Plaza 500 in Vancouver
 

I know this hotel is not downtown, but how far is it from downtown, airport, and cruise terminal? Also what are the favorite restaurants for Asian food, Indian food?

The Plaza 500 is the <u>last</u> place I would recommend to anyone these days-the heavy construction on Cambie Street for the RAV transit line means the area is horrifically noisy/dusty/congested and ugly.

http://www.akbarsown.com/ for fine Indian

Vancouver has a <i><b>staggering</b></i> amount of Asian restaurants try doing a search on http://www.dinehere.ca

Did you get this hotel through Priceline or Hotwire? If you are stuck with it, you can definitely make the best of it, despite the heavy-duty construction.

From downtown - you can walk to central downtown in about 25 minutes, or take a bus that takes about 9.

From the airport - it's a bit closer than a downtown hotel would be.

Cruise terminal - I'd guess the taxi ride would be about $15.

My favorite cheap Chinese restaurants are:
Congee Noodle House at Broadway and Main (about a mile walk from the hotel)
Bo Kong - Buddhist Vegetarian at 14th and Main (about a mile walk from the hotel)

I'm not much use for classy Chinese places.

For Indian, I know that the most favored place is Vij's, but I haven't been there. I was at India Gate a few days ago, which was fine, and I was at an Indian restaurant on Denman not too long ago that was good too.

There are lots of good sushi places.

I like Solly's Bagels, with a location near to your hotel at about 7th and Yukon.

In general, you will have to put in some effort to find a superlative place, but pretty good is very easy to find.

Yes it was thru Priccdeline. Will they make a change to a different hotel, perhaps closer to downtown if I call them?

Unless you can demonstrate that this is not a 3* hotel, according to Priceline's criteria, I think you are stuck. But although the construction is annoying, this is a very desirable residential area otherwise.

A few other things to note.

Capers is at 16th and Cambie - this is a nice &quot;Wild Oats style&quot; whole foods market.

Safeway is across the street from the hotel, in the shopping mall.

Main Street, which was interesting enough on its own to warrant a NYT article a few months ago, is 7 blocks east of your hotel.

Queen Elizabeth Park, a very nice park on a small peak, is about 20 blocks south of your hotel.

False Creek is about 7 blocks north of your hotel, and you can walk along a nice seawall to Granville Island.

Anyway, I hope you can make the best of your stay, and enjoy a few non-downtown places too.