Milhouse

Yeah I think the multiple locations to get onshore can be confusing. On our most recent visit last year, we were tendered close to the Old Port Bus Station which was close enough for us and many to hoof it into Chora. On previous visits, we docked at the cruise port way further north and shuttled (bus or seabus) into Chora. And we've previously seen tenders right to the dock in Chora. In terms of navigation in Chora, I thought Google Maps worked fairly well but not perfect. A lot of the lanes are fairly narrow and some can lead to dead ends. (I also find this makes walking around the laneways in town in the morning a bit of a chore with the crowds and delivery vehicles.) However, the town is small enough that if you have a general sense of where the water is, you can walk in that direction, reach the water, and reorientate yourself. Kind of hard to get too lost.

Do know where the Vista will be docking? I know there's a small harbour/marina right by the old town but wouldn't think it would be able to support a cruise ship. We were in San Sebastian for a few days in 2019 and agree that most of the town and vicinity is very walkable though. We stayed just outside of the old town and walked in. Fairly flat (apart from Monte Urgull that overlooks the old town) and pedestrian friendly including neighbourhoods beyond. Reasonable bus system too.

Thank you for sharing your experience. We'll be in Lisbon in the summer. Always a good reminder to exercise caution and try to always be aware.

We'll eventually hit you up on that as we enjoy eventually sailing on the Royal Caribbean's latest mega ships out of one of the Florida ports. 🙂 One more area likely to be avoided I forgot to mention was Granville Street (roughly between Robson and Helmcken) on Friday and Saturday nights which turns into a pedestrian orientated bar/club/lounge scene but leans towards a younger crowd. There's occasionally some disorder but there's also a reasonable police presence to keep the peace. And there's also appears to be a football game at BC Place stadium Saturday night. They typically have a free "street party" along the plaza by Robson Street. Definitely not as festive as games in the US though. So you'll get some volume/crowds at the venues around the stadium pregame (4pm) and postgame (7pm).

Our summers have been getting drier over the years so yes, you'll likely avoid getting rained on in July. However, we've also experienced the occasional hot spells as early as June. Though being from Florida, you'll likely be better equipped to handle some low 30C/90F'ish and occasionally somewhat muggy temps than a sweaty mess like me. I'm assuming you'll be pull up some of these locations on Google Maps or some other mapping software. Core area to avoid is Hastings Street between Carrall Street and Main Street. It's basically the worst neighbourhood in Canada with street disorder, drug use, etc. A tourist would not normally go here but the mayhem also spills over a bit into adjacent streets and neighbourhoods so you might encounter some of it if you visit Chinatown (to get a bun/dim sum or to see the gardens) or Gastown. You also get some seediness around social housing buildings like near south Granville Street by Helmcken Street or near Pender Street by Richards Street. If you stick to the main tourist areas/routes, it's generally fine. FWIW, I regularly walk around various parts of downtown. While Vancouver has some decent commercial tourist attractions (though obviously not on a scale of Disney, Universal, etc), I've said in previous posts that my favourite parts of Vancouver are by the water like walking the seawall which takes you to places like: Granville Island, English Bay, Stanley Park, Kits Beach, etc. While I regularly walk portions of it, a couple of times in the summers, we'll dedicate a day to walk a significant portion of it but you can obviously take shortcuts (eg you don't have to walk around the entire perimeter of Stanley Park), Uber/Lyft, transit, aqua ferries, etc to cut down on distance. Even though it's very touristy, I think Granville Island is a good option with the Public Market and a variety of food vendors. Great views, buskers/entertainment, etc. We love going there regularly. Go Fish located in a container just off of Granville Island is one of my favourite fish and chip places. They have tempura beer battered local fish (cod, halibut, & salmon). Their fries are only meh tho IMO. Their grilled salmon tacone are really good too. Line and wait for food can be insanely long though (30+mins). Another type of local fish to check out is sablefish which is very buttery but some parts can have a lot of bones (worth it tho). There's a farmer's market on Saturdays by Nelson Park that you might want to check out which doesn't just have fresh produce & products but some ready to eat (eg bakery items). I also always like suggesting the Shipyards Night Market which runs Friday nights across the inlet in North Vancouver with live music, beer garden, food trucks, and a great view of downtown Vancouver. The effort isn't too bad with taking the seabus across the inlet and there is also the Lonsdale Quay Public Market which is nearby. Vancouver has a bit of a microbrewery scene but a lot of the smaller independent producers are located outside of the downtown core. You may come across some of the bigger brands like Steamworks, Granville Island Brewing, and Stanley Park Brewing in and around downtown. If you want to do a bit of a microbrewery crawl, there are a bunch somewhat clustered south of Olympic Village. I recently hit up a bunch for a stag last year and I found the walk pretty reasonable. (It also looks like the Carnival del Sol Latin Festival will be taking place nearby at Jonathan Rogers Park this year if that interests you.) There's another cluster of microbreweries and distillers east of downtown. They used to hold a kind of annual open house crawl that the missus and I loved going to. However, parts of area can feel a bit sketchy and industrial so I'm not sure if this is the best for a tourist. There's also a cluster somewhat near the Shipyards area that we see when we drive to the nightmarket but we haven't visited yet. Vancouver has a bit of a Food Truck scene. There have been some really good ones over the years but I haven't kept up after I stopped working downtown. Many of my faves now have brick and mortar locations or have shutdown. Tacofino was one of my faves (delicious fish tacos) that made the jump to brick and mortar with a few locations in and around downtown (which are actually better because their trucks' quality started to degrade a bit in trying to cycle through orders faster so you didn't have to wait 20+mins for your taco.) I thought we hit peak ramen a few years ago but the number of ramen shops in Vancouver seem to just keep growing. You'll always see a line-up outside of Ramen Danbo which I think is good but not worth the wait (we occasionally go to one outside of the downtown core). I kind of like Menya ITTO but it's a bit pricey. Anyways, just a few ideas from me. I'm sure others will chime in with some great suggestions based on their experiences.

I think we were planning to just snack throughout the day but the Oude Haven looks like a fantastic waterfront area. We may have to stop for a bite here too while visiting it. Thanks for the tip! We're still debating the order along similar lines of thought. We considered visiting Markthal closer to the end as it is also probably the furthest point on our route. But it's also one of the key places we want to visit and I want to make sure we're there early enough that most of the vendors are still open. I think their website shows they are open until 8pm (with only some restaurants with separate entrances open later). And I suppose we could also visit the morning before we board. So, yup, need to work on the timing.

We're sailing out of Rotterdam this August 2024 and were hoping for a bit of a sanity check with what we're planning. We have never been to Rotterdam but have been to Amsterdam and vicinity a few times. The plan is to take the train after a couple of days in Paris (long story but that's where we're flying into) and arrive in Rotterdam in the early afternoon the day before our cruise departs. We're planning to stay at the Marriott across from Rotterdam Centraal. Is it realistic to visit these places and neighbourhoods (on foot) that afternoon and evening: Markthal Cube Houses Hoogstraat Beurstraverse Lijnbaan Witte de Withstraat We want to keep the pace fairly leisurely and not too ambitious. Also want to make sure the areas are active and fairly safe into the evening (ie Back to the hotel by around 10pm'ish?) And the morning of departure, I was hoping to confirm we could check-in our bags at the terminal and exit so that we could explore the area near the terminal a bit: Hotel New York, Fenix Food Factory, etc.

Yeah while we were sitting there waiting for our food, the missus and I were chatting about the history and the state of the business today😄. I don't know if it's true but I think gossip has it that the original owner back in the day, lost the business due to gambling debts. Pure speculation though. And we were curious how these fast casual restaurants are related to the Hons branded noodles and potstickers you find in some grocery stores (??). We're pretty much halfway between Congee Noodle House and King. We go to House when convenient like sometimes after an event/game downtown. Also when eating with my sister, she will direct us there because she's become friendly with the staff. We generally end up going to King because parking is somewhat more convenient than House (I still hate their parking lot and refuse to park there😵‍💫) and their prices are a tad less expensive. The missus went to Carleton for a few years as a kid and loves to drop a story or two any time we drive by it. 😄

IMO, I find tipping percentages can be somewhat regional. However, I think 15-20% is within spec. I'm curious if your credit cards have a chip & PIN which is the standard in Canada nowadays. I also ask because many businesses (and taxis) use mobile credit card machines and a lot of the machines are set up with various preset tip percentage options, though some are set on the high side.

We're there in September and have been researching too. IIRC, I think some historical posts indicate that taxi/shuttle vans are generally only willing to take you to Casemate Square as most taxis hold out for more lucurative full tours. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2912404-gibraltar-itinerary/#comment-64754759

We did end up popping into Hons Olympic Village for a snack after walking the seawall to Granville Island on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Ordered their big hitters: wonton noodle soup and potstickers. The noodles were on point and the wontons were good. The soup was a bit light in flavour for our taste though. We thought the potstickers were only ok/average. Didn't disappoint but didn't align with our memories of them.

I think the general concensus you'll receive is that 11:40am is going to be enough time. As mentioned by leaveitallbehind, the airport is reasonably close to Canada Place/the terminal. 30mins is a good estimate. Just as a data point, I left my house (which is slightly further than Canada Place) for the airport at 6:30am for a 9am transborder flight on a recent Tuesday morning, got to YVR at 7am, and had plenty of time to spare to browse duty free and grab some food in a lounge. You may need a bit more time due to the added cruise pax volume. I think many airlines recommend being at YVR about 2.5hr to 3hrs before a transborder flight (though I think 3hrs is a bit excessive). Addressing some of the potential bottlenecks: There aren't any labour disputes on the horizon at the port to delay luggage. (knock on wood) Skytrain to the airport is pretty quick and convenient if you don't have a lot of luggage. There is a short walk from the terminal to the skytrain station and from the YVR station into the airport. And if you are travelling midweek on the Skytrain, it does get kind of crowded in the morning. There are some open areas for luggage (and bikes) but it's generally not as convenient to sit with your luggage (vs standing with your luggage) If you take a taxi or uber, there are multiple routes to the airport (save for the final stretch) in the event one gets congested due to an accident. If you take an uber, you do have to walk about a block outside the terminal to get to the designated ride sharing pick up areas. The check-in lines at YVR can get long but you can mitigage this by doing online check-in & baggage drop off of course. The security and US pre-clearance lines can be long. They do have a Nexus lane. (Funny that the regular security lane was faster than the Nexus lane when I flew recently.) You can also potentially pre-book a security screening time to avoid the line. They also seem to have a new Nexus process for US pre-clearance which is much streamlined IMO.

Similarly, have not done the excursions but we really enjoyed walking around Ravenna pre-cruise to explore the town and visit the mosaic sites. The sites are scattered around town but it's a relatively leisurely walk as the distances aren't too far and it's flat. We visited Bologna post-cruise and happy we went. Fantastic food and great architecture & public spaces.

Not sure how adventurous you are, nor how the current logistics are nowadays but we took local mini-buses up to Sirince village which is a cute hilly town back in 2016. Some tour operators can also take you there. There's not a tonne to do there but it's kind of a nice walk exploring the village. There's a also bit of shopping and quite a few restaurants. You need to transfer buses in Selcuk which gives an opportunity to explore the town a bit beyond the typical tour stop to see the remaining Temple of Artemis column.

If you're using Google maps, the tender drop off is just east of where Cabo San Lucas Cruise Port is marked. Very close though. It's at the pointy tip that's marked at Caborey. The map doesn't reflect a small pier/dock that is within the ship control point SDPadrefan refers to but you see it in street view.

Disney Wonder just sailed out of Vancouver earlier this week on Monday. Maybe also hit them up on their roll call to see how it went, though one ship in port won't be as chaotic as two big ships lie your situation, let alone three or four. The next sailings out of Vancouver aren't until April IIRC.

What level of hotel are you looking for? When we travel to Japan, we occasionally stay at Toyoko Inns and APA Hotels. They are both chains with many locations across the country and multiple locations in major cities. However, their rooms are generally tiny. Comparatively, a cruise ship inside cabin is huge compare to their rooms. 😄 Toyoko Inns seem to host a lot of tour groups. Comes with free (basic) Japanese breakfast. Free Internet. APA Hotels seem a bit more modern. Additional charge for breakfast. Free Internet. Note: Both chains have many hotels so the quaility may vary a bit across each individual location so you need to do your research. I think they both allocate some rooms to smoking and non-smoking. I also think they generally try to have everyone out of the hotel in the late morning/early afternoon because they have the bulk of their housekeeping staff in to do a mass turnover of rooms within this window. Both have had some corporate controversies. Google them if this may sway your decision.

I'll defer to martincath for the bulk of the recommendations (and particularly delivery to downtown since we never use delivery). We haven't been to Hon's Olympic Village recently but maybe I'll convince the missus to stop in for a quick snack pre/post walk report this weekend. We usually go to Congee Noodle House (and its sister restaurant Congee Noodle King) on Broadway for relatively fast casual Chinese. Not sure how practical it would be to get delivery from there but it's not that much further than Hons in Olympic Village. I think we had chatted about Chinatown BBQ being a bit inconsistent but likely due it (and other businesses) needing to get back to a regular routine. I grabbed lunch there a few weeks back (along with getting some pastries from New Town Bakery) and it was good. Very busy for a weekday lunch too. However, I just don't crave it as much as I do Hong Kong BBQ in Richmond which isn't practical for most tourists logistically unless they are hard core foodies. I enjoy going for northern Chinese too and the Peaceful restaurants are a good option as suggested. But agree as martincath says, a few key popular dishes aren't great for delivery.

I popped into the Pan Pacific when out for a walk this afternoon while waiting for the missus to get off of work. Oceans 999 was closed with a sign saying to visit the Coal Harbour Bar on the other side of the floor instead. So I chatted with the bar staff (very friendly people) and they confirmed that if it's full on Open Table, they are fully booked. But they said to contact their manager (gave me her business card) as they occasional keep a second waitlist(??) in the event of cancellations. (I'm not sure if this was a wink, wink, nudge, nudge moment or just a chance for a hail mary 😄). Good luck on whatever you decide! Demi Kammer - Asst Restaurant Manager 604-662-8111 x4148 604-230-9096 (cell) demi.kammer@panpacificvancouver.com

During our 2021 trip (correction from 2022), we only ate poutine at Le Chic Shack which is kind of a sit down burger joint located close to the top of the funicular down to the old town. (We were kind of poutined out after eating one every day in Montreal before we got to QC.) It's not a traditional poutine though as it has crispy potato chunks versus fries (see pic). We still found it very tasty though. The restaurant was packed though (in 2021 we were there during the xmas market season) and while service was friendly, it was a bit slow just because of how busy it was. I had Chez Ashton as a place I wanted to try but didn't get around to it. I think it's a chain though so it wasn't high on my priority list. During my 2020 trip, I also ate poutine at Snack Bar Saint-Jean which was nothing to write home about. Their poutine and other food were just fine for a late night greasy snack after a night of drinking IMO.

We really enjoyed the Montjuic fountain light show during a previous visit and were hoping to possibly see it again when we end our cruise in Barcelona this summer. I see that the show is temporarily suspended due to dought(?). Wondering if there's any update to this and if there are any other issues stemming from the dry conditions. (We're likely going to have to implement extended water restrictions ourselves in Vancouver due to a lack of snowpack this winter that help supply our reservoirs.)

I ate at Aux Anciens Canadiens with a group of friends in Feb 2020 while visiting for Carnaval. I think everyone enjoyed their meals overall. I enjoyed my meal too though I didn't love it enough that I wanted to go back when I visited QC again with the missus in 2022. Good selection of Quebecois cuisine but also very heavy/filling. Big portions so a number of friends had to do a doggy bag. Thought it was kind of pricey but they do have an early bird special (that we reserved for but missed because we were late getting back from an event). Their dining rooms had a rustic vibe but it's kind of part of its charm. Just to add to the Chateau Frontenac 1608 Bar, it's a really nice room. Pricey but I enjoyed it (just for drinks and snacks/appies) and did return here during my subsequent trip. I also ate at La Bouche both trips and would consider going back again (we're contemplating another trip this year) but it's not a MUST do. It also has a kitschy rustic dining room. They're kind of known for their onion soup. The first time I went, they served bone marrow with their onion soup but the subsequent visit they didn't but it was still very good. I enjoyed their spreads/pates too. Some of the dishes can taste a bit salty. And your meal can get a bit pricey depending on what you order. During the group trip, we also ate at 1640 Bistro. It was fine/solid but they serve regular stuff like burgers, pizzas, etc so it wasn't a memorable meal for me. Encountered friendly staff at all the above places.

Similar to what thehowlingroad describes, I find the various neighbourhoods/districts are generally easy to get to by subway and/or the JR Yamanote circle line but the metropolis is fairly sprawled so you can spend a lot of time in transit getting from one end of Tokyo to the other. I also agree that a guide might be handy to maximize one day for a first vist to Japan/Tokyo which can be a bit overwhelming. For history and culture, I agree that both the Asakusa neighbourhood with Senso-ji Temple and Ueno Park with the National Museum likely fit a lot of what you are looking for from a history and cultural perspective. You mention tea ceremony. I believe they do one in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden but please confirm yourself. Possible Ginza tip. I think they shut down the main street on the weekends in the summer. (Again please check if they still do.) It's kind of fun to walk up the boulevard in the middle of the street. Some of the buildings have rooftops that you can go up to check out the views for free. Check out the food hall/floor of one of the major department stores. This likely doesn't fit in your criteria as it's more modern Tokyo (and also crosstown from Asakusa) but a few of my favourite iconic touristy things to when in Tokyo are: Visit Shibuya neighbourhood and checkout the scramble crossing and visit Shinjuku neighbourhood to check out the lights.

Is that the long term value lot? If so, heads up that it has gone up a bit. I just got back from Vegas and my buddy ended up paying $110 for 4 days ($27.50/day) in the long term value lot. It made me cross-check the YVR parking website and while it appears one can save a chunk by booking online and booking for a week, the best rate (weekly & prebooking online) seems to be over $17. Still cheaper than the $25/day rates downtown but getting closer to it when factoring transport to/from YVR and convenience.

At the start of the year, I tried to track the promotions listed on the home page: Semi-Annual Sale, 48 hour flash sale, etc and the discount levels: Take 75% off 2nd guest & save up to $200, Take 75% off 2nd guest, Take 75% off 2nd guest and up to $200 OBC, etc. And I tried to track the promos against some of the sailings I was interested in. What I saw was that the pricing did fluctuate nominally depending on the discount. Eg. It was cheaper with the "Take 75% off 2nd guest and save up to $200" vs just "Take 75% off 2nd guest." But there also seemed to be underlying price adjustments likely due to cruise timing/final payment and how full the sailing is. Anyways, I kind of gave up around the end of January 😄. Maybe if there's any interest, we can do a bit of a group effort to track sales, somewhat conceptually similar to the MoveUp tracking.