martincath

Further to Princetons mention - the aquarium makes use of Boston Harbour Cruises Whalewatching vessels, so compare pricing direct (but if you already plan to visit the aquarium, a combo ticket through the aquarium might be cheaper). Stellwagen Bank feeding grounds are reliable enough that you are guaranteed to see whales June through September (I believe that all the local companies are 'free trip' format rather than 'cashback' in the event you get unlucky). Big catamarans, even bigger than the ones Allen run in Alaska with IIRC up to 400pax, so rail space on deck can get tight up top - check the lower decks to see how busy they are too. Humpies are the bread & butter species but potentially several others - onboard naturalists should explain how to tell what's what from just 'backs & blows' and that's where to set your expectations If this is one of the longer RT cruises up to Nova Scotia, PEI, and Quebec then Boston is almost certainly your best bet for an actual whalewatch trip: Halifax and Sydney are the wrong side of NS for good whalewatching and getting over to Cheticamp or the Bay of Fundy would be very challenging on a port stop; Charlottetown and Quebec don't really have such tours at all; although you might get lucky with Minkes and Pilots seen from the ship, which are around in large numbers compared to most bigger whales, and even the rather rare Belugas anywhere around the Saint Lawrence river and gulf.

Probably... but even if plans are in place to have port security and longshoremen working to support folks entering and leaving the ship overnight, if you miss Victoria (high winds from the wrong direction do cause this a few times every season, and Bliss being a very tall vessel gives it slightly higher risk) then immigration checks involve CBSA staff rescheduling at short notice which could be problematic. Especially given this is a Friday, so for most visitors getting home for work the next is not a factor, I'd be inclined to stick to my normal recommendation of at least one overnight then as early a flight as you want on another day. I certainly would not risk booking a flight at 7am because someone on the internet said it would probably be OK - I'd want the cruiseline to confirm in writing that I could disembark overnight! Back to OP @Victorious8 who seems to have followed this advice to stay over - as a solo, you'll get even more 'win' than most from the YWCA hotel! They actually have single rooms, although I think all of those use hallway bathrooms rather than having your own en suite like the standard double/queen rooms do. It's 0.8miles away from the pier on foot, decent WiFi and lobby with free coffee to hang in if your room isn't available - I met folks there last summer to take on a walking tour who confirmed it's still a great option despite the low price. If you want to spend all day in Stanley Park something nearer the West End would be even more convenient, but if Gastown/Chinatown/Yaletown/False Creek are on the cards it's one of the best-located hotels too (although given how compact our core is, and that 90% of the hotels are there, we really don't have any poorly-located hotels downtown!) Unfortunately this cruise is too early for you to triple-down on celebrating Victoria Day in Victoria, Victoria! But you could have a Victoria Gin while in Victoria 😉

The smaller the better to an extent OP - if your budget can handle it (lacking casinos and the like to subsidise costs, more staff to passenger ratios etc.) and you don't need the sheer variety of amenities on a Monstrosity of the Seas type beast - and a longer duration cruise with more ports means at the very least more time close to shore entering and leaving those ports. Likely the most 'close to shore' time would be on the US-flagged cruises of Uncruise or American Cruise Lines - or maybe Lindblad/NatGeo 'exploration' trips? There are indeed layers of 'even more inside' up the coast, which other than deliveries and ferries only the teeniest and longest cruises visit - just fire up Google maps and zoom in and you'll see the AK and BC ferries routes which hit up a lot of places never seen on cruises... although actually using ferries, even with cabins, might be a step too far!

Happy New Year Dennis! That makes sense - I do recall in several prior years that Bliss has had rather unusual timings due to the bridge. I think one of our other locals, @ceilidh1, has done some of these Bliss repos and might be able to speak from experience how the ship/shore acess works off-hours?

Let us know which port(s) @michaelbr and there's a much better chance of getting the right info quickly - there are sometimes oddities around port access for which local knowledge might be better than Googling!

Depends on your citizenship what you actually need @michaelbr - but all cruises headed straight to Alaska from Vancouver see US CBP at the port for immigration purposes, so if you need a Visa and don't have it you will 100% not be allowed to board. As noted above already, if you're Spanish it's not actually a Visa you need, and the cost is minimal - but if you're a citizen of a country that does need a Visa to enter the USA just residing in Spain, you need to comply with the appropriate rules for your country of citizenship. Even in the much rarer circumstances of a cruise which visits a second Canadian port after Vancouver, when prescreening would not happen, all pax details are sent to CBP by the ship before arriving at the first US port - if you're not allowed entry then the best case is your cruise card is flagged so security will not let you off the ship, but the worst case (assuming there's no issue of criminality that the US would want to actually arrest you!) is that you are forced to disembark and escorted to the nearest airport/border and made to leave the US right away at your own expense... In short - you are 100% going to be processed by CBP for immigration purposes on any cruise to Alaska, regardless of where it begins, so get your paperwork in order!

Railroad is also bookable through various indies, e.g. Chilkoot, who are also cheaper than cruiseline-booked in my experience - see if you can get an earlier slot that way maybe? Also, if this is just the 'summit' ride, up and back without getting off, unless something goes wrong with the train or the tracks it will be very much on time as there are no stations, no issues with freight trains etc. like Amtrak/VIA suffer from - so a 3 hour trip will either have a very small chance of a disaster you can't possibly make a sensible plan around, or be basically on-time which means walking back to the ship by recommended 30mins before departure should be fine... Also, have you checked whether you could book the 1pm train via the cruiseline? If so, whether you book independently or not there will be cruise pax on the 1pm train, so if there is a delay the ship might wait for those folks anyway...

This is tricky - without more info about your specific date/route I can't say! A theoretical answer though is that unless NCL are paying CBSA to work overnight at Canada Place (short answer - they absolutely won't be!), you might arrive at 11pm but you won't be cleared to leave the ship if this is the first Canadian port... but if you had a prior stop in e.g. Victoria, without any other US ports in-between, then immigration & customs was already taken care of so you can just walk off the ship whenever you like after it's tied up. So if you want to set your alarm for 4am, you might not be able to get your bags taken off for you before official disembark slots begin, but you would absolutely be able to self-disembark if you schlep all your own stuff. A 10am flight is potentially doable even if you need to wait until 'regular hours' disembarkation, but again there are unknowns - the biggest factor is your mobility. If you can handle all your own bags, then even on a busy day with multiple ships SkyTrain to YVR is viable which means you can definitely be at the airport within ~45mins of leaving the pier (~10min walk, trains every 6-7 mins, <30min travel time). Say an hour to get to check-in as there's also a bit of a walk from the station to the check-in desks - which means as long as you leave downtown before 9am, you should meet the minimum 1 hour preflight cut-off to check bags. You'll also beat all the other folks who are waiting for cruise transfers - none of them arrive at YVR before about 9:30am - so all the queues should be pretty light, I'd expect to be at my gate within about 30mins even without NEXUS/Global Entry to get through US Preclearance super-fast. If you need any help whatsoever with baggage though, abandon all plans for a 10am flight - there are just too many moving parts outside your control to make it worth the risk. None of the mainstream cruiselines even accept transfer requests for flights that early (noon, or even 12:30pm, is the usual cutoff as they know how busy it can get at the pier and airport and they don't want to be on the hook for folks missing flights!) Personally though I would always advise staying over in Vancouver - unless you've been here many times and seen everything, we have more stuff to see and do than every AK coastal port put together so it's a real missed opportunity to be here and not take advantage of one of the best cities in the world! Us locals might b*tch about cost of living, but with our weaker CAD$ we're still a relative bargain for folks from the USA, especially if you're from any of the bigger cities in California! Then by all means book a flight at 10am on another day when you can choose exactly when to leave your hotel - heck, you may even find a good 6am flight. The only thing to be aware of on those really early flights is that CBP do not start work until 4:30am, and start-of-shift briefing eats another 10-15mins - so arriving at Preclearance before 5am is basically pointless, even for a 6am flight. So many people obey the rule of thumb to be 3 hours early that there's always a lineup at the closed doors from 3am, which gets longer and longer until CBP actually start working around 4:45am...

Taxi firms locally must have a % (~17%) of their fleets Accessible - while there is zero requirement for Uber, Lyft etc. due to them 'sub-contracting' to individual drivers. So an accessible van taxi is on paper much more likely to roll in at Canada Place than an accessible Uber etc. to find at all... but there's no legal requirement for other passengers to pass up the chance of a van - and with cruisers very often being luggage-heavy, the average family of four may seriously struggle to get their bags in a Prius so they'll take a van rather than sit with suitcases on their laps all the way to YVR. Unless you book one specifically, it's a crapshoot in the 'first-come, first-served' queue... but if you contact any cab firm directly, by phone or their Apps, the local bylaws mean they MUST despatch an accessible vehicle on demand. There's no specific timeframe unfortunately, so a rando calling from a US cellphone isn't likely to get any particularly special treatment... but that's where the following workaround comes in! Who DOES get reliably good treatment from cab companies? Hotel concierges and bell captains - because unlike you, a one-off foreign visitor, those people call bucketloads of cabs every day and they can choose which cab company to call... so no cab firm with any sense will risk jeopardising their relationship by blowing off a hotel! Canada Place just so happens to have one of our fancier hotels literally on top of the pier - the Pan Pacific. There's also the just-as-fancy Fairmont Waterfront literally across the street - which will probably have a quieter lobby to sit and wait in - and the even-fancier Fairmont Pacific Rim a block down, which is not only one of just two five-star hotels in the city but is easier to get to for cabs when the pier is busy as it's both a little further away from the pier but also has street-level 'drive-through' access from Cordova so the cabs can completely avoid the bottleneck right outside the pier. I'd try the PP first - but if there's already people waiting for their cabs, cross to the Waterfront and if it's also busy walk the extra block down to the Pac Rim. Between these three swanky hotels, even on a busy day you should have a van cab arriving quickly... Start with an apology (the Canadian way!) e.g. 'sorry for bothering you, but <point at person in party who needs the vehicle> we are having great difficulty getting an accessible cab at the pier, even though we are not currently guests could you possibly call one for us?' would need a very hard-hearted hotelier to refuse!

Things have changed a little with Quick Shuttle (their website remains branded as QuickCoach though, linked by someone else above already) - the most significant change is to their itinerary in that they cut their Tue/Wed services, with some service times now even more limited in which days they run, and of course they've jacked their prices up as have most transportation companies. Separate charge for luggage these days too, instead of including 2 big bags free like back in the day, makes them even more expensive than the alternatives - while they are convenient in terms of being the only indy service that will do a Pier to Airport only a solo traveler actually saves money compared to using other buses or the train and simply taking a cab at the start and end of your trip from pier to station, station to airport. Since OP already indicated they planned to fly a day ahead of the cruise then either overnighting in Seattle and the first train of the day to embark, or if an early morning flight from Chicago is reasonable flying into Seattle early then taking the evening train would be my pick - depends on hotel pricing. The train is actually significantly cheaper than QS as Amtrak did not jack up their ticket prices post-pandemic, it's only $33pp if booked far enough ahead to access Saver tickets, with hefty kids discounts too! The train is by far the most comfortable (even coach seats are more spacious than any bus or plane on the route) and the least annoying way to cross the border as northbound you don't even stop, all processing by CBSA happens at the station in Vancouver on arrival. Unlike at YVR, your train is the only thing being cleared - the longest wait I've ever had, even when in the last carriage to be released, is less than 30mins. Landing at YVR at the busier times of day it's often over an hour delay for customs & immigration due to sheer volume, sometimes even 2+ unless you have NEXUS to bypass the enormous queues.

Depending on your luggage situation the simplest way to go might work - join the queue for cabs. Fixed price to the pier is CAD$41 per vehicle - but ~5 in 6 are Priuses, so while there are seats for 4 passengers the trunks may not handle all your bags if you each bring a big suitcase and a carry-on! The other 1 in 6 vehicle is a disabled accessible minivan, with middle seats removed (i.e still 4 pax seats) so if you are not traveling with someone in a wheelchair or scooter there is a ton of space for suitcases between the trunk and open floor space... but it's a bit random whether you will find a minivan rolling in when you are at the front of the queue! If there's nobody in a chair/scooter behind you that actually NEEDS the accessible van, regular folks sometimes get allocated accessible rooms aboard ship, there's no reason not to take one... But if you want to be completely sure your vehicle will fit your people and luggage, you could use Lyft or Uber and request an XL vehicle - while pricier than a cab, unless here's a big surge adjustment it should cost less than 2 cabs! There's also the local app, Kabu, but odds are you already have at least one of Lyftuber installed so you may as well use what you're familiar with... Limo services will be pricier again - since Aerocar died in the pandemic, there's no longer a specific franchise at YVR with fixed rate fares. We haven't used another limo service since, so can't recommend any specific ones I'm afraid, but the minimum hourly fee is CAD$75 for any limo operating legally in the region - and things like a 'meet & greet' fee to stand with a sign and takes your bags inside the airport is entirely up to each company, the lowest I've seen is an extra $50 (with max 30mins wait time - so if your flight is delayed you're on the hook for extra!). Given flight delays, customs/immigration processing etc. there's just so much randomness that I can't recommend prebooking a limo!

You're really going to have to go custom to fill the whole day with a tour - the longest day tours jump straight from Too Short (multiple North Shore sites or a quickie Whistler visit with an airport drop ~3-5pm) to Too Long (Victoria, get back to the city around 10pm which is too tight to risk for a flight at 11 even though you could be dropped at YVR a half hour earlier). But with 7+ people, the pp cost to rent a guide with a Sprinter van or similar might be affordable - check out ToursByLocals for an idea of how many local guides are around and the vehicles they have (sorry, can't recommend a specific one personally). Due to how busy YVR gets, time limits to check bags are enforced quite often (max 3-4 hours preflight depending on airline) - although on those late red eyes with no Preclearance to worry about, you are more likely to be able to check your bags earlier if you do end up out at YVR with a lot of time to kill. Still, while it's arguably the least bad airport to kill time in on the continent, it's definitely better to fill your day with more fun stuff. Firstly I'd check with your people - even if you are a very tight family or friends group odds are slim that you all share exactly the same tastes, so why not do a bit of homework in advance and figure out what sights everyone favours visiting and any places that one or more of you have zero desire to see? If there's a strong overlap, then a single custom tour by vehicle could make a lot of sense - but if your big group breaks down into smaller groups based on what they want to see, it's really easy (and free!) to keep in touch locally if you split up... the city runs a free WiFi network (look for #VanWiFi broadcasting), Transit vehicles have their own WiFi too now (even in the SkyTrain tunnels), so any device can be used to message each other without having to pay roaming fees/data costs if your phone companies don't include Canada. So everyone can maximise their enjoyment of local sights, do their own thing during the day, meet up again at dinner just like many groups do on port days while cruising! Given we share the same native language, credit cards are taken almost everywhere, and even USD cash here and there, touring independently as solos, couples etc. then meeting back up for dinner before heading out to YVR is safe and simple. I'd aim for arriving no earlier than 9pm, even if you have some pretty nervous travelers 2 hours is plenty for a late flight. With only check-in and security to worry about (no Canadian Preclearance operates 24/7, they only run 2 shifts from ~4:30am to 8:30pm) you will see CBP when you land in the US instead of here before boarding, hence less time needed at YVR. Personally I'd stash bags downtown, split up, go do stuff that seems best for each sub-group, and book a dinner downtown for 6-7pm to meet back up again. Retrieve bags and head to YVR at ~8:30pm - SkyTrain is both fastest and cheapest, less than US$3pp on any evening, so as long as you have enough able-bodied people to roll bags around it's usually the best option. Cabs now do officially charge fixed rates to the airport from the pier, but not from anywhere else around town - but if you budget for the fixed fare (CAD$41/~USD$31 per vehicle, plus your choice of tip) you will likely save about $5 per car from most of downtown on the meter at that time in the evening.

Best hotel for the money is actually fairly straightforward - the YWCA Hotel! While there are better hotels, with more fancy stuff, they cost SHEDLOADS more - nothing remotely comparable in price comes close to the quality, location etc. of the Y. Don't accidentally book a YMCA hostel though - I think we still have one of those too - the hotel is purpose-built as such, and while there are some big family rooms with 5 beds there are no dorms. Book soon though - it sells out long in advance, especially the 'normal hotel room' format with 2 doubles/a queen and an en suite bathroom. Transport - if mobile, can handle own bags, SkyTrain is usually both cheapest and fastest, although with cabs being fixed price into town sometimes a small group can find that cab fare is almost as cheap (each ticket leaving YVR gets an extra $5 fee added, to pay for building that line back in the day, so in USD it's ballpark $6-8pp depending on time and day of travel, while the per-cab price to most downtown hotels is ~$29 plus tip) Only hotels with shuttles are out near the airport, and they will only shuttle you back & forth not to downtown (although since there's a SkyTrain station pretty much en route from all of them, asking the hotel shuttle to drop you at SkyTrain should work - waving a few bucks as a 'preemptive tip' should ensure it does!) Do some pricing, then check what Holland are selling pre-cruise hotels for - if you're a solo then their per-person pricing might make for a big win, but sometimes they get some really good rates booking blocks of rooms too, so if you did insist on a swanky hotel like Pan Pacific, Fairmont, etc. you might get a better rate through the line. Given the distances involved, weak CAD, English spoken everywhere though it's almost always cheaper to book hotel and transpo yourself here in Vancouver and frankly often faster too, no waiting for a bus to fill with other folks!

Not sure how helpful a small sample of opinions will be OP, especially since I'd flip the order of the three to basically the opposite of the first reply! Astoria hands-down the best for me: good architecture, tiny but fun city museum, superb maritime museum with one of the best fish & chip spots in the region parked outside (it's in a boat to keep the vibe!), a twee little ye Olde Historic Railway that runs rather randomly, the whole historic Lewis & Clark story with a great rebuild of Fort Clatsop to visit (outside town), multiple great breweries, a resto you can dine in while looking down through the glass floor to watch sea lions below, fling a paper airplane off the Column while enjoying expansive views. Just don't be one of those people and annoy the new owners of the Goonies house by hanging out on their lawn... stick to checking out the film exhibit in the museum! Santa Barbara I plunk in the middle again, nice enough to be worth visiting again but not somewhere I would ever choose a cruise based on its inclusion or lack thereof; while it's a bit far to walk to e.g. the Mission there was a touristy trolley bus shuttling folks around when I visited which I think did come back post-Covid. Catalina however I have no desire to ever go back - the museum was decent, but the overall vibe I was left with is Generic Caribbean Island Meets Faded British Beach Resort, both of which I've done far too many visits to!

Whether it's a Seattle RT, or a Vancouver one-way/RT, there are some good walking tours in both that may help either burn off or justify excess cruise calories, on top of options in the port stops. Free (tip what you like) versions I've enjoyed in Sea and Van; completely free (no tips expected, and just your group not randos) in Sea and Van (full disclosure, I am a Vancouver Buddy, but since we make zero money I feel it's not much of a conflict of interest to recommend the organization!); Tripadvisor lists all the paid tours available - I've personally very much enjoyed the Architectural Institute of BCs tours here in Van, which should be firing up again in 2024 and were in the past by far the best value paid tours at ~$10pp (it's basically to cover admin costs, not for-profit). Something a lot of folks miss out on in Skagway are the Ranger walks - the Klondike Goldrush National Historical Park is split between here and Seattle, so you can see both ends of the trips that the wannabe prospectors took.

Even with 4 ships in port, SkyTrain can handle the traffic levels just fine - while there's no such thing as a 100% guarantee (ship might have a propulsion failure and arrive very late, SkyTrain does have very occasional failures, YVR had a massive power cut once in the last decade, another occasion the computer systems all went down causing multiple-hour delays) this is as close to a sure thing as you can plan for! Even if you had a flight at 1pm, any really disastrous thing going wrong could also mean you miss that. The only time you ever really need more than two hours at YVR, even for US preclearance flights, would be on multiship days after the busloads of cruise transfer pax start rolling in which isn't until ~9:30am. If you do much international travel - even literally one foreign trip a year - then NEXUS or Global Entry are money well spent, and both would expedite you through CBP and Security when heading south. If you don't already have an application under way it's probably too late for the 2024 cruise season - but there's also YVRs 'prebook your security slot' Express service which anyone can use, and just on the offchance that Something Unexpected Crops Up you can at least hedge your bets for the Security queue. Of course, the best advice I can offer is always the same - stay overnight for as many days as your time and $ budgets can handle, as Vancouver is an outstanding place to visit, then book a flight in the first tranche of day before 9am. You'll likely be in the air then before the first same-day-disembarkers even arrive at YVR, fly home in daylight, and more often that not pay less for the flight too as everyone and their granny wants the 'no need to get up early, can get to it after a cruise' noonish to mid-afternoon flights so they usually carry a premium cost...

I've also experienced generally that the first self-disembarkation slots are officially ~7:30am, but may actually start a little earlier; if it's for booking the earliest possible flight then the biggest issue is how many other ships are in port... with the maximum of four vessels, even if you are first off your ship you might be behind hundreds of pax from the other three! The advice to book a flight no earlier than noon is sound; if you are mobile, carry bags off, and use SkyTrain it's possible to get to YVR, through security, and CBP preclearance by 9am - but if you need a cab, or even worse want to pay extra then wait even longer on a cruise transfer, you may find yourself missing a noon flight entirely if it's a four ship day (most lines will not even book you a transfer for flights before noon, 12:30, even 1pm depending on their tolerance for risk!)

Mostly I'm going to back up other answers already - the YWCA hotel is the sweetspot for location, quality, safety, convenience at a bargain price (especially if you don't plan to have a car, you have very easy access to several decent bus routes and one SkyTrain line within a couple of blocks, and it's less than half a mile to the nearest station on the other line, water taxis, other main bus routes). There's also a fair whack of reasonably-priced dining options, and full kitchens that mean you can grab nice fresh ingredients and cook yourself a meal (or just a picnic lunch) for even cheaper. Any hotel should hold your bags the day you check-in or -out for a few hours - but you may find that it's more efficient to pay a few bucks to store bags elsewhere depending on your plans, so you don't have to go out of your way to get back to the hotel before heading to the airport. Which location is best - unless you are very picky about your hotel having a view, the best location is the one which allows you to visit your preferred sights as efficiently as possible... so I'd plan where you want to go first, then choose where to stay. Which sights would be best for you though is the real question - two days means still barely scratching the surface, you could not possibly hit up even all the top ten downtown attractions and do them justice. Factor in some more suburban big hits, involving 30+ mins travel each way, and time gets crunched even more! Personally I always suggest that you - and all the folks you will be traveling with - hit up TripAdvisor. When it comes to popular attractions, with 100s or 1000s of reviews, any bias becomes meaningless so you can take as gospel that Joe Q Public's Top Ten list is an extremely accurate, large-sample-size, list of comparative 'quality' of the sights... for Joe Q Public. Hopefully you know your own tastes enough to know that you lean e.g. more arty, less gardeny, love museums, hate science centres etc. etc. compared to Joe Q Public - but those Top lists, and the short articles along the lines of 'a day in' or 'a weekend in' make a great starting point. Pick your personal top five or six things, compare to your travel companions lists - then come back and run those choices past us locals, who have practical 'boots on the ground' knowledge of e.g. the best way to link the sites together, best times of day to hit X or Y or travel between them to avoid traffic, and maybe suggest some smaller, less-well-known things to see and do that would fit well if you're already visiting A, B, or C.

A lot of folks will have - but a caveat that any pre-Covid stays would have included a free hotel shuttle which would drop guests anywhere around the downtown core, including the pier, and was very popular with cruisers. As far as I know that's the only amenity they no longer offer - and personally Hamptons are pretty much our perfect hotel chain, with quality beds, an adequate hot brekkie, but minimal fripperies we do not need although we've never stayed in this specific one. The location is great - on the corner of the same block as the YWCA which I still recommend as the best option for anyone who doesn't need a bunch of fancy stuff - and a cab to the pier should be about $10; it's a smidge under a mile so would be a single digit fare if it weren't for pier traffic (sitting in a stop & go queue of vehicles is the norm unless you're among the first or last folks of the day, limited space means it's one car out, one car in). If you're mobile you can walk to Chinatown, Gastown, or the pier easily (even with suitcases); you're right on the edge of Yaletown, have SkyTrain stations on both lines less than a half-mile away, a bus stop on the next block that can take you up to the West End along Davie St (006) or across Cambie bridge to Broadway (017) for various shopping/dining/sightseeing options, and even a nearby 'port' for the little watertaxis around False Creek (it's out on one of the piers in the Marina at the foot of Davie). If you enjoy walking - or rent a bike - a full circuit of the Seawall round Stanley Park is even on the cards. Multiple decent restos very close by. All in all, I'd have zero hesitation recommending the Hampton to a tourist, whether it's just for the night before or an extended stay.

This is a good point Miss G - while a day trip by bus/ferry isn't possible on a cruise disembark day, even with a flight this late, if you can throw some cash at the logistics the time saved by flying makes it easily possible to see a good chunk of Victoria and surrounds. Especially trips that land right at Butchart's dock, avoiding the 30+min each way bus ride to and from town!

The official pier storage is the worst possible option for someone with a very late flight - you must go collect your bags again by 4:30pm, yet they charge more per bag than any other storage option downtown! I do agree the best option is to stash bags downtown, as that is the most time-efficient option - provided you choose a place that stays open until at least 8pm! Given I live close enough to the pier to have always just walked home with my bags, I cannot speak from personal experience about any specific options - but if you Google 'luggage storage Vancouver BC' you will find several web-based sites that have made deals with local hotels and shops to hold bags for prices between $7 and $10 per bag - some give exact locations in advance, others only approximate until you book (like AirBnB), but all offer hefty guarantees against losses. There's also the hotel right above the pier, the Pan Pacific, whose bell staff have been holding bags ad hoc for non-guests for years if you don't want to commit to a service in advance. Spend the day doing lots of stuff locally, have a great dinner downtown, grab your bags, take SkyTrain out to the airport - flights that late, even if it's via the USA rather than direct to Oz, go from normal International gates rather than Transborder which removes one step from the process, and YVR is simply never as busy at that hour. I would personally be comfortable leaving downtown 2 hours preflight by SkyTrain - you'll have ~90mins to check bags, get through Security, and board which is plenty.

There isn't one - but you can take the Clipper from Seattle to Victoria, and then BC Ferries to the mainland from the Island. There's a coach that usually works out as the best combo of cost/convenience if you just want transpo - picks up and drops off in downtown Vic and Van, synched to the ferry times, approx. US$50ish pp. Honestly though, unless you make the pre-cruise transport part of the vaycay and plan at least a night or three in Seattle and Victoria, the time and cost involved makes this a non-starter for most folks! Even doing the 'fly to Seattle, bus or train to Vancouver' thing only saves big bucks if you place no value on your own time - even if you have a nonstop option from your local airport to SEA but only layovers going to YVR, odds are that you'll find a flight with a <2hr connection far more convenient than a ~4 hours bus or train ride at fixed times, with lots of padding to ensure a flight delay won't make you miss it... it's not just the US$30-80pp cost of transpo, it's the many hours extra time spend you need to factor in. The older I get, the more I value my time over my money!!!

You got it, and anything that still wasn't 100% clear I think @LeeW summarized very well above - if you use Streetview, you'll see that the 'station' where your dashed line changes to solid is actually two very small boxy glass buildings that are basically just the top of the elevator and escalator/staircase down to the station platform below.

Taxis, Uber/Lyft/Kabu (local rideshare), or a 'limo' rental would be your options. Cabs are fixed rate, but none are big enough for you - I've seen all of two cabs ever with 6 pax seats, all the other vancabs are used to comply with local Accessible rules by removing the middle row of seats. So they can still only handle 4 bums on seats, but also enable a scooter or wheelchair person to roll right onboard and get strapped in securely. Unless you NEED that accessibility - e.g. one of your Seniors declines before your cruise and needs a scooter - then any two cabs will work. Split into threes, 1 Senior/1kid/1 adult per cab so there's someone who can wrangle a kid/help a senior in each vehicle as you may not arrive together. The extra cost rideshare vehicles might be able to handle your group in a single car - as would limo companies. Without Surge, 1 Lyftuber will almost certainly cost less than 2 cabs. A big SUV at the old airport-specific rates used to run pretty much exactly three times the cost of the cab - and now that Aerocar ceased to exist and official rates apply everywhere, a minimum booking time of at least a full hour applies - I'd therefore ballpark $200 for a limo transfer incl tax and tip to any downtown hotel. Your specific Qs now: 1) No - you get what you get, but you can 'step aside' and let the folks behind you take 'your' cab to get the next one (and us polite locals look behind us to ensure we don't snag a van we don't need if there's someone in wheelchair who does need one!); but since you'd still need a second vehicle, but even 2 Priuses would fit 6 pax and bags easily it really isn't relevant for you. 2) How long is a piece of string? Personally I've never waited longer than 20mins, but my dataset is small despite being local - unless it's late/we're tired we generally take SkyTrain, and if we fancied a treat we used to grab a limo back when it only cost <$70, so we'd generally only cab from YVR once or twice a year. 3) No - since Aerocar died you're at the mercy of individual pricing, and so many limo companies here are a bunch of guys with a car rather than a true fleet, so even the best review in the world means nothing if you book Honest Bob based on reviews, he gets sick, farms you out to Stinky Pete etc. Anyone who gives a recco is basing it on a single experience most of the time, at best a handful, and limo companies are just as prone as cabs to be randomly crap! 4) Yes - assuming your less mobile people can walk through the airport without a wheelchair pusher or 'golf' buggy, then they can easily walk from SkyTrain to the hotel at the other end! Days Inn is even closer to Waterfront Station than the pier is, well under 300 yards, and odds are extremely high you will walk much further than this from plane to curb at YVR. With young kids who travel free, and 2 seniors who get a discount, the price is by far the lowest cost and frankly it's almost certainly also the fastest way to your hotel if there's even a very modest amount of traffic. Prices usually go up July 1, but right now if you use a ticket machine (to get the Senior discount you have to) you would only pay $9.55/adult, $8.10/Senior (even less if a weekend or after 6:30pm weekdays). The super-convenience of just tapping your card on the fare gates comes at the cost of no consession rates, only Adult fares, but at <$1.50pp if there's a queue for the machines or you simply don't want to figure out how to use them, still a bargain IMO. Another handy hint - don't follow the crowds up into the station following the signs, instead walk toward the back of the train, following signage to Granville Street. There's an elevator which will make life easier with bags & mobility issues - and then you don't need to walk up as much of a hill! To the pier, just walk straight down Hornby Street (Google continues to miss this route, there's one block that's entirely pedestrianized but even when selecting Walking directions it routes you a block west or east for some reason!), approx. a quarter mile, downhill. If your older people cannot walk this far, you really, truly should request a wheelchair transfer for them at both pier and airport as you will definitely be walking further in both ports!!! If they could walk it, just not while also schlepping bags, take 1 cab with the luggage and the oldsters to the pier, walk the kids down yourself, and meet the cab! Even without free calls in Canada, the city provides a free WiFi network that makes messaging and maps dead easy to use... look for #VanWiFi broadcasting all over downtown.

Very few hotels offer it here - we virtually ran at capacity during summer pre-Covid, and while the numbers have not quite recovered yet we also lost several hotels so the % of full rooms is probably still well over 90. Only the Fairmont at the airport has consistently offered day rooms - with tight limits of both duration and start/end times, max 8 hours between 8am and 7pm, so they can resell the same room to folks arriving on an evening flight with time to clean them and end up with effectively >100% room use! Honestly, considering you can buy access to lounges with showers and naprooms, it's a waste of money unless you book it for one person and then sneak a big group in! Less than a handful of other hotels appear on websites that specialize in day room bookings these days, IIRC the Hyatt and Georgian Court, neither of whom are cheap but should be better value than the Fairmont as well as actually downtown if you're looking for bag storage/chill space in between Doing Stuff rather than just somewhere to nap before a redeye.