Hop on hop off in Vancouver

[Packman1000]

I'm trying to decide on the purchase of HOHO tickets in Vancouver.   Are the lines long to simply purchase tickets at Canada Place?  I know I can buy them in advance but would rather wait until in port to see the weather.

[psuboater]

As we say in the PNW, there's no bad weather, just bad clothing choices 🙂  If you're coming from mid-July to mid-September, chances are better than not you won't have any rain.  In fact, we took a weekend trip to Vancouver in late July and they were going through a 90+ heat wave.  Most likely you're going to have beautiful weather for the trip. 

[Packman1000]

We will be in Vancouver in early May.  We'll be prepared for any rain, but just wanted to know if anyone had experience with buying the HOHO tickets at Canada Place.

[martincath]

May is usually a pleasantly warm and dry month (anecdotally us locals would say May, 'Junuary', July as we always seem to get hit with a heatwave in May but then a string of cool and rainy days in June), but I'd normally still wait to buy. However right now, until Feb 15, you can get a heckuva deal if there's 2+ of you - second ticket half off. Discounts usually only run a few bucks with leaflets, so I would be tempted to book in advance at the moment!

 

Personally I would neither buy at the kiosk, nor board right off a ship, at Canada Place - purely for practical reasons of so many other folks walk out, see the kiosks, queue up, and try to board there. The routes are loops and the next stop isn't that far! Walking down into Gastown and boarding there (near the Steamclock, outside Trees Coffee - try the cheesecake!) - the stop before Canada Place - means that as long as the buses are still on their first go-around (before 10am or so) you will always board a bus with no other same-day disembarking cruisers!

 

Schedule does vary - but even in summer in TheBeforeTimes the buses only started just before 9am and stopped by 6pm at the latest with 20-30min frequency; this summer should be a little better than last year but I doubt the first bus will be any earlier than ~8:50am or so and the frequency will probably be more like 40mins as they have struggled to recruit more drivers since getting shot of most pre-Covid.

 

The single most consistent complaint about HOHOs locally is always 'the bus was full and I had to wait for the next one to get on' - you can't avoid that risk at other stops, sometimes more folks want to get on at Stop X than get off, but you can avoid it at the worst of the bunch for initial boarding, Canada Place... After 10am of course everyone has been kicked off the ships so this stop becomes more normal - but if the plan is 'get off, stash bags, get on HOHO' then the Gastown walk is time well spent. It also lets you find alternate places to stash your suitcases for far less than the official pier storage (also faster, as queue time gets mental at the pier with folks who have not done research having no other option!)

 

The Pan Pacific Hotel bell desk is the closest decent priced option - but a bunch of online storage agencies opened up in recent years, who have deals will all sorts of shops and hotels all over the city. Several touristy stores on Water Street have signed up with different online services, so you should be able to find a place you are literally walking past anyway to stash bags for $6-9 ea for the day with almost no wait time, compared to $12 and a big queue using WestCoast at the pier...

[Packman1000]

20 hours ago, martincath said:

May is usually a pleasantly warm and dry month (anecdotally us locals would say May, 'Junuary', July as we always seem to get hit with a heatwave in May but then a string of cool and rainy days in June), but I'd normally still wait to buy. However right now, until Feb 15, you can get a heckuva deal if there's 2+ of you - second ticket half off. Discounts usually only run a few bucks with leaflets, so I would be tempted to book in advance at the moment!

 

Personally I would neither buy at the kiosk, nor board right off a ship, at Canada Place - purely for practical reasons of so many other folks walk out, see the kiosks, queue up, and try to board there. The routes are loops and the next stop isn't that far! Walking down into Gastown and boarding there (near the Steamclock, outside Trees Coffee - try the cheesecake!) - the stop before Canada Place - means that as long as the buses are still on their first go-around (before 10am or so) you will always board a bus with no other same-day disembarking cruisers!

 

Schedule does vary - but even in summer in TheBeforeTimes the buses only started just before 9am and stopped by 6pm at the latest with 20-30min frequency; this summer should be a little better than last year but I doubt the first bus will be any earlier than ~8:50am or so and the frequency will probably be more like 40mins as they have struggled to recruit more drivers since getting shot of most pre-Covid.

 

The single most consistent complaint about HOHOs locally is always 'the bus was full and I had to wait for the next one to get on' - you can't avoid that risk at other stops, sometimes more folks want to get on at Stop X than get off, but you can avoid it at the worst of the bunch for initial boarding, Canada Place... After 10am of course everyone has been kicked off the ships so this stop becomes more normal - but if the plan is 'get off, stash bags, get on HOHO' then the Gastown walk is time well spent. It also lets you find alternate places to stash your suitcases for far less than the official pier storage (also faster, as queue time gets mental at the pier with folks who have not done research having no other option!)

 

The Pan Pacific Hotel bell desk is the closest decent priced option - but a bunch of online storage agencies opened up in recent years, who have deals will all sorts of shops and hotels all over the city. Several touristy stores on Water Street have signed up with different online services, so you should be able to find a place you are literally walking past anyway to stash bags for $6-9 ea for the day with almost no wait time, compared to $12 and a big queue using WestCoast at the pier...

Very helpful!  Thank you so much.   We'll walk to Gastown and get tickets there (and cheesecake).  We don't need to store bags as Vancouver is just a one day stop on out San Francisco r/t cruise.

[martincath]

53 minutes ago, Packman1000 said:

... We don't need to store bags as Vancouver is just a one day stop on out San Francisco r/t cruise.

Never even crossed my mind it might be a port of call rather than start/end - in that case the only caveat is to check your port time on the cruise timetable here (this years first version just got published Feb 7th - it will be updated throughout the year especially for any really big ships, as they sometimes fluff their tide time calculations and need to amend port times - if you're on Royal/Discovery Princess, NCL Encore/Bliss or similar monsters check again close to sail time).

 

If you're the only ship in town at the time you dock - or even if you guys sail in say 10am while any others are in the more typical 7am ballpark - you might be able to board the HOHO right at the pier without big queues to worry about as long as you beat enough folks off your own vessel (and if by any chance you visit Victoria the day before, any immigration stuff will have already been done so you can just walk off as soon as the walkways get connected - if it's your first Canadian port though, CBSA may have a few people they want to chat with, so there may be a short delay until clearance to let folks off is granted).

 

Basically, whenever you hit the street outside the pier look toward the right - the kiosk selling tickets to various attractions is easily seen; if there isn't an actual HOHO bus there at the time, there will be people lined up on the sidewalk starting at a pole with a sign - if there's already a whole bunch, walk to Gastown but if not you can probably get on at Canada Place fine.