Cruise ship as a mode of transportation?

[Wayfairers]

Thanks for the info. We are considering visiting with friends in Seattle later this year then possibly taking a ferry from Seattle to Victoria (no car) then renting a car in Victoria to explore Vancouver Island. Thinking I saw this option once but having trouble finding it so I'm wondering if maybe we had to take the train north to Bellingham or Anacortes or maybe even Vancouver to catch the ferry. Are you familiar with a ferry to Victoria from the US?

 

 

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[WintrHawk]

Thanks for the info. We are considering visiting with friends in Seattle later this year then possibly taking a ferry from Seattle to Victoria (no car) then renting a car in Victoria to explore Vancouver Island. Thinking I saw this option once but having trouble finding it so I'm wondering if maybe we had to take the train north to Bellingham or Anacortes or maybe even Vancouver to catch the ferry. Are you familiar with a ferry to Victoria from the US?

 

There are several options for Victoria back to the US. Since you're looking at passenger-only routes, you have more options. The first two major choices you have are either to return to a US port or to a Canadian port.

 

If you want to return to a Canadian port, then you would want to take the ferry from Swartz Bay (slightly north of Victoria) to Tsawwassen (south of Vancouver). You could also return from Nanaimo to Tsawwassen.

 

 

However, from Tsawwassen, you would have to find transportation back to Seattle either by train, bus or air. Note that this is a car-ferry so you could always drive back if you rented a car in Seattle. You would of course need to check with the rental agency to see if they'll let you cross international borders with a rental car.

 

If you want to return directly to the US then you essentially have three options. The best is probably the Victoria Clipper which leaves directly out of downtown Victoria's Inner Harbor and gets you back to downtown Seattle. This is a passenger-only ferry.

 

Your other options are either the Blackball Coho ferry between Victoria and Port Angeles on the Olympic Penninsula or the WSDOT ferry between Nanaimo and Anacortes. Either of those would of course require you to figure out transportation back to Seattle. If you decide to do the Blackball ferry then be aware that once you're on the Olympic Penninsula, you will likely need to take another ferry to get across Puget Sound. Plan accordingly for delays.

 

Both the Blackball and WSDOT ferries are car-ferries so there's also the driving option. The WSDOT ferry also makes several stops throughout the San Juan Island chain so if you wanted to visit those then you can include that in your itinerary. If you did that then you'd probably do it as a hop-on/hop-off and catch a future run as it's unlikely that you would be able to catch the same ship.

Edited May 26, 2014 by WintrHawk

[Wayfairers]

You are a wealth of information and I appreciate you taking the time to give me all these options. Time for me to do some research and decide which works best for us. Again, thank you so much!

 

 

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[WintrHawk]

While, I realise this forum is for cruise ships, I should probably also mention that another option for getting to or returning from Victoria is by air. Kenmore Air operates floatplane service. They have two terminals in Seattle. One is in Kenmore. It's just north of the city boundary on the northern shores of Lake Washington. The other is in South Lake Union in the middle of Seattle. Flights into Victoria land directly in Victoria's Inner Harbor. While not the same scenic viewpoint as from a ship, the floatplanes fly low enough that you do get a great perspective of the scenery. For a passenger only transit to Victoria, you may wish to combine Kenmore Air with Victoria Clipper to get both perspectives.

[Wayfairers]

Thx...good info. We've tried to take a floatplane twice before and it was cancelled both times...once in Seattle and once in Alaska. Maybe it is time to try again!

 

 

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