Day tour excursions in Vancouver??

Hi,

Looking for suggestions for day tours in Vancouver. We are going two days before our cruise leaves in May. Thanks for all your help!!! Cindy

OK.... here's some suggestions....

• May 24th arrive in Vancouver with an evening stop at Fly Over Canada before the 9pm show
  
• May 25 focus on the North Shore marquee attractions Capilano and Grouse Mountain
  
• May 26 Hop on Shuttle with emphasis on Stanley Park, Gastown, Granville Island
  
• May 27 embark on your cruise with dreams on returning to Vancouver for all the activities you did not have time for.
  

Do you need hotel advice?

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My favorite attractions are

Grouse Mountain

Capilano Suspension Bridge

Stanley Park

GasTown

Granville Island

Downtown WAlking Tours (FREE)

Queen Elizabeth Park

Fly Over Canada

Info on Vancouver from a local!

My favorite must do attractions are

1) Grouse Mountain – http://www.grousemountain.com – this is a wonderful scenic mountain only about 15 mins from downtown Vancouver. Ride the airtram to the top for lots of fun activities that include a loggers show, birds of prey show, 2 movies (1 about the Vancouver area and 1 about the 2 Grizzly Bears who make their home on Grouse Mtn) ride a chair lift higher up the mountain to visit the wind turbine that generates approximately 30% of the power required for Grouse Mountain Resort and visit with 2 live Grizzly Bears. Thrill to a 2 hour Zip Line Tour. Enjoy a meal in any of the restaurants. Caveat only spend the money to go up on a clear day.

2) Capilano Suspension Bridge – http://www.capbridge.com – this is Vancouver’s oldest tourist attraction and I still enjoy visiting it! Located on Capilano Road just before you reach the Grouse Mountain parking lot. Walk across a suspension Bridge originally erected in 1889 over the Capilano Gorge. This bridge stretches 450’ end to end and hovers 230’ above Capilano River. Wonder the trails thru the rain forest, walk thru the treetops on the new Tree Top Adventure, traverse a Cliff Top walk, visit the trading post for a huge selection of souvenirs, watch native weavers and/or carvers at work.

3) Capilano Fish Hatchery is also located on Capilano Road and is a great place to view salmon jumping up the fish ladders to get around the Cleveland Dam. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capilano_River_Regional_Park

4) Lynn Valley Suspension Bridge – http://www.lynncanyon.ca - is also located in North Vancouver and is much less touristy than Capilano but it also is not as spectacular. The bridge is slightly higher above the water but much shorter in span. Located in a Provincial Park this bridge comes with some nice hiking trails and you will find an ecology centre in the park as well as picnic tables and a food concession outlet. Should you choose to enjoy the Lynn Valley Suspension Bridge always cross the suspension bridge first and then hike down the trail to the lower (Twin Falls wooden) bridge to cross back over the Lynn Valley River and return to your car – that way you are hiking downhill rather than uphill. It is also free to visit this suspension bridge!

5) Stanley Park – http://www.vancouver.ca/parks/parks/stanley/ - is the crown jewel of Vancouver's parks. As one of North America's largest urban parks, covering over a 1000 acres and offering an abundance of activities. Enjoy the totem pole collection near the Brockton Point Light House, hiking trails, beaches, water parks for the kids (young & old), rose gardens, miniature train, aquarium –http://www.vanaqua.org – many view points, and several restaurants.

6) Vancouver Aquarium – http://www.vanaqua.org – is Canada’s largest aquarium and is committed to the conservation of marine life and education. Located in Stanley Park this is a fun place for the family to visit.

7) Fly Over Canada incorporates state of the art technology in an Imax theatre to show you supernatural Canada, Fly from coast to coast taking in breath stealing views of Niagara Falls, Lake Louise, The Rockies & more. Spectacular! http://www.flyovercanada.com

8) Gas Town – the location where Vancouver originated. The name is derived from a very colorful character named Gassy Jack who was one of the first settlers in the area and a salon keeper – while in Gas Town don’t miss your photo op with the statue of Gassy Jack and by the Steam Clock.

9) At the start of Gas Town is the Harbor Centre Tower http://www.vancouverlookout.com a great spot to start your tour of Vancouver with a birds eye view of the city. Either take the elevator up to the lookout level or go to the top and enjoy a meal in the revolving restaurant.

10) China Town is only about 6 blocks over from Gas Town and is the largest China Town north of San Francisco. While in China Town enjoy a visit to the Dr Sun Yat Sen Classical Gardens http://www.vancouverchinesegarden.com and also make sure you visit the world’s thinnest building it is only 6’ wide!

11) Granville Island – http://www.granvilleisland.com – is a huge public market area which not only sells fruit & veggies but you can also buy frozen fish to be shipped to your home. Many artists make this their home and you can watch them at work in their studios – making this a great place to buy unique souvenirs. The Granville Island Brewery is also located here and you can stop in for a free tour & tastes. There are theatres for live performances and many fine restaurants. A fun way to get to Granville Island is via the Aquabus – http://www.theaquabus.com

12) Burnaby Village Museum – http://www.burnabyvillagemuseum.ca – is an open air museum with over 30 restored homes, shops, school, church and a 1912 carousel situated on 10 acres

13) Gulf of Georgia Cannery – http://www.gulfofgeorgiacannery.com – is a restored fishing cannery located in the historic fishing village of Steveston (part of Richmond). Here you see exhibits that showcase the history of the fishing industry in British Columbia. Once finished in the museum it is great fun to walk along the fishing docks and see the fishing boats which are selling their catch. There are also some excellent restaurants located here.

14) The Vancouver Maritime Museum located on the shore of English Bay is fun for the whole family with lots of hands on exhibits for the kid in all of us. Here to you will find the ship St Roch which the RCMP sailed from Vancouver to Halifax via the Northwest Passage and then completed the return journey in 1944. You actually get to tour this ship. http://www.vancouvermaritimemuseum.com

15) Queen Elizabeth Park http://www.vancouver.ca/parks/parks/queenelizabeth The 130 acre (52 hectare) park is one of the most beautifully maintained public parks in the world. Second only to Stanley Park in annual visitations, it receives nearly 6 million people a year who marvel at its superior standard of garden plantings.

The park was originally quarried for its rock which served to build Vancouver's first roadways. In 1929 the Board proceeded to acquire the property which had become an abandoned eyesore but still served as the site for two holding reservoirs for the City's drinking water. Dedicated as a park by King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth (the present Queen's mother) on their much lauded visit to Vancouver in 1939.

16) Fort Langley is the restored wooden fort built by the Hudson’s Bay Company as a trading post. It is the origin of British Columbia and was the first capital. This Fort is operated by the Federal Parks Board. http://www.fortlangley.org

17) If you are a wine lover you might want to rent a car and spend a day visiting a few of the many (23 Licensed) excellent wineries located in the Fraser Valley only about a 1 hour drive from your hotel. Almost all of the wineries offer free tastes & tours. Two of the wineries have excellent restaurants on the premises. This makes for a very fun and relaxing day. http://www.bcwine.com (click on the Fraser Valley button)

18) VanDusen Botanical Garden is a scenic 55- acre garden of international renown – a living museum of plants collected from around the world and artistically displayed amidst rolling lawns, woodlands and five tranquil lakes, all in the heart of Vancouver and just 15 minutes from downtown.

Due to Vancouver’s mild climate, plants bloom at the Garden year-round. This same climate creates a unique environment where plants from varying climate regions thrive and grow – at VanDusen you will see plants from the southern hemisphere, tropical areas and the high Arctic tundra along side native species. The Elizabethan Maze (one of only six in North America) provides year-round fun.

19) UBC Botanical Garden located at the University of British Columbia covers 110 acres and includes an Alpine, Asian, Native, Food, and Japanese Gardens. http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org There is also a treetop walk which is great for “fit” explorers who are not afraid of heights – however I would not recommend it for anyone who has any mobility issues. Also these gardens are not as well maintained as I would expect a botanical garden to be!

20) Enjoy FREE guided walking tours of Vancouver. The Gastown tour starts at the Howe & Georgia Street entrance to the Pacific Center Mall and ends at the statue of Gassy Jack in Gastown. The Downtown tour starts at the Howe & Georgia Street entrance to the Pacific Center Mall and ends at the Olympic Cauldron. The China Town tour starts at the Howe & Georgia Street entrance to the Pacific Center Mall and ends at the Chinese memorial statue. All of these tours start at 11amCheck these tours out at http://www.tourguys.ca The Tour Guys have added an afternoon walking tour of Granville Island and 2 evening tours….. The Granville Island Tour starts at 3pm at the bus stop just at the entrance to Granville Island.

21) For the FOODIES in the gang! Check out 2 companies that offer food tasting tours http://www.foodietours.ca and http://www.offtheeatentrack.ca – both offer an excellent tour!

http://www.foodietours.ca visit much more high end restaurants in the heart of the west end of Vancouver (tourist/hotel district)

while http://www.offtheeatentrack.ca concentrates on more casual independently owned eateries in various areas of Vancouver! (Gastown, Main Street Area, Vancouver East)

I just enjoyed Foodietours “Guilty Pleasures Gourmet Tour” and was very impressed with the organization, quality of restaurants & refreshments, guides knowledge of foods and the eateries we were visiting as well as the area we were walking in. Felt it was excellent value for the money provided you did not spend the extra $20. For the alcohol! This company also offers a tasting tour on Granville Island Public Market and of the Vancouver Street Food Carts.

As for Off the Eaten Track - this company offers culinary tasting tours of various areas of Vancouver. The brunch tour visits local establishments in East Vancouver while the dinner tour concentrates on the Main Street area and the Railtown Urban Eats tour is an area adjacent to GasTown. All are Fabulous! The Railtown Urban Eats tour would blend well with the free walking tour offered by http://www.tourguys.ca … you could easily do the free walking tour of GasTown and then meet up with this tour company for your lunch - the food is plentiful & wonderful you will not leave any of the tours hungry!

For the tourist in town you actually meet at Waterfront Station and the company drives you to the tour location and then of course back at the end. Just to give you a hint of what to expect - the Gems of Main Street tour started in a Chocolate Shoppe – how can it be anything but wonderful when one starts out with chocolate…. And of course we must mention the rum cocktail concoction at the Tiki Lounge paired with a pork slider & the Pizza Joint owned and run by a chef who actually worked at the Vatican making pizza for the Pope – now if it is good enough for the Pope it has to be good enough for us! After 5 great stops with the history of the area being shared by our guide Bonnie we were all absolutely stuffed! Great job Bonnie!

22) A new addition to the Vancouver scene. The Richmond Olympic Experience located at the Richmond Olympic Oval. Visitors are welcomed by a sculpture paying tribute to the volunteers who made the 2010 Vancouver Games possible. You will then be whisked away on an interactive journey that celebrates the Olympic spirit. A multimedia theatre takes you to the heart of the Olympic dream through a series of multimedia galleries evoking the triumphs, tragedies, controversies and celebrations of Olympic history. Thrilling interactive sport simulations including a virtual ski jump will get your heart racing. Outside the Oval, you can follow the incredible journey of the Olympic torch across Canada via a commemorative torch relay trail through the outdoor plazas.

23) Rogers Arena Get a behind-the-scenes look at one of the premier sports and entertainment facilities in North America with a Rogers Arena tour. See where, for over 15 years, we’ve thrilled and entertained fans from all over the world, staged the best of the best in entertainment and sports, and welcomed over 25 million fans through our doors. Experience first-hand the “cathedral of hockey” that brings in millions of fans coming to see the Vancouver Canucks live (Hockey), and where history was made when the Canadian women's and men's hockey teams marked their moments in history during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Stadium behind the scenes tours are Wed – Sat at 10;30am, 12 (noon) and 1:30pm!

24) BC Place is BC’s Premier multipurpose stadium, hosting sport, exhibitions and live entertainment, right in the heart of Downtown Vancouver. Home of the BC Lions Football Club, Vancouver Whitecaps FC (Soccer) and the BC Sports Hall of Fame. This state of the art facility intrigues with its retractable roof, 800 WIFI ports and 1,100 digital screens. The 36’ façade is lit up by thousands of individually- addressable LED lights that create colour animations bringing life to the Vancouver skyline.

Vancouver has a bunch of hop-on hop-off buses

http://www.vancouvertrolley.com/tours/hop-on-hop-off

http://bigbus.ca/home/

Thanks for your replies. We have limited time, arriving on May 25th afternoon and will be leaving on May27th late morning. Do you have any suggestions of tour companies that could offer us a variety of everything for Friday. Thanks!

Thoughts

• Hop On will give you variety in the downtown core, but you miss out on marquee attractions
  
• What do you think about this 7hr tour? http://vancouvertours.com/tour/vancouver-delights-capilano-tour/
  
• To clarify.... what time is your arriving afternoon YVR flight? You have sunlight until 9:15pm.... this allow you time to check an attraction
  

The 7 hour tour looks great. However, when I put in my tour date of 5/26/17, it is not available. It says the tours only go u tip 4/30/17. I will call to clarify information. Thanks so much for all your help.

I recommend giving them a call. I'm gonna guess it's too early for the May bookings.

What time are you arriving on the 25th? Perhaps you can cram in a few attractions not on the tour.

trrn2016,

We too are on the cruise with you. We are also arriving on the 25th in the early afternoon. We figure once we get our luggage and get to hotel we will just walk around a bit. Have not really decided what we want to do on the 26th yet. As you said a lot of sites do not have the dates in their system yet.

We are at the Westin Bayshore, where are you staying?

cheeseclan

Hi, We are staying at the Blue Horizon on Robson St in downtown Vancouver. We thought that we would walk to Stanley Park the day we arrive since they said it is about a 20 minute walk. We are currently looking at a tour company that offers a variety of sites on Friday. They would pick us up at the hotel. We have never been in the area and are very excited!

Check out Land and Sea

Thanks for the great information!

Hi, We are staying at the Blue Horizon on Robson St in downtown Vancouver. We thought that we would walk to Stanley Park the day we arrive since they said it is about a 20 minute walk.

• looking at Google Maps... it's a 14-20 minute walk to the Chilco park entrance. The park is much larger than that.
  
• What do you want to see in the park? Aquarium? Mini-train? Rose Garden? Prospect Point views? Lions Gate Bridge? Totems? Seawall? Beaches? Use Google Maps to plan which parts of the park you want to explore. You might even want to call a taxi at the end of the day to get you out of the park back to the hotel.
  

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We will leave the cruise and go to the airport YVR to store our luggage there before deciding to do anything. Our flight leave Vancouver at midnight. So we have plenty of time.

Is there any tour counter at the airport? Or we have to go to downtown ?

You will find that it's much more efficient not to go out to YVR and back - all tours I'm aware of default to downtown pickups (airport, and nearby hotel, pickups/dropoffs are standard options on Pre- and Post-Cruise tours, but the timing tends to be very specific - unless you can get out to YVR very quickly you'll miss your chance to get on buses there, and even if you do make it the trip back to downtown isn't a tour, just a 'shuttle service' effectively to get you to where the tour actually starts).

Since you have a late flight, personally I'd use the bag delivery service from CDS at the pier - instead of storing bags that you then have to come back for, they truck them out to their YVR offices (one in each terminal - they'll ask where you're flying to). $40 gets the first 4 bags sent, then $10 per extra, and you can collect them by 6pm at the latest. Both terminal offices stay open until at least 11:30pm, so you won't have a problem collecting them before checking-in for a midnight flight.

This allows you to do whatever you want all day - e.g. use the HOHOs, which are about half the price of a regular ~4hr post-cruise tour but have nowhere to store bags. It also means you can travel to YVR on SkyTrain without worrying about schlepping your bags around - for $2.75pp after 6:30pm weeknights or any time weekends ($1.75 for Seniors). Compare to a cab at ~$35 on the meter plus tip, and you pretty much save the price of the luggage service right there alone!

Thanks Martincath

Is it walkable from the cruise port to the hop on hop off bus stop?

We will be on the Celebrity Millennium SB arriving in Vancouver June 9. We are using Porter Genie - they'll pick our luggage up after we get through customs and will deliver it to our hotel near the airport that evening. It's a bit more expensive but you are not time limited like you are when using baggage storage and delivery at the port.

"Is it walkable from the cruise port to the hop on hop off bus stop?"

Yes - it is right outside the cruise terminal at Canada Place.

Cheers!

Dennis

We will be on the Celebrity Millennium SB arriving in Vancouver June 9. We are using Porter Genie - they'll pick our luggage up after we get through customs and will deliver it to our hotel near the airport that evening. It's a bit more expensive but you are not time limited like you are when using baggage storage and delivery at the port.

I'd be interested to find out how efficient their pickup process is in actuality - given the terrible gridlock at the pier, it's quite possible they'll end up wasting more of your time than queuing for CDS would! OTOH, maybe they'll park a van on-site early if there are multiple folks using the service and it could be a very efficient dropoff. Please come back and let us know!

I can't use porter genie because I have 1 checked in and 2 carry on luggages.

So I will ask CDS to deliver and keep them at their airport office. And i will pick them up at 8 or 9 pm at the airport.

Another option for storing your luggage is to leave it with the "doorman" at the Pan Pacific Hotel which sits right on top of the cruise ship terminal... Plus all the tour buses leave from in front of the Pan Pacific and return you there...