>>>>>>Is it possible to explore the highlights of Victoria only as a day trip from Vancouver?<<<<<<

It is possible to visit Victoria during a day trip, but it makes for a very long day. Keep in mind that, if you travel by surface means, it takes between 3.5 hours and 4 hours to get from downtown Vancouver to downtown Victoria. That means that you spend between 7 and 8 hours just getting there and back! So, if you’re going to do any kind of justice to Victoria, you need to leave early and return late. That said, the ferry voyage through the Southern Gulf Islands is pretty. It is not something you need to endure so that you can get from Vancouver to Victoria. The ferry voyage is a pleasant component of the overall experience.

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PACIFIC COACH LINES

Probably the most convenient way for you to get to Victoria and back is to use the Pacific Coach Lines bus / ferry combination service. You can catch the Pacific Coach Lines bus in downtown Vancouver, let it take you onto the ferry from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay, and then let it drive you to downtown Victoria:

www.pacificcoach.com

The one-way fare from downtown to downtown on Pacific Coach Lines is C$37.50. the return fare is C$73.00.

In the case of the Pacific Coach Lines bus / ferry combination, you would need to add the cost of bus travel between downtown Victoria and Butchart Gardens to come up with the full transportation costs for the day.

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PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

The cheapest way of getting to and from Victoria is to use public transportation. You can catch a combination of city buses from downtown Vancouver to the ferry terminal at Tsawwassen, you can board the ferry as a foot passenger, and then you can catch another city bus from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal to downtown Victoria.

But just getting from the Buchan Hotel (if that’s where you’re staying) to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal would involve catching three buses. First you’d need to catch the Bus #241, Bus #250, or Bus #252. Then you would need to catch Bus #98. Finally you would need to catch Bus #620.

On a weekday morning, the trip from the West End (where the Buchan is located) to Tsawwassen would take between 1 hour 20 minutes and 1 hour 25 minutes. On a weekday that trip would cost C$4.50.

The initial ticket that you buy will be valid for the entire trip, but ask each bus driver for a transfer, as that will give you the piece of paper that you need in order to catch the connecting bus.

On a weekend or in the evening, that leg of the journey costs $2.25.

To make enquiries about the exact time and date you might want to catch the bus, go to the Trip Planning feature of TransLink’s website:

http://tripplanning.translink.bc.ca/

Plug in 1906 Haro Street (the Buchan’s address) as your starting point. Type Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal as your ending point. If the Trip Planner feature is not handling dates as far ahead as your travel date, at least use the correct day of the week when you make an enquiry. Saturday and Sunday bus schedules are different from week day schedules.

It used to be that you did not have to book for the ferry if you boarded as a foot passenger. However, I’ve recently seen comments on the travel discussion forums that even foot passengers have to book. BC Ferries’ website is www.bcferries.ca .

The one-way ferry fare for a foot passenger is C$11.95.

When you get to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal on Vancouver Island, you have two choices. Either you can catch Bus #70 – Downtown / Airport, or you can catch Bus #81 – Butchart Gardens.

Butchart Gardens is between Swartz Bay ferry terminal and downtown (although off the direct route from Swartz Bay to downtown). I think it makes more sense to go first from Swartz Bay to the Butchart Gardens (which I consider to be the #1 must see attraction in Victoria) and then to continue to downtown from there.

When you are finished viewing Butchart Gardens (which takes a couple of hours), catch Bus #75 to downtown.

Have a look around Victoria’s compact downtown core, which is centred on the Inner Harbour. The “usual suspects” are the Parliament Buildings, the Fairmont Empress Hotel and the Royal BC Museum. The museum is excellent, but it really requires 2 – 3 hours, and you simply won’t have that kind of time if you’re there on a day trip.

When you’re ready to return to Swartz Bay for the ferry voyage back to Tsawwassen, catch Bus #70.

A single ride on a Victoria city bus costs between C$2.25 and C$3.00 (depending on whether your trip will take place within one zone or will cross two zones). If you take 3 buses, it will make life simpler if you just buy a day pass for C$7.00.

Here is a link to Victoria Regional Transit System’s website:

http://www.busonline.ca/regions/vic/?p=1.txt

The combined fare for all of these elements on a weekday would be C$37.65. That fare is made up as follows:

04.50 – bus Vancouver to Tsawwassen
11.95 – ferry Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay
07.00 – all day bus pass Victoria
11.95 – ferry Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen
02.25 – evening bus Tsawwassen to Vancouver
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37.65 – Total public transportation fares
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FLOAT PLANE

There is yet another way of getting to and from Victoria that is much quicker than surface transportation. It is a float plane that flies from Vancouver Harbour to Victoria Harbour. The flight takes about 40 minutes, one-way. I believe there are two companies that offer these flights. They cost around C$120.00 + 6% GST EACH WAY.

BUTCHART GARDENS

The admission is quite steep. In the summer season it’s C$25.00 per adult. That, combined with transportation, means that a day trip to Victoria is not really a cheap proposition. However, I personally think that, if you’re going to bother to go to Victoria at all, you should include Butchart Gardens (just my opinion).

CHEAPER ALTERNATIVE

Vancouver also has beautiful gardens, and several of them (like Stanley Park and Queen Elizabeth II Park) are FREE. Queen Elizabeth II Park has an old quarry that has been reclaimed and turned into a garden, which is a feature that Butchart Gardens also have. QE II Park’s quarry garden is not quite as impressive as Butchart Gardens’ quarry garden, but it is most attractive nonetheless. If you saw QE II Park for free and nearby VanDusen Botanical Garden (for an admission fee of something like C$8.00), the combined experience would come close to matching what Butchart Gardens could give you.

Over and out.

I, too, salute Carmanah for lucidity in the description of Vancouver neighbourhoods.

The Buchan Hotel is just fine (some bathrooms are shared, you will note). It also happens to have one of the finest "hideaway" restaurants in Vancovuer -- Parkside.

I'm not a fan of the Dominion in Vancouver. Other hotels in the same range I would recommend would be the Quality Inn Downtown (used to be called the Green Gables and before that the Courtyard Inn) and the Bedford Regency. I think you should at least overnight one night in Victoria.

littlemountain,

Just to clarify: my post earlier in this thread referred to the Dominion Hotel in Victoria, not Vancouver. (I'm not even sure whether there is a Dominion Hotel in Vancouver.)

Thanks Judy for the information on Victoria, I will plan on staying at least one night there since it's obviously further away from Vancouver than I thought. I appreciate the travel time and cost breakdown, very helpful!

Thanks to littlemountain as well for other hotel recommendations in Victoria.

Sorry, I meant Dominion Hotel in Victoria. And, to be clear, Quality Inn Downtown and Bedford Regency aren't exactly swish, but $100 per night, give or take.

I think the Dominion in Victoria has changed to the Dalton. If I was a single female I'd rather stay around the harbour... although the Quality Inn looks okay.

Jeeez, thanks everyone! :)

Vorkuta - funny enough, I stayed at the Dominion Hotel (now the Dalton) in February 2006 too! It was me and two girlfriends just hanging out for the weekend. There is a Dominion Hotel in Vancouver in Gastown which is above the Lamplighter pub. They advertize it as a n artsy budget hotel, but I wouldn't recommend it - too many bad reviews.

I've decided to upgrade my hotel option a bit based on limited availability at the budget hotels. I can get a fairly reasonable flight+hotel rate for the Sandman Suites on Davie. It has received very good reviews on tripadvisor. I like to walk most everywhere but Vancouver is a large city. Is the hotel in a good neighborhood with easy access to transportation?
Thanks again in advance...

Not the greatest of neighourhoods. Nothing like the Downtown Eastside, but there are some facilities and services nearby which attract youthful drug users and, if you don’t choose your walking route from Downtown with a little attention, you may find yourself wondering why Vancouver needs so many 24-hour sex shops and tattoo parlours. The few blocks around the hotel has a few good restaurants (especially Lolita’s South of the Border Cantina and Bin 941) but the hotel itself is rather sterile and charmless and largely peopled with mid-market business travelers and bus tourists. It is on a major bus route, however. I just don’t think it’s a particularly warm neighbourhood for a woman travelling alone to hang out in.
What else is available at the good price you found?

>>>>>>I like to walk most everywhere but Vancouver is a large city.<<<<<<

The Greater Vancouver Area is large, but downtown Vancouver is relatively compact. Last July my husband and I (mid 50s) walked from the Holiday Inn (with a starting point about 4 blocks further east than the Sandman) to the False Creek shoreline (more or less where the little ferries depart for Granville Island) over to Stanley Park up to Robson Street and back to our hotel. That circuit covers a good chunk of the downtown core and the West End. Our fitness level is very ordinary, but we found it a doddle.

I take littlemountain's point about the hotel being "sterile and charmless and largely peopled with mid-market business travelers and bus tourists." That's pretty much the Sandman market niche, but what else can you expect for the price?

Walking past sex parlours, tattoo shops, drug addicts, etc., does not scare me. Perhaps I have an above average comfort level with people who lead "alternative" lifestyles for someone who belongs to my demographic group (conservatively dressed, middle aged wife and mother).

Admittedly I was walking with my husband and son when we dined at little hole-in-the-wall type restaurants on Davie Street last year. But, in looking back on it, I believe I would have felt okay if I'd been walking there alone.

Certainly I felt absolutely fine when I walked down Davie Street on my own to find an Internet cafe in the afternoon.

But it's true that the atmosphere of a neighbourhood can be very different at night from the way it is during the day. Gastown, for example, is a bit salty during the day, but it grows WAY more scuzzy after dark.

You asked about the Buchan. My son and his girlfriend, who were starving students at the time, stayed at the Buchan, and they were happy with it. In fact they said the staff were friendly and helpful. They gave them good tips about sight seeing and public transportation and stored their luggage for them after they'd checked out of their room. They thought that they got tremendous value for money there.

However, a middle aged but budget-conscious traveller who subsequently used the Buchan found several faults with it. I forget her exact complaints. I seem to recall her saying that her room was above a noisy, smelly restaurant. She said that, even though she considered herself to be a budget traveller, staying at the Buchan was going too far.

So it really depends on what your reference point is, what's acceptable and unacceptable to you, etc. It's very hard to judge how a person whom one doesn't know in real life and with whom one is communicating on the Internet will react to a given property.

Carmanah has posted many fabulous messages about Vancouver on the travel discussion forums. But post #7 of this thread (if I've counted correctly) is right up there with the best.

As a single female who often leisurely walks down Davie Street in the evening, I don't know what littlemountain is talking about. Or at least I don't have the same experiences *at all*. The Sandman Suites on Davie is on Davie Street at in the heart of a very safe, vibrant, if not downright eccentric neighbourhood. There is nothing particularly seedy, creepy or dangerous-feeling about it. That's why I like doing an evening stoll to English Bay by taking Davie. Lots of people live in apartments off that street, and they keep the area feeling well-travelled, well-lit, and pleasant. There are also way more "normal" shops on Davie than eccentric shops, so while there's an alternative edge to the neighbourhood, it doesn't dominate it. If you're seeking cool neighbourhoods, Davie Street is certainly one of the coolest downtown, in my opinion. It's the heart of the West End community, so has a lot of services marketed to locals (grocery stores, bakeries, cafes, lots of ethnic restaurants). But it's also Vancouver's gay neighbourhood "Davie Village", so you do get a lot of gay/lesbian friendly businesses which can have some really flamboyant/sexually suggestive displays....there is nothing seedy like the 25 cent peep show porn shops on Granville Street! And yes, there is a store that sells bongs in their front window, but Davie is not really what I think of when I think of a neighbourhood full of "youthful drug users"! (This is coming from someone who lives very close by to Davie Street).

If you want a real Vancouver community experience, I'd highly recommend Davie. It's not squeaky clean by any means, but it has a lot of character. Somebody who is conservative might feel out of place there, certainly, but if you have an open mind, you'll find it a fun and interesting neighbourhood and a very
convenient place to base yourself out of (also 2 blocks from the beach!)

I often walk down Davie Street as a leisurely stroll specifically because as a single female, I *don't* get attention walking down there, you can blend
into the scenery because it's so laid back, you can dress up or dress down, and nothing's too much for the neighbourhood.

This is a neighbourhood where seeing a transexual in Denny's (which is blasting NEw Order from the juke box), and
nobody really thinks twice about it. There are a lot of gay-oriented pubs, and if men holding hands
makes you wince, I would not recommend the neighbourhood. But the way littlemountain has described
this neighbourhood makes it sound creepy and sketchy - not at all what it is. I've never felt uncomfortable on Davie Street and I really want to stress this.

As for youthful drug addicts, I've never found Davie Street giving off this vibe. There are homeless people everywhere in Vancouver, definitely.
Gastown and that area, you'll find crack addicts. People that sit on the corner of intersections on Davie tend to be stoners/backpackers looking to panhandle
as a lifestyle. And it's never in your face on Davie, unlike the northern end of downtown.

I also want to mention, I never recommend hotels on Granville Street (ie: Chateau Granville, Howard Johnson, Ramada), because of the dirty, noisy, sketchy, and seedy vibe it gives off. If this what was outside once you left the doors of the Sandman Suites, I would never recommend it.


I've also toured inside that hotel, and it's definitely one of my favourites. Looks like nothing much from the exterior, but they've gutted the interior and have turned it into a really hip modern place. The balconies (facing west) will give you an ocean (ie: sunset) view.

Here's a good collection of reviews (most of which are from Americans), so that'll give you a good litmus test of what the neighbourhood and hotel is like:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserR..._Columbia.html

p.s. When Mr.Carmanah's parents come to town, we're probably going to book them in the same hotel. Make of that what you will. :)

Forgot to mention - the Sandman Hotel on Georgia Street tends to market itself to bus tour groups and business travellers and that hotel I found was really uninspiring. I didn't get the same vibe from the Sandman Suites.

Judy and Carmanah, thanks for reassuring me about the Sandman Suites on Davie. I had read all the positive reviews on tripadvisor so was 95% sure I would stay there, but wanted to hear about it from people who know Vancouver well. I am grateful to you both!

I live in a mostly gay neighborhood in Denver and feel safe there as a straight single female; so Davie village will feel just like home!

Thank you, especially to Carmanah once again for the well-detailed description of the neighborhood. I love knowing that the hotel is only two blocks from the beach since one of the reasons why I chose Vancouver for my vacation is because I am longing to be by the water.

Carmanah, darling, I give you props for your soon to be iconic post #7, and you skip over the all-important "from" in my posted reference to "walking route FROM Downtown"! I was obliquely (and thus respectfully, I hoped, lest an inhabitant of the Granville corridor as tichily proud of his/her neighbourhood be as you evidently are of Davie Street be reading this thread) ACTUALLY talking about the 6 or 7 blocks of Granville Street one might inadvertently traverse to get from Downtown to Davie Street (avoidable by taking Burrard, by the way), NOT the 2 or 3 short blocks of Davie Street it takes to reach the Sandman Suites from Burrard Street. Yes, there are two sex shops in Davie Village, but neither is open 24 hours. The Dusk to Dawn youth centre at Davie and Burrard has been rather hopefully re-named "Directions Youth Services Centre". At no time did I use the words creepy, sketchy, dangerous, seedy or noisy. I stand by my personal opinion there are better neighbourhoods (like Denman) for even the most open-minded, vibrant, eccentric, non-conservative visitors. Davie Village, two blocks from the beach? Err ...

We agree that Azure should stay the hell away from hotels on Granville Street. Now let's not squabble in front of the visitors. Which restaurants in addition to the ones I've named do you like?

Hugs and Kisses and tattoos,

LM

avoid west hastings street like the plague

Thanks for the warning Ronabean, thoughtful of you. What's wrong with that area? Just curious...