Abkhazi Gardens vs Butchart Garden

[pantherpaw]

Our ship will be in Victoria from 2:30pm to 9:30pm in early June. Our first thought was to visit Butchart Gardens but booking through either the cruise line or with CVS gives us just a couple of hours to tour the gardens. Which may be plenty or time for most people, but we both really enjoy gardens and would not like to feel rushed or that we missed something. Also, neither of us like crowds much and I know Butchart can be pretty crowded at times. It would appear to be a pretty easy city bus ride to Abkhazi Gardens. It's much closer so we'd have plenty of time to explore and I'm guessing it's not nearly as crowded. Anyone been to Abkhazi and what did you think?

[cruiseryyc]

Two totally different gardens. Butcharts is huge, Abkhazia is a lovely suburban garden. Both are beautiful but really can't be compared.

[martincath]

It's actually just as easy to get to Butchart on transit as Abkhazi - both involve getting on one bus then transferring to another. The only difference is time - realistically it's 75 mins each way to & from Butchart vs. 40 mins to Abkhazi. Abkhazi's opening hours are also shorter than Butchart - only open until 5pm in summer. It's so much smaller the <2 hours you could spend there is probably proportionately more than 3 at Butchart though.

 

If you took transit I would suggest that you plan to come back at least one bus before you need to, just in case (not that transit is unreliable, but Stuff Happens) - if you head up there as soon as you disembark you should still be able to spend about three hours on-site with an hour safety margin (if 9:30pm is ship departure time, you could get to the pier just before 9pm if you leave at 7:46pm; the bus before that is 6:56pm arriving 8:12pm. NB: if you're there on a Sunday bus service is reduced, but the 7:20pm departure means no need to transfer; same bus becomes a 31 and takes you right to the pier before 8:30pm). BTW the Sundial in the maps is just a convenient POI near the pier, not far off equivalent to the walk from the actual pier to the bus stop.

 

Since you didn't mention ship tours/CVS as being unaffordable, just too short, you could always take a taxi one or both ways. Fares are metered - expect to pay approx. $50+tip each way. If you can find another couple to split it with, you'd save a little money compared to a CVS tour cabbing both ways and could spend up to 5 hours there (~30min drive each way).

[Alberta Quilter]

Here is a link to the Abkhazi Gardens website:http://blog.conservancy.bc.ca/properties/vancouver-island-region/abkhazi-garden/visiting-abkhazi-garden/

 

They close at 5 pm and last entrance is at 4 pm. So you will have to hustle to get off the ship, through customs/immigration, and get there in time.

 

I did get to Abkhazi Gardens last May. It was lovely. It took about an hour to tour, and then we had tea at the tea house.

 

For some reason, I can't get my pictures to post (says I need a token) so here's the link to my Live thread:http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2043085. Go to posts #251 for a summary of our visit to Abkhazi, and to post #307 for the pictures. We didn't have to go through the ordeal of getting off the ship as we had disembarked the day prior. I will warn you that, on our cruise, I'm told it was absolute mayhem with everyone trying to get off the ship at once. Because we were leaving with our luggage, we opted to stay onboard for two hours after docking to avoid the rush which worked really well for us but wouldn't be an option for you.

 

Whichever you choose, Butchart or Abkhazi, you will enjoy either. They're both wonderful but very different from each other. Enjoy your cruise!