We want to stay in Vancouver and leave our car parked. I'd like to ride the Skytrain and buses and just see the sites.

I want to include Chinatown, downtown, Stanley Park and am looking for your input on what else we should plan to do.

Does anyone have info on reasonably priced hotels near the Skytrain station? Has anyone taken the Rocky Mountaineer train up to Whistler and back?

We would appreciate anything you can contribute to our plans. We've never been to vancouver except to drive through to the Ferry and back about 30 years ago.

Sorry I didn't mean "the Skytrain station" I meant "near A skytrain station anywhere along the line".

we loved Stanley Park...rented bicycles and rode around!

I really enjoyed my time at Granville Island which you can get to by cab or boat taxi from downtown.

http://www.granvilleisland.com/en/no...b74b862531d0a7

You can catch a whalewatching tour from the Island.
http://www.whalesvancouver.ca/

they were super nice!!

Our first day in town we did a 1/2 day bus tour to get an overview of the city and get ideas of places we wanted to see more in depth.

If you are ambitious walkers and not limited that way at all, Vancouver is so relatively FLAT in its downtown core, you could pick many a different hotel and walk around the downtown and adjacent areas, and take skytrain outward to select spots.

The bus system would increase your options on the chance there were some stretches you just didn't want to walk more than once or twice.

People keep asking about "reasonably priced hotels"... and you need only investigate Priceline.com to make most any hotel there 'reasonably priced'.

You do NOT get to pre-select YOUR exact location with Priceline, but Vancouver's ""Downtown"" options are such that you really don't need to pinpoint your spot.

Vancouver is perhaps the most suitable walking city of its size on the continent (excepting for weather during winter) in that NORMAL PEOPLE are roaming the streets there all night long, and in considerable numbers.

If selecting a hotel for yourself, I recommend anything in the upper left quadrant of the following map, using Robson street and Richards streets as dividers:

http://www.greatervancouverhotels.co...ctions-map.htm

Just things to consider.

Thank you both so much! your posts are a great help and I'm more excited about going now than I was before.

We are walkers and bikers some of the best holidays in our memories are those we walked and biked a LOT.

You probably won't end up using the skytrain as often as you think you will. There are only 4 skytrain stations located in downtown Vancouver, but they're all located in the north-eastern side, which, while close to Chinatown and Canada Place, won't really take you to most of the main attractions downtown like Stanley Park, Yaletown or Robson Street.

But as previously mentioned - not to worry! Downtown Vancouver is easy to wal around. It's tiny and you can explore most things by foot.

One suggestion, if i may - if you're going to visit Chintown, please do so in the morning/afternoon, but not in the evening. By evening Chinatown is vacant. Stores closed, front doors padlocked and gated. Not much going on in terms of restaurants either. I'm just saying that because this is taken for granted by us locals, but I've encountered a surprising amount of tourists who think Chinatown might be a great place to visit by evening for dinner, when in fact, there's not much there available at that time.

For evening strolls, the seawall, English Bay, Yaletown, Robson Street, Denman Street, and even Davie Street have a lot of activity.

We loved our visit to Vancouver. We enjoyed the trolley ride through Stanley Park and especially Granville Island. There's a lovely market there too.

We liked Chinatown and had a nice dim sum lunch at Floata and then walked down the street to visit the beautiful Chinese gardens, Dr. Sun Yat Sen's Garden (I'm not at all sure I've got that name right, though). On a friend's advice we also bought a ticket for The Scholar's Garden and it was well worth it. Try to hook up with one of the little tours through the garden.

I have agree about the walking...we stayed at the END down near the arena at the Hampton Inn and would spend most of our time at the OTHER end of Robson near Stanley Park. We don't exercise on a regular basis and we had no problems getting around. There was another section that was great for dining college something...Yaletown

IF you get tired and you are far away from the hotel just grab a cab! We only used the Skytrain when we stayed at the Hilton out in the burbs!

Here is a thread I started asking about the train to Whistler

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34945146

I keep previewing this to see if the link works. I keep trying to fix it, but it keeps showing up as a double link :0

Just click on the 2nd link (that works)