Stanley Park Question

[Stevepcb64]

We will be staying in Vancouver for 2 nights post cruise. We are looking at maybe doing the HOHO Bus on Sunday. Stanley park looks huge and looks like you could spend an entire day or so there. Realistically, I would think we may want to spend maybe a couple of hours to be able to see more of Vancouver that day also. Any recomendations on what the must do's are in Stanley Park and an itenerary of what and how to do it? TIA

[Cbtours]

2 hours ago, Stevepcb64 said:

We will be staying in Vancouver for 2 nights post cruise. We are looking at maybe doing the HOHO Bus on Sunday. Stanley park looks huge and looks like you could spend an entire day or so there. Realistically, I would think we may want to spend maybe a couple of hours to be able to see more of Vancouver that day also. Any recomendations on what the must do's are in Stanley Park and an itenerary of what and how to do it? TIA

Last may we stayed 5 days at Pan Pacific (at the port) prior to our cruise. We walked along to Stanley Park, then took the horse drawn carriage around the park which I highly recommend. Great commentary by a young girl steering??? The carriage. Novel way to see far more than we could have and good photo stops.Far to big to walk around if you have limited time.

we also loved taking the ferry over to north Vancouver and great little permanent market there right as you dock, delicious foodie stuff and nice variety. Lots of outdoor seating to watch the water activity etc. 

 

 

 

 

[Northern Aurora]

Consider the aquarium in Stanley Park. 

[martincath]

22 hours ago, Stevepcb64 said:

... Any recomendations on what the must do's are in Stanley Park and an itenerary of what and how to do it? TIA

First, read through the official website which lists all the assorted subsections within the park. Then fire up Google Maps, which has had official drive-throughs along the entire Seawall, all the roads, and even some trails. On top of that, tons of uploaded personal photos including the rotable 'photospheres' let you put yourself into the picture - for the vast majority of the park, pretty much all of it except the ticketed Aquarium and the sporting activities really, the crux of whether or not you'll find it worthwhile to visit is to look at the views!

 

Unfortunately the park-specific HOHO died years ago, so the only way to actually VISIT each section rather than getting a driveby on the not-cheap, very limited loop horse trolley is to buy your way around - with either sweat or money... the park website still mentions trolleybuses and coach tours here and there (our Park Board is the epitome of inefficient when it comes to anything managerial or technological!) but aside from a token stop on some city bus tours there really isn't any non-private tour that gives even close to as much as the horse trolley does, and that only sees a fraction of one part of the park.

 

If you can ride a bike, rent a bike - if at least some of you can ride a bike, consider a Tandem or eBike (if it's someone lacking strength/endurance, let younger legs or a motor provide the power!) or a Tricycle (if it's a balance issue). Bikes can get basically anywhere that folks on foot can, but with a significant speed improvement - crucial if you want to see sites that are not all close together as efficiently as possible.

 

A car is actually a fairly efficient way to move folks who don't or can't walk far or bike - if you have any other suburban attractions you would like to visit (e.g. Queen Lizzie Park or UBC Campus) then renting a car for one day may work out very well for you even if you don't get out of town proper with it. Parking in Stanley is 'pay once by plate number, park anywhere for the time paid' which means you can drive inside to e.g. near the totem poles, park and wander a bit; then move the car onward to Prospect Point, Rose Garden, Tearoom etc. Not every bit of the park is superconvenient to a parking lot, but there are several spread throughout (the link above has detailed maps), so as long as folks can walk or others can push them even a couple of hundred yards you can visit many of the popular parts.

 

Hiring a cabbie to drive you around will add up - official wait time runs just over $30 an hour these days, cost while moving usually works out at least double that, so it doesn't take too long for the meter to run up higher than a rental car + parking but you could take the risk of calling cabs/ubers etc. for each leg... I do occasionally see a cab sitting in the parking lot at Prospect Point, and once you're around the far side where the restos are folks obviously cab to and from those for lunch & dinner, so you might not have to wait too long provided you only make a small number of stops to look at stuff.

 

Hiring a private guide for the day with a vehicle would be pricier than the cab or rental option, but might get you some good tales as well as transport. If memory serves there are GPS-based cheap downloadable 'tours' that you can follow, and at least one guy literally selling a live virtual tour so whether you walk or bike or cab around somebody will talk to you on your phone about what you're looking at. Some First Nations run tours will walk you around with a focus on art, medicinal plants, etc., and if you get lucky and visit on a day when there's something happening locally there might be specific event stuff related to Canada Day or whatnot.

 

As a local, nine times out of ten if I'm in the park myself rather than bringing visitors I'm doing the whole seawall loop on foot or bike - the only bit of the park I never, ever miss on those visits is the totem pole display, which is very close to the seawall so a trivial amount of extra sweat involved. Everything else is nice in varying degrees, but some parts are seasonal (roses!) and others too much effort if you've already done them (Prospect Point - yes, the views are nice BUT not nice enough to schlep up that hill on foot or bike for the umpteenth time!) so it's all about 'is this a great day for X?' but if you're a first timer you should get your butt up the hill for those views 😉 

 

The only 'landmark' that I would give a caveat to in cruise season is Beaver Lake - if you expect to see Beavers! There's other stuff to see on the loop around it, it's certainly interesting, but even our pretty-chill-about-people local beavers rarely make an appearance except pretty early or late in the day (the ten-cent word is Crepuscular; they like to be out around both dawn and dusk) and that's when also when you get into potential issues with coyotes, homeless campers, and the practical matter that to be at the lake at a good beaver-spotting time means either arriving or leaving the park when it's pretty damn dark (not much artificial lighting in the park). The Seawall and the main vehicular roadways are easy enough to navigate even at dark o'clock, but among the trees? Lots of potential ouchies.

 

Everywhere else depends on you and yours for its relative value - maybe you love Rhododendrons but hate Roses, love Burns but hate Shakespeare, so you fine-tune which garden areas and statues to visit accordingly! There's all sorts of quirky little things around, like our local copy of Copenhagen's Little Mermaid with far more clothes on, bits of grass with interesting signs, an island that is geographically a peninsula but officially a ship, a lagoon named as its literal opposite, and while we don't have a tree you can actually drive a car through any more you can still stand inside the cyborgian remnants of it and imagine you're in a Model T.

 

Something for just about everyone in other words - what's best for you unfortunately can only really be answered by you, but at least these days Streetview is a massive help enabling you to do homework long in advance.

[Milhouse]

Similar thoughts.  From my perspective, I'm not sure if there are any must do's per se but there are a few iconic areas and landmarks.  My favourite stretch is also basically by the totem poles and Hallelujah Point with a classic view of the downtown Coal Harbour waterfront.  

 

Just for timing context, I occasionally do a 2.25-2.5 hour walking loop (steady pace but not really brisk) that kind of hits or gets near a lot of the bigger sights.   The path is roughy:

Start at Starbucks on Denman

Denman to English Bay

Seawall to Second Beach.

Path that runs the north side of Lost Lagoon (I occasionally do the south loop too)

Under the causeway to the Rose Garden/Shakespear Garden

Past the Stanley Park Pavillion towards the Aquarium

Before the Aquarium, hang a left towards Lumbermen's Arch

Take the seawall towards Brockton Point and around back to Coal Harbour.  The seawall will take you past: the Girl in Wetsuit statue, the totem poles, Brockton Point Lighthouse, Nine O'Clock Gun, Hallelujah Point, Deadman's Island/HMCS Discovery, Yacht Club, Rowing Club, near the Robbie Burns statue, and near the Lord Stanley statue.  

It's fairly flat except for a somewhat slight incline from under the causeway to the Pavillion.  

 

With this route, you're missing out on Prospect point and a great view of the North Shore & Lions Gate Bridge or under the Lions Gate Bridge if you went along the seawall, the Hollow Tree, Siwash Rock, Third Beach & the Teahouse, and Mini Railway, and Beaver Lake.  Again, debateable how desireable each of these are to you.  As martincath mentions, there are various ways to visit these other areas but it's an effort/reward thing.  

[Stevepcb64]

Thanks for all of the great suggestions!!!! We are not really interesed in renting a car and dealing with parking and such for this trip. I realy liked the e-bike idea but I am a pretty big guy and I checked with one of the rental companies and I exceed the weight limit for the e-bikes, so I guess that is out also. I like the route the horse drawn carriage takes but it looks like it only makes one stop at the totums. So I think we are just going to try and basically walk that same route so we can go at our own pace and take pictures ect. It looks like it goes by several of the main attractios. Any reason that you experts can think of that would be an issue with this or any other suggestion?

[Milhouse]

The only parts I would question are the western part of the loop that I think goes along Pipeline Road which would be a bit of a stretch of walking through a forested area (though that's what you might want to do) and checking out the lighthouse at Brockton Point which the tour seems to shortcut from. The carriage tours obviously need to stay on the road while you have access to trails and the seawall on foot.

If going counterclockwise, I'd prefer to start looping back at the spray park/Lumbermen's Arch area.  And then once south enough (roughly by the aquarium), take a trail back towards Pipeline Road if you want to see the Pavillion, Rose Garden, etc or turn earlier (roughly by the Japanese Canadian War Memorial) if you want to see the miniture train (but check to see if it's running because it's had on again/off again mechanical issues).

[martincath]

6 hours ago, Stevepcb64 said:

... I realy liked the e-bike idea but I am a pretty big guy and I checked with one of the rental companies and I exceed the weight limit for the e-bikes, so I guess that is out also. ...

I agree with Milhouse on the routing - on foot, you can go places that the carriage can't so cutting across at Lumberman's arch is a good shortcut. As to the bike thing, I spent a lot of years on the wrong side of 250lbs which made for some issues when it came to rental bikes - as a suggestion, JV Bikes definitely still stocks adult trikes and they have a weight limit anywhere from 300-400lbs depending on frame as they're designed to carry some cargo as well as a passenger. I'm not sure if they have any motorized trikes for rent though, might need to use your legs (but then, us chubby chaps tend to have strong legs just from carrying ourselves around!)

 

But if you decide to keep it simple and walk, consider taking a cab into the park and getting dropped at Prospect Point - walking downhill from there is much less hassle than up! There are trails down to the seawall (Avison, Chickadee), still a bit loopy and indirect so they aren't ridiculously steep, but you're away from traffic compared to walking next to the roads. I'd ballpark the walk from Prospect down to the Seawall then skirting the outside past the totems and lighthouse back to the entrance as about 3 miles? If the Seawall trail is packed, walking against the flow might be troublesome but the park drive (carriage route) parallels it close by, does have a sidewalk, and rarely sees much foot traffic.