martincath

Definitely the current weather - unlike almost every other cruise ship sent to these parts, the Royal class has no option to sail the protected Inside Passage east of Vancouver Island. It's pilotage-required and the provincial pilots association ban them due to a combo of small rudders and huge 'sail' area sidewinds making them unsafe in narrow waters with either strong currents or high winds, let alone both. They even miss Ketchikan and Victoria sometimes when other classes of ship can safely dock - but hey, operating costs per pax are much lower so Princess keeping sending them despite how badly designed they are for these waters! As well as issues with wind in the unprotected waters Outside the island, there's also the fact that even under normal tidal conditions the Royal class can only pass under Lion's Gate within about a one hour time block each low tide - thanks to storm surge, that margin would have been even tighter so making a run for the harbour before we got hit with the worst of it tonight was a very wise decision!

I'll second Don's suggestion of Weather Spark - if you compare the data for May in your ports, especially Min temps, to your own local climate in Florida you'll probably find that you have an ideal raincoat already (with LOTS of rain but warm temps, I've yet to meet a Floridian without a thin top shell of some kind) so the only real issue will be whether you have the right footwear and enough middle layers already for your planned activities. The latter is easy enough to acquire in ports - a fleece, sweatshirt, or even long-sleeved T make for both souvenirs and an easy way to add some warmth. On the feet front, if you plan to hike than buy boots ASAP and make sure they are well broken-in! If all you're doing is walking around ports or on bus trips, then any comfy footwear with a bit of grip works (lots of gravel trails, the odd woodchip, and slippy decks sometimes aboard). Proper waterproof coats and boots are a necessity if thru-hiking, but with a cabin to return to you should be fine with water resistant top shell and vaguely sensible footwear. You can dry off nightly, unlike someone who is camping and stuck in the rain 24/7! Cheap dollar store gloves, scarf, and toque/beanie should be ample to keep the edge off when it's windy on deck, a glacier day etc., and if it's unusually cold stick a spare pair of socks over your hands as mittens when not actively using a camera etc. Works very well, and just cutting one fingertip off a $1 glove is a lot better value than spending $20 on a fancy pair of 'touch screen capable' gloves that you might never wear again unless you go skiing...

An update - thanks to some necessary-but-loud maintenance to our condo in Portland being delayed, we're cutting short our upcoming trip to just the long weekend. So I'll actually be in town from Oct 10th, before your conference ends. If you haven't already arranged a Stroll with one of my fellow Buddies, or something goes pear-shaped on the luggage storage front etc., just reach out - cruise critic marty (remove all the spaces, just one long name) at gmail dot com

Obviously I hope you're able to get on the tours you wanted to take, but worst case you could at least visit totems in Ketchikan on transit buses - their entire fleet is now similar to Vancouver, kneeling buses, ramps, dedicated wheelchair space near front doors. There's even a loop bus that stops right at the pier if you want to transfer rather than roll to the nearest stop serving the specific line you need for e.g. Saxman. Details of accessible transit here; general transit page with schedule, live maps, search etc. here. Sitka it's been a while, I don't think their fleet is all-accessible but they do have some specific vehicles, you may need to contact them for info - website here. Since you seem quite capable of a lengthy roll based on your Vancouver activities, I think you could get yourself to the Raptor centre and all the other, closer, downtown sites without actually needing a vehicle unless you want to do the out-of-town Fortress of the Bear.

No worries. Personally I'd be bumping this to the parents to arrange and pay for - you're already doing them a favour taking the grandkids on vacation! - but if you're set on covering the costs insist on at least each pair of parents acting grown-up enough to be in the same room at the same time so you only need one visit for each GKs set of docs... unless by any chance anyone involved has sole custody? A copy of the court docs confirming sole custody and all you need is the signature of that one parent to satisfy even the pickiest of border agents!

I think you need a new Notary! While the going rate in Vancouver can easily be $50, even $60 for the first signature, that includes the whole 'setup' - your appointment slot, time to print stuff if it's a soft copy, photocopying things (NB: usually an extra charge per page if they do the printing, so always better to print at home and bring paper to sign!), and (most importantly!) reading the docs carefully, explaining legal terminology etc. to ensure you the client fully understand what's being signed. Since much of that does not need replicated even for multiple different docs - and especially not for identical documents where literally the only difference is name of child and parents - multiple signatures in a session have a significantly reduced cost. Both the notaries near me - David Watts on Hastings St and Dan Park on 2nd Ave - drop their fee to less than half per additional sig, even on totally different documents. As Brits abroad, with UK and US based property and investments, we've had to deal with notarized copies of all sorts of documents over the years both here and Ontario - we have never found ANY notary who charged 'rack rate' for all signatures in a session. Almost every time either of us needs something, we both do - so we've been in a similar position to you with multiple names per doc and multiple docs. Mostly when it's both of us signing the same doc there is zero extra charge as there's still only one notary stamp and literally seconds of extra 'watch a signature be written' time. Whoever your current person is, they are screwing you over unless you intend to book four separate sessions with each parent visiting them individually! Given that you're not just cruising with the kids, but taking them one-way over the border I also feel that even if not required, notarized signatures is going to alleviate much of the concern CBP might have - having a print-out of their return tickets to bring them home from SF will also help! We have divorced and widowed friends, resident both sides of the border, and it's been a crapshoot for them regardless of which direction as to how much hassle they get - both CBP and CBSA almost always ask for the relevant documentation, and in the case of the divorcees even call the ex-spouse to verify permission sometimes... so be sure to include a contact number and remind your kids that if an unknown number calls them the day you're embarking to pick the darn phone up!!! I would also try your bank first in case you can score a freebie though - given that this is a cut & dried situation, standard forms provided, you don't need things explained, copied, etc., you just need the 'rubber stamp' to minimise risk of friction at the border, all the extra stuff that a good full-time notary offers really isn't required.

Viator just resell other people's tours, and usually at a markup - if you were visiting Foreign Lands with language issues, perhaps the comfort of an English language site and a contact number would be a benefit, but all that it does on your 'home turf' is add an extra layer of Things That Can Go Wrong at worst, and Delays Reaching Anyone at best (because you have to call them, not the tour provider, if there's any issue). So if you have found a tour on Viator you like, try to simply Copy and Paste a chunk of the tour description into Google - they're incredibly lazy and generally just copy the actual tour providers spiels word for word, so you should find the folks running the tour very easily, then be able to book directly! Even if it's a tour they are not marking up, all the funds will go direct to the folks running it instead of padding the purse of the middlemen...

While Sydney itself really doesn't have much it's by far the most convenient port to visit two of the best attractions in the province - Louisbourg Fortress and the Cape Breton Miners Museum. A cab would be hella pricey, with distances of 20-30miles per leg, though possibly still better value than a cruise tour bus excursion unless you're a solo(!); a rental car is by far the most efficient way to visit them but you may struggle to find one at a decent price if your trip is this fall...

Just finished renewal and checked this, as I did notice when I was updating new PP that the Vehicle Info was still part of the dashboard (same car for us, so no need to change the info, so I didn't Edit that section) - and it looks like they only care about vehicle info for the Mexican border rather than Canadian these days. So thanks for the tip, one less thing to do in future as we have no plans to do another 'all the way down the left coast' road trip!

We are aware, but thanks anyway - anecdotally a LOT of folks get tripped up the first time they cross the border after getting new PP or buying a new car and forgetting to keep things all matchy-matching!

Very recent update - applied in-person at Vancouver passport office, no appointment, just walked in the door on a Friday 4 weeks ago at almost bang on 3pm... longest wait was the initial 'get a number' queue, approx 20mins standing... then sat for 15min... then as my wife and I both renewed at the same time it took another 15mins to be processed together (during which we saw two singletons be completely processed and another one begin at the window next to us), and we were out and off to Happy Hour before 4pm. Went on vaycay for 2 weeks (NEXUS cards used to drive across the border) and we had the 'please come to Post Office to sign for your package' note waiting in our mail slot when we returned, dated 9 working days after our appointment; very fair considering the current official line is 10 days for in-person at the office. Now we can put in for our NEXUS renewals, with ~8 months before expiry, and we hope it will be similarly smooth! Oh - if it matters to anyone, Vancouver is still printing on old Lizzy stock and they did actually warn us when we went in! For folks who insist on getting a passport with Chuck in it you should apply by mail to the central Ottawa office, as apparently all of the regional ones are still burning through the old stock (a pleasant surprise to see our gov't actually choosing NOT to throw money away by just getting rid of them!!!)

Instead of Harbour Centre, head up to the Signature store at Alberni & Bute - it's not actually very much further, they stock more, and they have product experts on-site to advise. Frankly Canada is even worse than the US for 'every single winery has a string of awards at the My Granny And Her Pals Wine Award Show level', and with a rather small market the available critical base for reviews of only-sold-in-the-country wines is incredibly small it really does mean finding a particular critic whose tastes align with your own - vanishingly difficult for foreigners! I've had far more practical, useful advice ("I like X, Y, Z - what local wineries do you recommend?") from the Signature store staff than any other source on this side of the country - but if you want to do some research in advance, you could do a lot worse than check Anthony Gismondi's site... he's not just Canadian but based over here, which has radically different terroirs than Niagara which is the bread & butter region for the folks based out of Toronto/Montreal, so proportionately his review base skews more relevant to BCL supply lines than many other critics. While mostly BCL staff are pretty good about helping out when they can, the Harbour Centre is also a particularly busy and particularly low-end store - lots of plonk, not much swank, and generally staff are more worried about local street folks trying to shoplift (as this is the closest store to the DTES) than advising folks on the subtleties of what vines do particularly well in our 'desert' clime up in the Okanagan. While Canadian wines are available, many are of the 'put in a bottle here so they can be classified as Canadian' or 'grapes squeezed abroad, sent in a tanker, then made within the country' - nothing wrong with those on the value table wine end whatsoever, we always have some in the house, but if you're looking for some proper grown, picked, and processed here stuff the Bute store will have exponentially more bottles - especially once you go above the $25 mark.

I can only answer from experience the first part of the question, but since you've had no other takers I guess a partial/theoretical answer is better than none, and hopefully not to late for you to do something with the info! exact timing of walk-off with your own bags is still somewhat contingent on Other People, Other Ships - deliberately waiting until near the end rather than at the start pretty much guarantees some slowdown, just based on folks ahead of you also walking the same route (with and without bags) and the only real choice involved until you are at the end leaving the building is whether to take Elevator or Escalator (unless you have a free hand, the latter - and the stairs - you will be stopped from using for Health & Safety reasons... so it's elevator or bust if you need both hands to drag your stuff around). Generally, even if Vancouver is your only Canadian stop so Customs happens here as well as Immigration, the delay to deal with CBSA is almost zero - unless you get some secondary questioning, you will at worst hand your customs card to an officer, maybe answer a token random 'why/how long are you visiting Canada?' type question, then walk on. If your customs cards were collected onboard, you may not even see a CBSA person unless you are called on the tannoy to report for a chat. This time of year, I'd be surprised if it takes more than 15-20 minutes to walk off from cabin to curb - if you do the 'have my bags taken off for me' thing then maybe 5 minutes longer at most because if you wait until the end everyone else will have already collected theirs! Unless someone took your bags by mistake, they should be really easy to spot in the various 'corrals' set up for each time-based batch of bags. So if you've seen Vancouver lots before, I'd let Princess do the bag thing for you just so you have a bit more time for a leisurely brekky onboard and less hassle disembarking unencumbered. Everyone, no matter what method, will, start getting reminders to get the heck off the ship at the time of that last timed batch - until every single passenger is physically off the ship cannot let anyone back on, both CBP and CBSA get really picky about this 'zeroing out' process so even folks on a B2B absolutely MUST disembark. If you haven't seen and done it all though, an alternative - walk off in the earliest slot you can get, pay a few bucks to store the big suitcases (Pan Pacific bell staff, and many local stores have cut deals with online luggage storage companies, and every single one of them is cheaper and faster to use than the official pier storage which runs $12 compared to ~$6-10 per bag), and go see some stuff. While I wouldn't shave the airport time super close unless you have Global Entry/NEXUS, I would be 100% comfortable aiming for 90mins predeparture at this time of year - no kids out of school, shoulder season, and even on a multi-ship day it's the folks hitting YVR direct from the pier, 9:30-11am, that cause the really big queues so show up at Noon and everything should be smooth. Prebook your Security slot if you're at all nervous - I'd go for a 12:45pm slot myself with checked bags as you have to drop those at least an hour before your flight. Working backwards, that gives you a 'leave downtown on SkyTrain' time of just before noon as safe - factor in bag retrieval and walk to station, an available sightseeing timeframe of as-early-as-you-can-get-off until as late as 11:30am if you're finishing up anywhere in the downtown core (where a cab ride more than 10mins is basically impossible except in peak commuter rush hours). With 2-3 hours, any one big attraction is doable, or a couple of small ones...

A little late to the party, but I'll back up everything Dennis said above plus give a second-hand review from a couple of folks I was showing around town literally the day of the US-Canada border closure early in the Pandemic. Belmont just slapped a hipster paint job onto an old Comfort without improving anything important. The elevator was so slow that they just walked up to their 3rd floor rooms every time, and while it's perhaps unfair under the very unusual circumstances when these ladies went to the front desk to ask for help while they figured out alternate travel arrangements (supposed to Amtrak to Seattle then fly home after a few days there, which the border closure put the kibosh on), they were happy to sell them another night - at a much increased 'rack rate' price! - but the sum total of their 'help' was to suggest they use the room phone and WiFi to contact airline etc.! I ended up helping them out with their airline and Amtrak myself Given that all hotels, even the good ones, have been struggling to recruit and train staff after the Covid closures, the Belmont is not likely to have improved in any way with customer service, maintenance etc. and they certainly haven't invested any funds in more soundproofing etc. But if you would like to buy cheap stolen bicycle parts, or visit our most historic strip club, you can do the former on the way to the latter at the unofficial bike chopshop in the alley between the two buildings 😉

That sounds about right Hank - given the zero risk of someone who does sneak through being able to use the NEXUS/GE kiosk if they do not have their eye-scan in the system, the folks who 'guard' the entry very rarely demand to carefully examine the card. I recall only once where the CATSA person actually took my card and looked at it closely, every other time it's much more casual - a passing glance at the card in my hand and not even always that. When the "get your cards ready!" verbal warning happens, folks who have one naturally tend to start opening wallets or purses if they don't already have them in-hand. It would be very easy to pretend you have GE just by going through the motions with some other standard size card like a DL and you'd get into the short queue at least 7 times out of 10 - but then you would have a very unpleasant chat with CBP after you were unable to use the kiosk!!!!

It's an 'ask at the time you get accepted' thing, but without a physical card you will NOT be allowed into the short lines at YVR - the folks 'guarding' the entry do not scan passports, so you need to display the card before they will let you enter. I believe you can ask for the card after the fact, but there might be an extra fee to get it now. When you next renew you should be able to get a card without extra charge. I recall several people saying 'back in the day' there was simply a sticker put on the outside of the passport but the cards have been issued for at least a decade, probably a lot longer. re: @Hlitner Hank's experience, the CBP hours are something I warn people with early flights about constantly! Arriving before 5am is pointless unless you need to check a bag (most airlines demand at least 1 hour preflight to check bags out of YVR); when we fly carry-on out of YVR our ideal day is a 6am flight and arrive on the first SkyTrain (5:11am) as the huge backlog of folks waiting for CBP to open can take a half hour to clear - but then it's super fast. But there's no TSA Precheck at YVR Hank - GE does allow access to CATSAs short line though, IF you have your card to show!

My experiences concur that Victoria's CBP agents do not do any Preclearance for cruises; we've taken multiple coastal repos with Van-Vic-US Port and it is always the US port where immigration happens. Legally it's impossible to preclear in Vancouver with a Canadian port next - so you will bypass CBP entirely at embarkation, which does make boarding quicker!

I live locally, so my knowledge of bag storage anywhere is from other folks reports and research rather than personal experience! Suffice to say that the PP has been storing non-guests bags for literally decades whatever their official policy is - they also offer a special, much more expensive, cruise room rate with bag transfer yet also offer that transfer on a tips-only basis to folks not on that rate, so they are very consistent in not applying their own policies about bags 😉 But for folks who would rather have an official warranty to cover any potential losses, multiple online storage brokers operate locally too - in various hotels, restos, and stores near the port. Googling "Vancouver luggage storage" will pop services like bounce, luggage hero etc. all of whom require prebooking but are still much cheaper than the pier storage with rates mostly $8-10 per bags and significant $ coverage for losses. Each facility determines their own hours, but you can see what they are before booking - at worst they are similar to the pier, 9-5ish, but mostly it's convenience stores in the 8am-10pm range or hotels offering a full 24hr service. Some of the brokerage services refuse to give exact locations, but others happily provide maps showing exactly where each storage location is - so while I have no recommendation for a specific service, I would personally suggest using one which does show the locations so you can choose one convenient for the pier or one of the downtown SkyTrain stations if you plan to use transit to YVR.

Shop with Kayak - or even better if you are a member, Costco - and compare not just multiple companies but multiple offices at the same time! Not every franchise is happy for one-way cross-border rentals; back in TheBeforeTimes you could reliably find downtown branches that would let you do it, but these days with folks still struggling to replenish car fleets you might have to pay the airport surcharges to find a one-way. Flexible in timing, or have booked a refundable train or bus so you can wait until last minute? Try the sometimes-FREE car repo services! For example Transfer Car hooks up folks who want to go X to Y with companies who need their vehicles repositioned - and close-but-over-a-border pairs like Van-Sea, Toronto-Buffalo, Montreal-Albany might save a fortune compared to the cost to a rental franchise of loading them on trucks so they're happy to give you a steal of a deal...

Google Map - it's very likely less distance than you already walk from your cabin to the curb! NB: do not go down the tempting entrance right on Howe just outside the pier - wrong platform, wrong line, and while you can walk around inside it involves multiple elevation changes (major hassle if you can roll bags, but not humph them upstairs, as very few elevators!) and more walking distance than just sticking to the street route listed!!!) Follow it along in Streetview to see the landmarks, but it's ridiculously easy with just a Plan English summary of: 'turn left outside pier, follow sidewalk around curve and street becomes Howe, turn left on Cordova and walk downhill until you see a huge brick building with many pillars - go inside, head down to Canada Line platform, and tap a credit card on the gates to allow access and egress at the other end' Only remotely tricky part is the Y shaped train line - every second train goes to YVR, the others go to Not Where You Want To Be, but the train itself and all the signs makes it super clear where each is going, and then verbal warnings happen aboard so you can get off at any station up to Bridgeport and simply wait for the next train if you somehow manage to get on the wrong one...

YVR may be the bestest reviewed airport on the continent over the last decade, but more than 2 hours idling time is still a stretch... if money is no object, Tours By Locals started here and we have many local guides. Finding one with a private car or van to trundle you and your stuff around all day just comes down to how much money you want to throw at the situation! If budget is at all a concern, personally I'd keep it simple - unless you've visited us before and are thoroughly familiar with all the popular sights, then storing bags for the day and arranging your own tour(s) is not just the cheapest but probably the best option. Pan Pacific hotel bell staff hold bags for non-residents, and it's literally right above the pier as well as very close to Waterfront Station for heading out to YVR at the end of the day (they'll also call you a cab if you're not able to carry your own bags or dislike transit). The HOHO isn;t as good as it was when there were 2+ companies competing, but once you divest yourself of suitcases it's still much better value than any fixed tour - cheaper, more stops, and of course the ability to get off and back on when you choose instead of being stuck for ages somewhere you don't want to spend time/not enough time somewhere you do want to see. But a Day Pass on transit (well under US$9pp, even less fro kids and seniors) plus a decent guide book probably gives you more accurate info than random tourbus drivers! Free walking tours and cheap bike rentals further expand your 'get some info from a local' options too. Even some out-of-town attractions, like the inexplicably-popular Capilano Bridge, provide free or discounted shuttles (you can go all the way to Whistler, or stop partway in Squamish, to do various 'go up a mountain or down a mine' sites by shuttle bus) but even without leaving Vancouver's local transit system you can visit far more tourist sites than every Alaska port combined, so really unless you plan a week or more here it always comes down to good research - prioritizing the best things for YOU instead of what everyone else says you have to do...

Maybe your taste in music differs from the prior poster, or you'd rather just have a chat in a quiet bar than have any music, but I'm afraid that unless some kind of pub/club/resto experience is up your alley Victoria offers almost nothing on a Sunday evening otherwise! Biggest employers by far are provincial and municipal governments, very much a M-F 9-5 gig (unless you work in the passport office where it's tools down at 4pm even if you're in the middle of processing an application!) and probably the next biggest category of 'workers' are Retirees - it's the retirement capital of Canada, and they roll up the proverbial sidewalks by 6pm for dang near everything! But the local beer scene is top notch, especially if you're a fan of 'real ales' - nowhere outside of the UK has a better selection of cask ales per capita, with two brewpubs - Swans and Spinnakers - that offer a dual cellar experience where the same beer could potentially be sampled 'warm and flat' as God intended, 'cold and fizzy' as the marketing departments of every macro brewery want you to think beer is meant to be served (I believe at last survey, this is 100% of all such on the entire continent of North America!)... and if Fate truly smiles upon you 'virtually room temp straight from a cask with a tap & spile on the bar top' for a vertical tasting par excellence! Of course the danger is that finding out what beer is meant to taste like ruins almost every bar elsewhere in the world for you, so it's a dangerous business! 😉 Not a boozehound? Have a nice walk around (or hire a mindblowingly expensive carriage to be driven around behind a horses arse) to check out the many Ye Olde Buildings which are nicely illuminated in the evenings, maybe have an extremely ill-timed 'Afternoon' Tea at the Fairmont if it's July/Aug (they take resos as late as 9pm in peak cruise season), but otherwise it's shopping or shopping... rather than tourist tat, maybe hit a local supermarket for interesting flavours of candy and chips you can't find in the US (don't buy Kinder Eggs though - it's easier to import firearms legally!)

Regent might offer some sort of 'transfer bags to the airport' as part of a sightseeing excursion - but simplest and cheapest is best IMO, which means heading upstairs to the Pan Pacific hotel lobby and storing your bags with the bell staff. There is an official pier storage - but because it's signposted it has longer queues than any other option, is the most expensive option at $12 a bag, and worst of all makes you return by no later than 4:30pm to collect them again which is worthless for someone with a flight as late as yours... Enjoy a day in Vancouver, have dinner downtown, get bags again at ~8pm, head out to YVR (whether a taxi, uber, limo or SkyTrain it'll all take about 35 minutes end to end that time of day) and check-in, CBP stop work at 8:30pm, so no preclearance for your flight, it will be a 'regular' international one with immigration and customs on your arrival in the US - which does mean that arriving more than a couple of hours early is pointless, it's never busy for these red eyes. Your bag check time cap will be much more of a limiting factor than airport procedures - most airlines it's at least a full hour pre-flight. If you're flying with just carry-on I would honestly not be worried showing up 45mins early for a 10:35pm flight!

@RELS YVR has several Generic Lounges (Plaza Premium) which anyone can buy access for; just make sure that you book the correct one based on your flight destination as you cannot transfer between US E gates and other secure areas without going through immigration & security shenanigans! Also NB: that while the prior clarification that you need the Canada Line is helpful the handiest time-saving info was left out - there is zero need to stop at a ticket kiosk or figure out zones any more for 99.99% of adults as long as you have either a tappable-chip Amex, Mastercard or Visa, or a Google/Apple/Samsung smartphone with a card loaded to the onboard payment system, you can simply tap on the fare gates to open them! Not only does this avoid the delay of figuring out the right ticket on the machine, but it also does the math for you - when you tap back out (NB: use the same card, and hold it in your hand both times rather than tapping your whole wallet as if the sensors pick up 2 different cards they will bill each one a maximum fare!) it knows how many Zones you have used and what day/time it is and corrects the fee accordingly. Super easy - the only folks who need to use the machines are seniors/older kids who want a save a buck with a Concession fare (all taps charge regular Adult fare), or folks whose only cards are Diners Club which are not accepted.

A flight that late has no Pre-clearance, so one less thing to do here, plus fewer pax all around. You will of course be much-delayed at your first US airport as that's where CBP will do your immigration and customs - so hopefully it's a non-stop all the way home for you or you have a nice long connection, because I've yet to find any US airport well-staffed with CBP in the wee small hours! Even without any security-expediting pass (e.g. 1st class, Global Entry) I would be surprised if you cannot get through security in <15 mins (this late, the Express prebooking service does not even operate because queues very rarely get longer than about 10mins); if you check-in using Hotel WiFi or from the ship should mean just a few minutes to figure out where your bag check is (even if you want a paper boarding pass, the kiosks rarely have much of a queue) so unless your airline's policy on bag check cutoff is really long (most seem to be one hour for foreign-bound flights) you should be able to walk out of the Fairmont ~80mins before your flight. However, not only do Fairmont day rooms have a cap of 8 hours - longer than that they want a full 24hr rate paid - their availability is also capped to 7pm at the latest. So even with an 8 hour booking, you cannot go straight to YVR from the pier and check in, nor can you wait in the room until you are ready to head to your flight. In short, you're forking over a pile of cash (many other hotels are cheaper for an entire overnight booking!) but would still need to supplement it with an airport lounge if you don't want to just hang out in the cheap seats with everyone else 😉 Personally, even if I were able to nap, I'd be inclined to spend the day Doing Fun Stuff downtown then just book one of the YVR lounges that has a Nap Room!