that takes a bit of time to see (e.g. Craigdarroch) and this way you'd get an idea of where things are for when you're pootling around yourselves.

 

There's a bunch of other museums, galleries, 'cultural stuff' in Vic - being the seat of local government these kind of things go hand in glove with the presence of politicians! There are also a ridiculous number of gardens and parks - but how many of them are worthwhile visiting on the same trip that you do Butchart, especially same or next day, really comes down to a personal choice - could you look at pretty plants all day long? Or do you have a threshold that Butchart is going to hit all by itself? I can't decide that for you! The tearoom at Abkhazi Garden is a much more affordable, and frankly more scenic, alternative to the ever-more-overpriced Tea at the Empress - but if you want to take tea with the locals, just hit up Murchies or the White Heather and order what you want a la carte! Butchart is also about half the price of the Empress for tea.

 

Fisguard lighthouse, Fort Rodd, and Hatley Castle make a great trio due to their locations, the first two are right next to each other and have a joint ticket and the latter is on the same road from downtown - your Day Pass will get you here, but with a change or two required depending where your hotel is. If you're up for even more gardens, the oldest Japanese garden on the Island has been partly restored, is free, and is also on the way to these attractions from downtown Vic in Esquimault (pronounced "Esk-WHY-malt", not like Eskimo!)

 

Whale-watching is a great option from Victoria - multiple companies right in the harbour downtown, for a lower price than AK tours to begin with plus the ~33% CAD vs USD discount for an overall 40%+ saving and a vastly better chance of seeing Orca pods. With the long evenings, you could easily book a 5pm whalewatch after a full morning at Butchart and an afternoon downtown - you'll have good light until well after 8pm even later in July, and for taking photos on the way back into harbour might even benefit from 'golden hour' on the water!

 

Riding the teeny pickleboats around is a lot pricier than transit buses, but still not exactly expensive - so pootling around the inner harbour gives a nice water activity for a few bucks.

 

Chinatown is about the tiniest such in the world - but also one of the oldest, centred around an extremely narrow alley. I honestly cannot recommend any of the restos, although that's more down to Vancouver and Richmond being literally some of the best places in the world to eat Chinese food rather than that the food in Vic is bad - it's just comparatively pants!

 

What Vic does better than anywhere else outside the UK is make and serve Real Ales - there are two brewpubs which have paired cellars, so you can drink beer the way God intended (8-10C/~50F) instead of killing all the subtle flavours by refrigerating it like Big Beer in North America has brainwashed people to believe (if you've ever drunk a macro-lager after it warmed up, you'll understand why it needs chilled - nobody wants to actually taste the likes of Coors properly!!!)

 

In both Spinnakers and the Swan you can potentially sample the same beer chilled and made fizzy like in every bar on the continent, at correct temp with natural fermentation, and if you get SUPER lucky even from a nearly-room-temp wooden cask sitting on the bartop! Compare and contrast - and if you're not already a fan of 'warm beer' keep your fingers crossed that you don't like it, 'cos unless you move to Vic or the UK it'll be a major hassle to find!

 

If you like live music in pubs, you should find lots of options on your weekend - there are Fake Irish, Fake Scottish, and Fake English pubs around downtown within about a 10 minute walk from in the inner harbour. Fizzy cold beers in almost all of them - but the general vibe of Bard & Banker, Garrick's Head, the Cricketers etc. is a mix of locals and tourists. If you want to avoid all those horrible cruisers(!), just leave the inner harbour area - a short bus or cab ride and you'll find just 'local tourists' from elsewhere in BC (actual Victorians average about 75 years old, female, white, pearls and a twinset, gloves when leaving the house and home with a warm milk and to bed by 9pm!!!)*

 

*This is of course an exaggeration - but the scary thing is that it's actually not that MUCH of one! Victoria is the retirement capital of Canada, several downtown 'hoods are in the top ten oldest average populations in the country, multiple large hospitals, and any retail business that isn't a resto/pub or a tourist shop is very likely to close by 6pm even in summer!

Thank you again for all your detail!  We are doing whale watching in Alaska but after your advice on a sunset whale watch we have decided to do that too.  It sounds like a wonderful way to end the trip.
 

Butchart is a bucket list for me.  Can you advise on a cab or Uber?  I don’t want to go and be limited to 2 hours, we might want 3 or more and lunch there.  I’m sure we can get a cab there but will they be available to get back?  It appears gray line is only doing the bus and that’s very time limited. 
 

Bard and Banker is on the happy hour list.

DH loves Chinese food but on your advice we will skip it here.

Empress tea seems overpriced with not such good reviews so we will pass.

Great to know about the bus for $5.  We are walkers but might be tired after 2 weeks of walking so we might use this.

 

 

[martincath]

1 hour ago, cruiselvr04 said:

...
Thank you again for all your detail!  We are doing whale watching in Alaska but after your advice on a sunset whale watch we have decided to do that too.  It sounds like a wonderful way to end the trip.
 

Butchart is a bucket list for me.  Can you advise on a cab or Uber?  I don’t want to go and be limited to 2 hours, we might want 3 or more and lunch there.  I’m sure we can get a cab there but will they be available to get back?  It appears gray line is only doing the bus and that’s very time limited. ...

You're welcome. Do be careful with timing on the whalewatch - more so through the cruiselines it's a bit iffy, I've seen quite a few cases of a 'sunset whalewatch' of limited duration (2 hours rather than normal 3+) that doesn't leave the dock until basically sunset. Since you're there yourselves, booking directly, the length of the tour is much more likely to be 'standard' - and as long as it's leaving 5ish, you should be able to see for the whole tour even at the end of July.

 

Butchart - I'm afraid that I have only driven there in my own car for years, we never do any 'cruise stop' Butcharting as we're always in the pub! First trip way back when though we took CVS, a local company - last time I checked they were not affiliated with Gray Line so you could check their schedule too (of course, to survive the pandemic they may have been bought over or chosen to join the 'GL family' so they may not be any more use). Kabu - a local BC rideshare - is more prevalent in Victoria than Uber, as they resisted the latter for far longer than Vancouver did, but given the name recognition chances are good that all the Kabu drivers will also have an Uber setup soon if not already... if in doubt, install all the apps, see which has a car conveniently available, book on that.

 

Since you have lots of time, transit to and from the gardens is absolutely viable - in fact returning after the fireworks, walking out to the stop may be quicker than the nose-to-tail crawl of the cars leaving the carpark! The 75 runs late at night, goes directly to downtown Vic without transfers required, and your Day Pass from earlier still keeps working until end of service... even with three people, $15 is by far the cheapest possible way to get to and from the gardens!

 

I would still recommend at least pricing up a car rental though (remember to check cost of parking overnight at your hotel!) - because the fireworks are back on Summer Saturdays, including all of July. Unless there's a firewatch on the woods nearby, or some freakish summer storm, your ticket on Saturday lets you watch the fireworks for no extra charge, and they are a pretty good show with synchronized music. There should be a bus that leaves right after them if you really don't want to drive - the schedule, with show timing, is here with the 'firework bus' back in the day leaving about an hour after the fireworks begin (~30min show, ~15min walk back out, a little padding for slow walkers)

 

Note that they did crack down on readmissions - what we used to do was visit the gardens in the morning, go do other stuff, return after dinner, and I think every sensible local did the same as regardless how pretty the gardens might be in the dark with many fairy lights around, you absolutely cannot see the plants as well under artificial light.

 

With sunset still after 8 though, if you do an early dinner downtown (go Happy Hour!) then head out at about 6pm you would have two-ish full hours of daylight, including 'golden hour' time, some more useable twilight for at least another 30+ minutes (while in the sunken garden the sun 'stops' earlier, the surface parts like Italian near the house still have some light), up to another couple of hours of re-walking the paths with the lights on, and then fireworks. Or, one useful thing you can do is pay a pittance for an extra day on your ticket! Price is confirmed on their website, but IIRC it was something like $3 to add a second day - so if you only go after dark Saturday, you could return Sunday morning and fill your boots!

 

All-in-all, renting a car could be very handy for you even if you only used it for Butchart and getting back to the airport (renting it from YYJ as a round trip could be cheaper than from downtown one-way; the BCFC also tickets people to the ferry terminal, not just to downtown Vic, so cabbing directly from there to airport to collect your rental works well as they are close together - but with parking fees for 2 overnights, I would guess that instead a 24hr rental from say noon Saturday to noon Sunday and an airport return would be your overall best bet).

 

Given the distance to Butchart and the airport, three cab rides would run you about US$120-150 depending on traffic (firework night the queue to get out is MAD - as every single person leaves at the same time, and the meter will just keep ticking over!) or even more if you're generous tippers. That buys a fair whack of car rental! Even with just a 24hr rental you could use it Sat evening for fireworks, Sun morning for return to gardens, then drive yourselves to YYJ from there... from Butchart you are half the distance to YYJ compared with downtown, so even though the direct route uses smaller roads you can leave from there a bit later, drive is ~20mins instead of 30+.

 

So there you go - if all the shuttle buses now operate on a 'just 3 hours at Butchart' you can take a bit longer to get there (an hour vs. 30ish mins) but for dirt-cheap, rent a car that you can also leverage for airport transport next day (price very variable, but worth checking), or do the cabuberkabu thing. For this last, I would try calling a cab firm old-school to chat, and ask them - there's definite demand from Butchart after fireworks, but is it enough compared to the pub crowd downtown for cabbies to 'deadhead' empty all the way out there first...? I don't know the local patterns well enough to say I'm afraid, so I'd be booking a cab in advance for an hour after firework start time. At least you don't have a ship sailing without you soon afterward - worst case you have to hang around at Butchart for ages waiting for a car, or take the 75 bus, or heck, this is Canada... when they shut down for the night and the staff go home, somebody might even offer you a ride into town!

Edited June 26, 2023 by martincath
grammar

[cruiselvr04]

I thought I’d update with a quick report of what we did and how it worked out.

 

We got off our ship and followed signs to the bus door area.  We knew not to leave the building.  We asked and a lady told us where to stand/ wait for the BC connector, that someone would come in to get us.  They were right on time at 8:45.  We had done self assist and carried all our bags off or we would have missed the bus as departure from the ship didn’t start until 8:30 and you have to clear customs.  
 

We got on the bus, he had our name.  All our bags went underneath.  We went to the bus depot but didn’t get off, just picked up more people.  He said it was a full bus and they don’t take anyone without a reservation.  We then headed to the ferry.  It took a total of 2 hours to get there and we were on the 1100 ferry.  The driver drove the bus right on to the ferry.  We had no idea this was how it worked.  We had to get off the bus and go upstairs for the ferry ride, he did lock the bus.  It was a beautiful day so we sat outside and enjoyed the ride.  Food is available on the ferry for purchase.  We then went back down to the bus and he drove it off and then to downtown Victoria.  Our hotel was just a block away from where the bus ends.  It was really quite easy.  We were the only ones from our ship to do this.

 

We had a wonderful weekend in Victoria.  We took the #75 public bus to Butchart gardens and did a whale watching tour.  Our hotel, Double tree was convenient to everything we wanted to do.  We used the visitor center nearby to get bus and garden tickets and didn’t exchange any money, just used our CC for the weekend.  

[cruiseryyc]

Hey thanks for coming back and letting us know how it worked out.  Sounds like it worked excellently for you!  Glad you enjoyed your time in Victoria; now you have to come back and explore the rest of the Island - when you've got about three weeks!