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Vancouver cruise port to Seattle


Achseh
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I'm the type of knucklehead who would do this. Cruising to Alaska from Vancouver with the intent to go to Seattle on the train when we return on Monday (with the intent on renting a car from SeaTac). Just realized that the train won't leave until 5:30 and hubby doesn't want to wait that long after we disembark. We fly out of SeaTac on Thursday morning and wanted to spend a few days in Seattle area.

 

What are my other transportation options between the two cities? I had thought train would be great due to ease of customs and scenery. Husband doesn't want to lug luggage around Vancouver. Ideas?

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First I'd be remiss in not suggesting that you blow off at least some of that Seattle time to hang out in Vancouver instead. We're much better;-)

 

Regardless of when you leave to head to Seattle though, the above methods only need the addition of a car rental to cover all the affordable bases (flying or ferry to Victoria then another to Seattle are also possible but rather ka-ching!) One-way car rentals, including all fees & taxes, are easily found for under $100 and sometimes for ridiculously low prices if you keep checking until very close to your departure date.

 

All the major rental companies allow one-way trips between the cities - just don't book a nonrefundable rate far in advance as there are often drop fees in place for future bookings that disappear as the date approaches and the companies have a more accurate idea of how many cars need moved around.

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I'm the type of knucklehead who would do this. Cruising to Alaska from Vancouver with the intent to go to Seattle on the train when we return on Monday (with the intent on renting a car from SeaTac). Just realized that the train won't leave until 5:30 and hubby doesn't want to wait that long after we disembark. We fly out of SeaTac on Thursday morning and wanted to spend a few days in Seattle area.

 

What are my other transportation options between the two cities? I had thought train would be great due to ease of customs and scenery. Husband doesn't want to lug luggage around Vancouver. Ideas?

You can take your luggage to the Train Station and leave it until you catch the Train back to Seattle. Get on the right side for the best scenery. You will see many eagles along the way, especially if it is low tide.

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Spending the day in Vancouver and travelling in the evening by train to Seattle is definitely the way to go. They are both equally beautiful cities with lots to offer and the train is much nicer than the bus or driving.

 

You should be able to check your bags with Amtrak at Pacific Central Station in Vancouver in the morning when you arrive and then travel around bag-free. Check with Amtrak but I have done this before the other way around (checked my bags in Seattle in the morning for an evening train to Vancouver).

 

Then for sightseeing you can take the hop-on hop-off bus, which has a stop near the train station at Science World. (#27 on the red line http://vancouvertrolley.com/tours/route-map;cruise terminal is #1 on either line).

 

Have a great trip.

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Thanks to both of you-appreciate it! Right now leaning toward the car rental, but will keep my options, and mind, open. :);)

 

One thing you should remember is that if you are an American citizen you will not be able to drive a rental vehicle into the US that bears Canadian license plates. This shouldn't be a major problem as I suspect lots of Seattle based rental cars are dropped of in Vancouver, but you'll need to be sure that whatever vehicle you rent has US plates on it.

 

The same hold true for Canadians renting a car in Seattle and driving it to Canada. It must have Canadian license plates. We ran into this a few years ago when we flew into Seattle from Toronto and had to wait for hours for a Canadian registered rental car even though we had been assured weeks in advance that "they always had lots of these" on the lot.

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One thing you should remember is that if you are an American citizen you will not be able to drive a rental vehicle into the US that bears Canadian license plates.

 

I don't think this is true.

 

The same hold true for Canadians renting a car in Seattle and driving it to Canada. It must have Canadian license plates.

 

This is no longer true, and was not totally true even when it was in effect. It used to apply to Canadian residents but not if the rental was a one-way to get you directly home. It was meant to stop people renting cars south of the line and driving all around.

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One thing you should remember is that if you are an American citizen you will not be able to drive a rental vehicle into the US that bears Canadian license plates. This shouldn't be a major problem as I suspect lots of Seattle based rental cars are dropped of in Vancouver, but you'll need to be sure that whatever vehicle you rent has US plates on it.

 

The same hold true for Canadians renting a car in Seattle and driving it to Canada. It must have Canadian license plates. We ran into this a few years ago when we flew into Seattle from Toronto and had to wait for hours for a Canadian registered rental car even though we had been assured weeks in advance that "they always had lots of these" on the lot.

These rules were changed almost a decade ago, 2009 IIRC. This out of date info gets brought up occasionally for car rentals in Skagway being brought into BC/Yukon by Canadians.

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Harrumph. Seattle is lovely. Why dally in Vancouver?

 

(Says the Seattlite who drove to Vancouver today for lunch and Costco).

 

If you can get a smoking deal from National/Alamo/Enterprise with pick up right at the pier, it's actually slightly *less* luggage handling than with a bus transfer (take the elevator down just after you exit customs and the cars are right there. The drive is lovely - you can actually pick up some routes like the Chuckanut Drive that are perhaps slightly more scenic than the train. If you have Global Entry, border crossing takes consistently less than five minutes on even busy weekends.

 

Avis is a little more bag-handling; you'll take a shuttle bus to the office on Hornby - what I have done several times is go and fetch the car and come back to Canada Place for the passengers and luggage.

 

Driving also gives you the ability to have a spectacular Chinese lunch in Richmond, a suburb directly on the path from Canada Place to Seattle.

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Here's a very pleasant (all-day) driving route - https://goo.gl/maps/7RhteBuzWAn

 

Drive to Steveston, Vancouver's fishing port, then south to the border. At Bellingham divert to the historic Fairhaven district, then follow WA 11, aka Chuckanut Drive south along the bluff overlooking the water to Edison, then on Farm to Market road down to the junction with WA 20. Head west on SR 20 to Fidalgo Island, then south to Deception Pass, the (amazing) gap between Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands. Visit both the bridge-level and the beach-level parts of the state park, then continue south on Whidbey Island through Oak Harbor (Navy town) to Coupeville and Fort Casey State Park. Coupeville is quite picturesque and Fort Casey is a great place to stretch your legs - see the little lighthouse and cool coastal defense guns looking out toward the Olympic Mountains.

 

Continue south on Whidbey to the very picturesque waterfront village of Langley, then down to the ferry back to the mainland at Mukilteo. Visit Mukilteo's cute little lighthouse and adjacent driftwood-covered beach before heading to Seattle. Take WA 526 (aka "Boeing Freeway") to I-5; you'll pass the Future of Flight center, where you can tour the Boeing Everett plant, home of the 747s, 777s and 787s, and the biggest building in the world.

 

This is a terrifically scenic and interesting day, well worth the extra time.

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You can store bags with Via Rail before Amtrak opens for check-in, starting around 8:00 to my memory. You still need to claim them and then optionally check them with Amtrak before departure.

 

 

 

Awesome!

Thank you so much!

 

Also, thanks to the others responses which were also helpful and gave some viable options.

 

 

This is what I was hoping to hear.

Amtrak's site is really bad.

It just says "most stations offer baggage storage"

There was no list of these stations.

The only list was of the stations that charge $10 per bag versus the normal $5 per bag.

 

Judy

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  • 4 weeks later...

We did this a few years ago and rented with Budget for a one way rental. No problems and it was reasonable. May depend on time of year, though. The drive was quite nice, except at border. We had about an hour and a half delay there.

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We did this a few years ago and rented with Budget for a one way rental. No problems and it was reasonable. May depend on time of year, though. The drive was quite nice, except at border. We had about an hour and a half delay there.

 

It depends on the time of year ( summer mostly) and the number of US registered cars.

US registered cars are cheaper because Budget doesn't have to charge a return fee. Canadian cars in Seattle usually can't be rented in Seattle back to Vancouver.

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It depends on the time of year ( summer mostly) and the number of US registered cars.

US registered cars are cheaper because Budget doesn't have to charge a return fee. Canadian cars in Seattle usually can't be rented in Seattle back to Vancouver.

This is no longer true - law changed years ago as mentioned above. No rental agency HAS to charge a drop fee or return fee - some CHOOSE to do so given the logistics of their particular fleets at particular times, but there's absolutely no legal issue impacting them about cars crossing borders.

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This is no longer true - law changed years ago as mentioned above. No rental agency HAS to charge a drop fee or return fee - some CHOOSE to do so given the logistics of their particular fleets at particular times, but there's absolutely no legal issue impacting them about cars crossing borders.

 

 

 

ICBC changed the rules for insurance on rental cars . ICBC frowns on BC cars being rented in the US and nor returned back to Canada.

 

 

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ICBC changed the rules for insurance on rental cars . ICBC frowns on BC cars being rented in the US and nor returned back to Canada.

 

 

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"Frowns on" has zero legal meaning K50 - if you can provide any actual evidence like a link to a current law which forbids renting a car one way I'll happily admit my error.

 

 

When we bought our Portland pad I checked for restrictions on how long we could have our car be in the US, found nothing concrete on the ICBC site and called them - eventually after layers of supervisors they admitted that they cannot restrict the length of time any car remains in the USA as long as the owner remains a BC resident person or corporation (for tax reasons we also considered becoming a corporation to buy our property). In fact the one ICBC claim I've ever made was for an incident in the US and even the very first phone minion I spoke to didn't care how long we'd been away.

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^So, to clarify - the cars that you first said had a return fee because they could not be rented IN the USA now have no insurance to travel TO the USA... and your local Budget in Kamloops has this policy... which you discovered by calling Budget in Vancouver? That sounds like a completely appropriate course of action...:confused:

 

Since we're now off on a tangent to the original topic of how one might efficiently get to Seattle after a cruise, my dead granny once told me that you should never drive a green car because colour-blind people won't see you if you're next to a red one and since red cars are the most common colour that makes green cars the most dangerous to drive.

 

I'll continue to be just as concerned about her warning as I am about yours.:rolleyes:

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^So, to clarify - the cars that you first said had a return fee because they could not be rented IN the USA now have no insurance to travel TO the USA... and your local Budget in Kamloops has this policy... which you discovered by calling Budget in Vancouver? That sounds like a completely appropriate course of action...:confused:

 

 

 

Since we're now off on a tangent to the original topic of how one might efficiently get to Seattle after a cruise, my dead granny once told me that you should never drive a green car because colour-blind people won't see you if you're next to a red one and since red cars are the most common colour that makes green cars the most dangerous to drive.

 

 

 

I'll continue to be just as concerned about her warning as I am about yours.:rolleyes:

 

 

 

Cars at Yvr are licensed for the US to and from Seattle as rentals. Seattle can't rent them locally for use in Seattle or Washington State. They be rented back to Yvr or any office in BC.

 

 

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The Budget offices outside YVR are licensee locations - their owned fleet can't be returned outside Canada, and you can't book a one-way from the US to them; I experienced this firsthand in lovely Parksville when my Budget rental decided that windshield wipers weren't necessary in December.

 

For the other companies, the biggest reason they don't want their Canadian-plated cars going on one-ways to the US is that the primary speedometer markings are in km/hr. I have absolutely had, however, BC and Alberta-plated vehicles for domestic reservations.

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Cars at Yvr are licensed for the US to and from Seattle as rentals. Seattle can't rent them locally for use in Seattle or Washington State. They be rented back to Yvr or any office in BC.

 

Now it's licensing rather than insurance and they CAN be rented for a one-way trip (and another back to BC) which goes directly against your original point about needing a US plated car and your several prior claims that drop fees equal to the cost of returning the car on a truck were required for one way rentals. If your story was consistent it would be a lot more credible K50...

 

 

The Budget offices outside YVR are licensee locations - their owned fleet can't be returned outside Canada, and you can't book a one-way from the US to them; I experienced this firsthand in lovely Parksville when my Budget rental decided that windshield wipers weren't necessary in December.

 

For the other companies, the biggest reason they don't want their Canadian-plated cars going on one-ways to the US is that the primary speedometer markings are in km/hr. I have absolutely had, however, BC and Alberta-plated vehicles for domestic reservations.

Since I know you are a frequent visitor and car renter in this area VG I'm happy to take your word about your experiences, especially since you're confirming that you've seen Canadian plates, including BC, available for in-US rental. I can also imagine US drivers much preferring a car with mph on the main dial so being less desirable to rent except to folks wanting to make the return trip to Canada.

 

 

The Parksville Budget thing - if I'm parsing that correctly, you were on a drive up from the US and the wipers stopped working in or near Parksville? So you tried to swap cars at the local office and got the story about not being allowed to, since they'd then have a US plate car in Parksville and a BC plate from Parksville would end up in Seattle? This being forbidden, not by law or ICBC, but because the local Budget office is 'sub letting' from the main franchisee who puts restrictions on what they can do?

 

If I grokked that correctly then it sounds like a straight-up choice made by a particular business how to run their operations which may seem odd but is at least not being blamed on no-longer extant laws or the only insurer in the province (i.e. the same one who insures other rental fleets that do allow one-way rentals). I recall local press having a field day a few years back over dodgy business practises (spurious damage claims) at several Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island Budgets which turned out to have the same owner so that actually does link together somewhat.

 

But trying to drag this back to directly on topic - if you search for a one way car rental with your desired destination then regardless of whether it's Costco or Expedia or Kayak or an individual rental agency site, the results will show you offices who ARE willing to let you take a car from them to that destination and leave it there. You certainly need to double-check the small print on Unlimited Mileage locations if you plan to deviate from a direct path, especially if you plan to cross into other provinces/states, but even if K50 is actually correct in any or all of the assorted claims made above it simply would not be relevant to you as a renter unless you are silly enough to choose a rental with a hefty drop fee instead of one without.

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