Pacific Northwest and Alaska

Vancouver. 

The Pacific Cascades Train from Seattle to Vancouver has not restarted post COVID, so we took the Amtrak associated Cantrail bus from King Street Station (4 blocks from the Seattle AirBNB) to the Pacific Central Station in Vancouver. 

Canada requires all visitors or returning Canadians to use the ArriveCan ap (many European countries require their own versions) – load pictures of your vaccine cards and passport to get a QR code. Before we loaded the bus they made sure we had it. Often these get pre-associated with your passport number, so once registered you are good to go. The bus was crowded, but a pleasant journey and going through border control was not too bad – we did have to get off the bus with all our stuff and walk through the terminal.

We Ubered from the train station out to the outer suburbs for our AirBNB. Our host had a lot of rules- likely why it was close to $50 less per night for similar stays. None of them were unreasonable – she just beat you over the head with them by placing adhesive labels onto the surfaces reminding you to use coasters. ( I know to remove rings from wood is a pain – requiring sanding and staining – but I’m not really sure if removing adhesive is any better.) It was a pleasant suburb with neat little yards and well-kept houses, a Tim Horton’s, a Starbucks and a McDonalds within a block, and bus stops that take you straight to downtown for $2.75. 

A note on Vancouver public transport – it is frequent and not expensive, with a light rail and extensive bus system. The problem is that like our hosts’ house- the “rules” are hard to find. We discovered, the hard way, that a day pass (C$10) is not 24 hours from the time you buy it – it ends at midnight. If you buy single ride tickets – as John did – they are good for 90 minutes from the time of purchase, not from the time of first use. You can get a pass and add money that is deducted for each ride – and that is the best and most efficient for a few day stay. The good news is that bus drivers are so accustomed to people having issues, if the machine beeps at you and says “insufficient funds” – the driver just waves you on. 

Downtown is by the harbor, with Canada Place offering the cruise terminal, shopping and a hotel (The Pan Pacific Hotel- its lovely, and C$469/night and includes luggage transfer to your ship, but not in the budget for this visit).

The neighboring wharf is filled with harborside restaurants and shops, stop #1 for the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus (2-day pass with 1 hour Harbor cruise C$84). I took the tour 7 years ago with my mother and really enjoyed it, but they have made some serious budget cuts. Instead of the double-decker bus, they use refurbished school buses – with their original bench seats, and if wearing shorts- you’ll either slide or stick. The mainly pre-recorded tour is common everywhere these days, but most buses were in English only as the plugins for the headphones were often not working. They still take you to all the main tourist areas, shopping districts, Gastown, Stanley Park (the area with the rose garden), Granville Island and the Olympic Village. It does provide a good overview of the city.

Just outside of the Harbor is Gastown – complete with the Gastown Steamclock!

The clock portion is not showing the correct time (and there is only one individual who can fix it), but the “chimes” were occurring on the hour. Gastown is a great place for shopping and dining – but don’t venture past Carrall Street on Hastings, that is the start of the homeless encampment, which goes on for several blocks (up to Main). 

(Its not that they are violent, the area is sad and heartbreaking. Vancouver provides programs for homeless, but many with drug addiction, mental illness or an aversion to living in institutionalized housing prefer to live in their tents. They have created quite a community – there are open canopies with lounge chairs and coolers that appear to act as living rooms. Seattle also has a significant homeless problem, many in the Pioneer Square area where we stayed, but the Vancouver community appears more entrenched on Hastings.) 

Another region for food and shopping is Granville island- which has a huge indoor market with many regional shops, bakeries, and food stalls. A lot of the seating is out doors, but when outside you have to watch out for the Herring Gulls – they are huge. One approached a long table I was sitting at. I did not have any food, but a young lady a few feet away did. It hopped up on the table and she offered it something from her meal box, the gull’s head swooped forward, opened the box and grabbed her sandwich – snagging the top bun.

She jumped away (but stayed close getting her own photos) while gull’s buddies swooped in and grabbed portions of her meal. One managed to grab the entire chicken patty and fly off with it to a nearby rooftop. Eventually, a handler with a hawk came by and shooed the gulls away. There is a reason for all those “Don’t Feed the Gulls” signs. 

Now off on the next adventure! A three-day cruise up to Skagway on the Zuiderdam, then Yukon Ho!