martincath

FROM the airport, fixed rates zones to literally everywhere in Vancouver - if your hotel is one of the ones right next to the pier, same price; virtually all other downtown hotels, including all on Robson, are in the $37 zone. Every cab has to have a copy available, but you can peruse in advance on YVRs website (rates should remain in place this summer, as they last went up Oct '23). The fixed rate to go from the pier TO the airport is a relatively recent change, and only applies from the pier itself. Taxifarefinder is generally pretty accurate in Vancouver outside rush hour - but note that a) it does not factor in fixed fare zones here, and b) the 'sticker price' also includes a 15% assumed tip.

You can get Ubers at the airport - there's a designated rideshare pickup, just like there's one for cabs and for limos - but as noted already pricing is often significantly worse than a cab due to Surge. The route from airport to pier is fixed rate in cabs both ways these days - CAD$41. Even with a generous 20% tip, nobody should be handing over more than US$37ish - and the only legal additional fee is for stops en route, nothing extra allowed for bags, number of people etc. In theory a non-surge Uber will run a bit less than this - but they have fees which do not apply to cabs (because they break the law which requires Accessible vehicles, every ride effectively pays a small fine) so even though the per-mile rates are lower short rides around town are usually more expensive by rideshare - it takes over a mile of driving to hit break even, and about 80% of our downtown hotels are within a mile of the pier!

For maximum simplicity and convenience, I'd store the bags with the bell staff of the Pan Pacific right above the pier. That way you have a 'one-stop shop' - somewhere that will call you a cab if there isn't one already waiting, that's at street level so you can call and Uber/Lyft if you wish (they're not allowed to pick up inside the terminal), and that you can repeat the above again when you want to go to YVR. From the PP to Prince of Whales may run close to $20 on the meter, because you might hit a bit of commuter traffic and road access is very indirect (despite the name, it's not actually an island but only has access from the south side of False Creek so you either overshoot on Granville bridge or go a roundabout way via the other bridges, and driving on GI is always painfully slow - lots of pedestrians! On the way back, maybe a bit less depending on time of day/traffic. Uber will likely be about the same if not Surge - it actually costs more to get in a rideshare than a cab, they have extra fees that cabs are not subject to, so even though the 'per mile' rate usually runs less it takes a couple of miles to actually see any savings so the differences would be marginal on a ride within downtown like this. I'd check Uber if you're used to using it - see how long the app says the nearest car is, and if there isn't a cab visible then weight up the wait time! The bus isn't just cheap, but also pretty convenient - as long as your sis can walk/roll along flat sidewalks it might be quite doable evewn if she's slow (disembark even as late as 9am, whalewatch 10am, bus would be ~30mins total incl walk time at regular 3mph walking speed). The 50 runs from <400yds away from the pier, to as close as possible to GI without actually getting on it (map from the stop to PoW office on Duranleau - slightly further than pier to bus stop) GI is also a good spot to do a bit of souvenir shopping before or after your whalewatch, and has a plethora of dining options - from sweet treats, sammiches and deli food to take aboard for lunch, to a sitdown steak dinner afterward, it covers the bases well. Depending what time you book the boat at, you might even have time to do a little minicruise - a cab to e.g. Davie Marina is a much shorter ride than going over the bridges, and you can hop on a water taxi. Price would likely be in the same ballpark as cabbing all the way, maybe $8 for the cab but then 2 tix on Aquabus or False Creek Ferries probably $3-6 each (various ticket prices based on distance, but decent Senior discounts).

During cruise season hours are extended in many shops in downtown Victoria, to squeeze as many pennies as possible from all you wealthy visitors! Even now, with retail staff harder than ever to recruit and hours correspondingly reduced, the stalls in The Bay Centre - which include Purdy's, a very Canadian chocolatier - stay open until 7pm at least a couple of nights a week. Not sure of your exact date in Vic, but they do give a detail list of hours on this page - you can click through fortnightly right through the season to see exactly what the hours will be on your date. Worst case, hit up a supermarket to buy a bunch of treats that are tricky to find in the USA but normal up here - Coffee Crisps, Kinder Eggs, weird flavours of chips. Just eat the Kinder Eggs before re-entering the states - big fines get issued every year to folks unaware of the FDAs 'no inedible items inside food' rules!

Welcome to posting! Note that if you want to 'ping' someone, you need to type the @ symbol - once you do that, a little popup should appear with a list of names that gets smaller as you type each letter of their handle - and when you see the name you want, click it and you should see their name formatted in a blue bubble (example - I have addressed this post directly to you @1nolaguy so your name appears in a blue bubble, confirming I selected it correctly) If you are comfortable moving yourselves and all your bags at least 400 yards without using a porter or an airport trolley, SkyTrain should work for you. If not, take a cab - they're much pricer for two people but are at least fixed rate and significantly cheaper than cruise transfers! $41 is the current rate to the pier from YVR, or vice versa (in CAD, so tip as you would at home for a cab but expect total cost to be about 75% of equivalent USD). SkyTrain does have multiple exit points - coming in from YVR it's best to board the back of the train, which means when you walk off you should see signs pointing you up to Granville Street conveniently close. There's an elevator right up to street level - and from here, it's DOWNhill to the pier! Not steep, but every little helps! Map from that specific entrance to the pier here. Check out Google's Streetview too, it makes it easier to follow a route if you have already virtually 'walked' it! If you're heading downhill, and can see mountains and water ahead of you, you're almost certainly going the right way! If you're feeling good about roling those bags along, you can even walk down a ramp (same one the cars use, very obvious, but with a proper separated sidewalk) directly to the parking level. While it appears this year there's a new system enabling you to drop bags at street level just inside the convention hall, if you arrive early (<10am) you will almost certainly still have to go down to P2 to drop bags so the ramp is a handy shortcut.

Frankly I recommend against this tour even for able-bodied folks due to insufficient time at the sites; while Capilano can be just about squeezed into the time available if you hustle, Grouse is massive with various timed events like a Raptor show, so unless you have 4-6 hours free you simply cannot see everything and this tour will give you at most 3 hours on-site. Someone who needs a walking aid will have many issues getting around (Grouse is not level, paths are uneven, gravel, woodchip) making the value for them significantly worse, and it's already weak. The hatchery itself should be easily navigated, but the trails around here are even less developed than Grouse or Cap, so pootling about to view the dam isn't on the cards - and I always feel including this free government run place is a bit cheeky instead of simply spending the same length of tour but giving people an extra hour+ at Grouse! Whalewatching can be done easily though - either by bus from downtown to Steveston or else from Granville Island. The latter gives you more time on the water (tours run 3-5hrs, if you spot whales early they'll return at about the 3 hour mark but if the whales are further out you'll get the full 5), and effectively a free 'city tour' as generally the boats from GI still head out into the same waters that the Steveston boats visit. All the local companies offer the same guarantee (whale sighting or free tours for life until you do see one) - Prince of Whales run some bigger cats, seating up to 95, while Wild Whales operate 12 seater Zodiacs (not a good idea if your sister has any kind of back issue, very bouncy ride!) and smaller 30ish pax cats, pricing is also a little less with WW. Steveston trips are a bit cheaper - but if you add on the per person extra charge for a bus ride, it's pretty much a wash. So assuming you're comfortable on a boat for most of the day, storing bags downtown, taking a whalewatch from Granville Island, dinner downtown, then retrieve bags and head to YVR would be a nice way to fill a day IMO. Also note that CBP have extended their operating hours at YVR, now listing a finish time of 11:30pm daily instead of 8:30pm! That means even the later of your two redeyes should now benefit from prescreening, so you'll get your customs & immigration done here instead of having to wait forever at understaffed US airports in the wee small hours at your first stop south of the border. Note that if you had planned to be three hours early for flight 1 you probably will not be allowed to drop bags for flight 2 (there's limited space for prescreening luggage, so while evenings are less busy I would still not be at all surprised if they enforce the 'no bag drop more than 3 hours in advance' policy) so if you want to go through Security together and hang out until flight 1, any earlier than 8:45pm risks one of you being forced to wait outside Security... I would recommend prebooking your Security slots, so you can definitely both get into the short queue if you do need to wait until 8:45pm (it's free, do it any time up to 72hrs in advance), and then get there a little earlier - if they let you drop both bags at say 8pm, great, but if not you can risk both waiting outside Security until you can drop the second bag without worrying about a long wait for the Security check. Personally I would also request assistance for your Sis at the airport - a wheelchair and pusher might seem overkill if she can move around with a rollator, but there's often a long walk to the gate so take advantage of the offered services!

All of the above sites are usually correct, but involve manual retrieval of info from the definitive guides to what's in port, and that's the official timetable that each port produces. Just like Wikipedia they're absolutely worth checking, often add some more info about things to do, but if you want to be certain of accuracy - original sources are the only way to avoid errors creeping in. When it comes to Vancouver, CruiseTT in particular has been wrong more times than I can count, and at best runs days behind updates to the official info - which are issued several times during the season as e.g. Princess remember that they can't still fit Royal class ships under the bridge except at low tide, finally check the tide schedules (which are available over a year in advance from the Canadian government so there's absolutely no need for such deliberate incompetence), and request revised port times as little as a month ahead of each departure... So rather than just attaching a copy of the most recent timetable, I'll point you to the page where you can always find the most up-to-date version. Bookmark that second page and you'll always be able to find the most up-to-date info (well, until the port revamps their website again in a few years - there's always a Cruise-related page though, with the timetable somewhere on it, but the last change was quite recent and moved the link right up near the top to make it easier to find).

Poutine is one of those things that one mans 'Best Ever' is another mans 'Meh' - even if you keep it to relatively old school fries/curds/gravy bitter arguments ensue about which gravy and how thick the fries should be (although when it comes to cheese curds, fresh and squeaky has no argument as the only authentic option)! If you don't already have a stance on what's best, then honestly Costco is as good as anywhere for a straightforward, no-frills poutine to introduce you to the concept; you don't even have to be a member to order it (food court in Vancouver is outside the store) and one $6 portion easily feeds 2+ people, even if you don't bother with the Polish Dog (which you should!) - two people, plenty full, for <$10? Best food deal in the city... If you've already had regular poutine and want to try some weirder combos, then I think La Belle Patate has the widest menu of options (as well as flying in fresh curds from Quebec, so as authentic as it gets here too for the basics, so if you're looking for one place to try different things this would be it).

Unless you've booked a private guide who insists on cash, a few bucks for cash tips to hotel bellstaff and the like is the only thing most tourists need physical money for. We may actually have more 'no cash' than 'cash only' restos downtown these days! I can think of a few spots that are Interac (Canadian Debit) and Cash only - so for tourists from outside Canada de facto cash places - but they're cheap so $200 is already ample!!!

Sorry, as a diabetic I rarely buy baked treats so I'm a poor resource to compare and contrast bakeries, except the odd niche item (for example if I'm here on my birthday rather than in Portland, my annual donut cheat is a Swiss Bakery Frissant - basically the same concept as Dominique Ansel's Cronuts that were all the rage back in the day, croissant dough fried up with rotating fillings & glazes). I've tried a few of the downtown & GI bakeries now and again, but not often or widely enough to give a fair comparative critique that X or Y is best. A few other tidbits for you though: if you're a traditional jelly donut person, Lee's in the Public Market on GI are genuinely great... but not so great as to be worth queuing more than a few minutes for, they've been overhyped for several years now ever since Seth Rogen name-dropped them. If you're going to be on GI anyway you may as well see what the queue looks like (they have their own 'holding pen' outside the market on Johnston St where folks are asked to wait until waved in through the window, as the queues were wreaking havoc with the interior flow!) Another local fave on the baked goods front, which may be of interest because it's different from the typical Western fare, is New Town Bakery (in Chinatown) - their apple tarts are the 'world famous' thing that most tourists who hear about the place go for, and they are very nice (not a tart in the traditional sense at all, more of a bun shape with fully enclosed filling in the middle - sort of what a McDonalds apple pie wishes it could be!) but everyone I know who is from, or lived in, China feels they do savoury better - the filled steamed buns and the pineapple buns are the best things they make (don't go for lunch - the dim sum is meh and some baked goods have already sold out by then, and it's a cash only joint). Lastly, when it comes to Canada's contribution to baked goods, Butter Tarts should not be missed. They're more of an Ontario thing, but they're a bit like pizza in that even a bad one is still pretty good, and a six-pack from a supermarket bakery is plenty good enough to let you see if the concept works for your palate - if they're not your thing, no need to spend the big bucks hunting down artisanal versions all over town! Nanaimo bars aren't baked (a classic refrigerator 'bake'), but they're probably BCs most famous contribution to the world of sweet treats - again, try a supermarket bakery for a basic version but GI has a wacky artisanal shop these days (Northern Bar) that sells teeny squares for triple the price with some fancy flavours added. If you're Costco members you can often find giant packages of both of these in the bakery oif the downtown Expo Blvd branch!

On GI, seafoody but a little swankier, I'd go to the Vancouver Fish Company; while the menu tightened up during Covid, it's still fairly broad. If you'd be fine with casual but want a wider menu than GoFish and indoor seating, Tony's might deliver - most stuff still comes out of the fryer, but a way bigger menu with much more shellfish. In Yaletown you have a plethora of options including the best seafood resto in the city in Blue Water Cafe (if you want to have a splurge seafood dinner, but not everyone would be happy with a sushi/sashimi menu, BWC is the place to go); if everyone would be on board with an all-Japanese, no menu, definitely some raw fish, Omakase experience you can visit one of our Michelin starred joints, Okeya; Rodneys Oyster House sells a fair whack of not-oyster dishes too; and while it's not a seafood joint as such, I have a soft spot for the Flying Pig which offers several shellfish and fish dishes at a good value pricepoint especially during 'Appy Hours' daily.

Seems like I'm even more out of the loop than I thought on WJ, thanks for further correction!

Really depends where you are in town - Taxi (or rideshares, we have Uber, Lyft, and local Kabu running these days) are the obvious 'point to point' options. Google Maps is hands-down the best option for figuring out transit from wherever you are sightseeing/your hotel, all of our transit routing is fully enabled in it (indeed, it even powers Translinks trip plans on the website now), but wherever you start you'll need to transfer onto the 9 if you don't want to walk (the 99 Express bus also runs along Broadway, but very limited stops). If you don't have free data from your phone provider, you can make use of realtime mapping on the city's free network - it broadcasts as #VanWiFi all over the place - with any WiFi capable device. Slight annoyance - Broadway has a few really big holes right now (subway station construction - interesting to peer down them before they get covered!), with restricted lanes and even chunks of sidewalk missing for the work, so if you plan to walk from SkyTrain at Broadway-City Hall station or a bus stop on Cambie/Granville, you'll need to cross the street now and again (or just walk along the next parallel streets - 8th or 10th - until you reach the right block - between Spruce and Alder). Cabs and rideshares will probably have to drop around the corner on Spruce, there's a lot of No Stopping zones on Broadway and I think the block with S&B is still restricted. Granville Island is only big tourist site nearby that you might be walking from - but be aware that the hills are pretty steep if you walk from GI to S&B. I would take Alder rather than Spruce as Choklit Park interrupts Spruce just north of 7th, and while you can walk up the stairs this view can be very confusing for visitors!

1 card per person. The system tracks the card from first tap to last (or just times out at 90mins if you are on a bus, which you only tap to enter not exit), compares which Zones those were in, bills accordingly. I don't think retapping the same card from outside will even work to open the gate a second time - if it does, it may have actually just immediately tapped you out back out again (which is free within a few minutes, if done at the same station) but regardless, at least some of your party will be guilty of fare evasion (as an automated system, it's rare to get checked by Translink staff or Transit Police, but if you are the fine is almost a hundred times higher than a basic adult fare!)

Then I'll keep it simple with mostly some bar/pub reccos - best patio for views of the North Shore mountains on a sunny day is at Tap & Barrel's convention centre branch; the whole T&B chain offers better-than-it-has-to-be-at-the-price pub grub, a wide range of local beers and wines (including several custom made for them, cannot get anywhere else). Rogue (closest is inside Waterfront Station, really nice old space, many nooks and crannies) is the pub arm of Steamworks brewing - almost identical menus but I find that Rogue consistently does the same food slightly better than Steamworks (who are literally across the carpark - main difference is that Steamworks sells their own beers whereas Rogue sells a whole bunch of different PNW breweries' products, so depending whether you feel like trying several different beer styles made by the same brewer, or several different brewers takes on the same beer style, you have both options available just yards apart!) Moose's Down Under is one of the best value boozers downtown - not at all fancy, but unless you are an Aussie or frequent their expat bars while at home it should be a different enough menu to be interesting, and it has a genuinely fun, friendly vibe. It's in a basement, with the street level sign only about waist height, easy to walk past if you're looking up, and just around the corner for you. Broad menus in all of these, being Vancouver the average pub menu includes a few Asian dishes as well as burgers, fish & chips etc., and for everyone not your Sis at least a couple of different cooked fish dishes plus some sushi and something in the shrimp/mussel/crab area. Lastly, a low key but long-lasting Vietnamese cafe is just up the street, Joyeaux - they're rarely bigged up by local foodie types these days, but they survived Covid and continue to just keep doing their thing (their website is almost hilariously old school, no social media budget for these guys!) which includes one of the best-value breakfasts in downtown in case your hotel rate doesn't supply brekkie. A wee map with all of these and your hotel here - even if you walked around all five reccos you'd rack up barely more than a mile)