Vancouver Info if needed

[rustictrvlr]

A walk around Granville Island would be great idea. Weekends are the busiest time on the island but it all adds to the experience.

For the morning of embarkation I would recommend the Vancouver Aquarium or Science World. I have a couple of grandchildren about your DD's age and they love both of them. A plan would be to head to Canada Place about 9:30 check your luggage with the porters, head off to one of the venues then return around noon or 1pm.

You will be just fine with USD, however I am sure that your hotel will do a conversion for you or you could go to an ATM which abound in downtown Vancouver.

 

 

http://www.vanaqua.org/

http://www.scienceworld.ca/

Thanks Putterdude!

 

What mode of transporation would you use to get from Canada Place to the Aquarium? We will be using taxi service while in town up to this point.

[Putterdude]

Thanks Putterdude!

 

What mode of transporation would you use to get from Canada Place to the Aquarium? We will be using taxi service while in town up to this point.

 

You could walk along the seawall...but you would likely wear your little girl out. Taxi in either direction about $15. You could walk up to Pender and Howe St. (3 blocks) and take the #19 bus into the park...$2.75 for each adult your daughter is free...you will need exact CAD for the fare though, just reverse the procedure coming back. I am certain that your daughter will love the Aquarium, my DGC have an annual membership and visit it many times each year.

[Tweedy]

...$2.75 for each adult your daughter is free...

 

 

 

One slight correction to this statement... children 5 to 13 pay concession fare which is $1.75. If she was 4, there would be no cost for her to ride.

[Putterdude]

One slight correction to this statement... children 5 to 13 pay concession fare which is $1.75. If she was 4, there would be no cost for her to ride.

 

You are correct, I had it in my mind that she was 4.:o

[gardener718]

I just read something that has me thinking about how much time is needed for me to leave the port area (dropped off my HOHO pink bus, get to the train, arrive at the air port and pick up luggage that was sent there earlier and (this is the part I didn't think about) go through customs AND get to my flight, which is at 11 P.M..

 

Suggestions please, thanks

[Philob]

I just read something that has me thinking about how much time is needed for me to leave the port area (dropped off my HOHO pink bus, get to the train, arrive at the air port and pick up luggage that was sent there earlier and (this is the part I didn't think about) go through customs AND get to my flight, which is at 11 P.M..

 

Suggestions please, thanks

 

Last weekend we arrived at the YVR about 2 hours before departure and with NO lines it took almost 40 minutes to check luggage in and clear US customs/immigration.

 

And your airline may require you to be there at least an hour before departure; we flew WestJet and they begin boarding half an hour before departure.

 

We also checked-in online the day before and printed out our boarding passes, but at the airport they had to verify our passports vs the info provided online, this was both coming and going. They have kiosks to do this, but if it can't scan your passport (like one of ours) you need to get see an agent for the Mark-One-Eyeball scan. :rolleyes:

[scottbee]

I just read something that has me thinking about how much time is needed for me to leave the port area (dropped off my HOHO pink bus, get to the train, arrive at the air port and pick up luggage that was sent there earlier and (this is the part I didn't think about) go through customs AND get to my flight, which is at 11 P.M..

 

Suggestions please, thanks

 

for an 11pm departure to the USA, you likely wont be clearing US Immigration/Customs at YVR as the pre-clearance closes around 8-8:30. This means you'll need to clear USA Immigration/Customs on arrival into the USA. Because of this you actually can get to the airport a little LATER than you normally would. You can confirm if the flight is pre-cleared or not by seeing which gate it normally leaves from at YVR. If it's an E gate, it's pre-cleared, C or D gate, it's not.

[papadave]

I took a look at their site today and can't tell if any of the restaurants with deals through Groupon are actually worthwhile. Mostly Indian food available, some French, ice cream, then stuff in the suburbs.

 

FYI, The HOHO bus is a deal if you are a group of 2 or 4 (about half price for a single day), but for a family of 3 we'd have to pay full fare for the third person. I have no affiliation with the website, but I thought it was worth a mention.

[scottbee]

I took a look at their site today and can't tell if any of the restaurants with deals through Groupon are actually worthwhile. Mostly Indian food available, some French, ice cream, then stuff in the suburbs.

 

FYI, The HOHO bus is a deal if you are a group of 2 or 4 (about half price for a single day), but for a family of 3 we'd have to pay full fare for the third person. I have no affiliation with the website, but I thought it was worth a mention.

 

HoHos are rarely worth it in my opinion. For a heck of a lot less money you can buy an all day transit pass which will get you to a lot more places, more frequently.

[martincath]

I took a look at their site today and can't tell if any of the restaurants with deals through Groupon are actually worthwhile. Mostly Indian food available, some French, ice cream, then stuff in the suburbs. <snip>

I very rarely find Groupons for food worthwhile near downtown. If a brand-new place opens and offers a Groupon I'll try it (then if it isn't somewhere worth returning to, I feel I haven't wasted money). Every now & again a genuinely good resto will offer a Groupon deal, but they are few and far between - right now the only one worth visiting is Caché IMO (they're one of my 2 go-to Yaletown restos). Even at full price (I never use Groupons for businesses I'm already frequenting) it's good value too.

[Ramjet1997]

Hi - We want to rent a car in Vancouver after a 13 night cruise from Hawaii - where do we rent a car after getting off the ship in Vancouver? Also, we will be dropping the car off in Seattle for the flight back to Ohio......thanks!

[martincath]

Hi - We want to rent a car in Vancouver after a 13 night cruise from Hawaii - where do we rent a car after getting off the ship in Vancouver? Also, we will be dropping the car off in Seattle for the flight back to Ohio......thanks!

All the big car rental chains have an office downtown - unless you're married to one chain with loyalty points etc. I'd compare them all, sometimes the one-way fees can be pretty different.

[jarand]

We will be deboarding a Princess ship in the morning on a Saturday, then boarding a Holland ship on Sunday early afternoon. We're staying overnight at the Hyatt.

 

Things we think we are most interested in:

Granville Island

Stanley Park, probably the totems

Strolling on the seawall.

 

My question is, should we invest the $80 to get us HOHO tickets, or should we just deal with transportation separately? How does someone get to and around Granville Island?

 

Thanks!

[mcmarya]

It looks like there used to be a free shuttle but no longer. It's hard to tell if there is a paid shuttle. How do we see the park without a car? We have a few hours between getting off our ship and heading out--need to be at the bus/train station around 1 to 1:30 pm.

[mcmarya]

One more question--do you know if there are luggage storage options (lockers or bag check) at the Pacific Central station? We are actually taking the Bolt Bus from there, not the train.

Thank you

[martincath]

Details about the park are on its own website; the shuttle is run by the Vancouver Trolley HOHO people, so there's some info on their site too.

 

Most folks walk, cycle (there are several rental places right outside the park around Georgia & Denman) or use the shuttle to get around the park.

 

As to whether that HOHO is of value to you - unless you feel the narration adds value it won't be. Because of the limited, one way loop routes it's a terribly inefficient way to get between parts of the city - a day pass on transit ($9.75; $7.50 if Seniors) would be a much better investment if you view HOHO as just transportation.

 

Best way to Granville Island IMO is one of the small local ferries, Aquabus or False Creek Ferries. Getting around *on* the island consists of walking, walking, or walking (if you do come here on a bike lock it up, it'll just get in the way).

 

You can store bags at Pacific Central - details are on the Via Rail website (they run the station). NB: the times, Tue/Fri/Sun you can't drop bags until 11am... and if you're on a short timeframe, going to Pac Central before going to the park is definitely out of your way - more convenient to leave bags at Canada Place with Priority Baggage (website is *still* not updated, but multiple reports that they are operating this season).

[mcmarya]

Thank you for responding. I had actually looked at all of those websites but found them very short on specifics. The Pacific Central station is sort of a fallback depending on what we end up doing in Vancouver.

[martincath]

^mcmarya: if the websites aren't supplying the info you want, can you be more specific about your requirements? One persons intuitive layout can be anothers hard-to-figure-out nightmare...

[mcmarya]

Websites should be designed so it is easy to find basic information such as cost and hours of operation. With some more digging, I found most of the information on Stanley Park and the shuttle, but it seemed like I kept going in circles to find it. The shuttle website needed updating in places which made me wonder if I really had current information. For baggage storage, it would be nice to know if the information on luggage only pertains to those taking a train and the cost for storage.

 

Wish we had more time to spend in your lovely city and thank you for taking the time to answer questions for out of towners.

[ClaireAndMike]

This is an awesome thread, I'm so glad I found it and am anxious to go back and read it.

 

We will be arriving on a Friday around noon on the Amtrak from Seattle. Our cruise departs Saturday afternoon so we will have Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday morning to explore.

 

We need to figure out what the "must do's" are since we don't even have a full day.

[martincath]

Your Must Do list will probably be unique to you - I don't know anything about your interests...

 

However there are some 'pretty hard or impossible to do anywhere else' things that seem like a good place to start:

 

Stanley Park isn't the only urban park in the world, but I can't think of any others of comparable size that also border the ocean. The part of the Seawall that surrounds the park is a popular walk and cycle route, which you can also follow all the way down to Canada Place on one side of the peninsula and right around the inlet of False Creek and out to Kitsilano on the other side - cycling the whole route doesn't take too long, but if you were going to stick to Shanks' Mare then I suggest you pick a specific chunk to spend a couple of hours on (just the loop around the park for example).

 

Grouse Mountain offers hiking, skiing (in the right season), a wolf & grizzly bear mini-zoo, and top-of-the-mountain dining with a great view of downtown Vancouver - and is easily accessible from downtown by public transit.

 

Capilano Bridge is high, long, and in a beautiful setting (there's also the free Lynn Canyon bridge but with your limited timeframe it's probably just going to take too long to get to - whereas Cap is right on the road to Grouse Mountain, and does offer more things than the bridge itself like the new cliffwalk).

 

On the cultural rather than outdoorsy front, as a comparatively young city we're lacking in vast arrays of art galleries, museums, historic buildings etc. that older places have but there are still some relative highlights. Probably the most different one we have would be the Museum of Anthropology out at UBC, though the Beaty Biodiversity museum is also pretty good (a whole blue whale skeleton isn't too common a sight). The Vanier Park 'campus' of museums packs several different ones into a small area (the Vancouver Maritime Museum, the Museum of Vancouver, and the HR MacMillan Space Centre) and they're right next to the Bard on the Beach site if you want to take in some outdoor Shakespeare.

 

Wandering down the main 'cruise drag' from Canada Place to Gastown via Water Street takes you by our relatively old (and nicely renovated) downtown railway station (now used for commuter trains & Skytrain rather than long distance, also the Seabus over to the north shore), many of our oldest buildings, the Steam Clock and the Gassy Jack (our first Mayor) statue.

 

There are also a couple of options for a high-up rotating view - the Vancouver Lookout and the Cloud 9 bar or restaurant on top of the Empire Landmark hotel.

 

If your interests don't tie in with any of the above, scan the thread until you find one of BCHappyGals posts with her extensive list of local attractions.

Edited July 15, 2013 by martincath

[dsw39]

Hi: Is the cost of a faresaver 10 ticket pass (senior $17.50) the same if purchased at the airport. If not we can wait until we get to our hotel downtownand ask where to purchase it.

Thanks

Dave

[martincath]

Hi: Is the cost of a faresaver 10 ticket pass (senior $17.50) the same if purchased at the airport. If not we can wait until we get to our hotel downtownand ask where to purchase it.

Thanks

Dave

Yes - the only tickets which get the $5 airport surcharge added are those bought at the ticket machines at the relevant stations. Any pre-purchased tickets are exempt for the additional charge.

[dsw39]

Yes - the only tickets which get the $5 airport surcharge added are those bought at the ticket machines at the relevant stations. Any pre-purchased tickets are exempt for the additional charge.

 

What do you mean by pre-purchased. We would buy them while in the airport or wait to purchase them downtown. We are using a taxi for transport to our hotel.

Dave

[Putterdude]

What do you mean by pre-purchased. We would buy them while in the airport or wait to purchase them downtown. We are using a taxi for transport to our hotel.

Dave

 

You would purchase them at the Pharmasave or the 7-11 in the domestic part of the airport, that way you can use them from YVR to downtown and avoid the $5 add-on fee.