vancouver the week of xmas - please help us plan!
 

My husband and i have never been to Canada. He likes outdoor nature-y stuff and I like the city, cultural activities. We are looking for places to stay...BB hotel or other ideas and tips on &quot;Must see&quot; things. <BR><BR>We will be gone the for five days over christmas, probably the 22-27 or something like that. We are in our very late 20's and plan to be on the go most of those days. We haven't had a vacation in a while so we are very excited! <BR><BR>We are leaving from atlanta. I am considering using priceline to get a discounted airfare... I have only used priceline for hotels. <BR><BR>Please help us plan our trip with fun things to do and nice places to stay. Budget = modest...both in grad school and trying to save! I don't want to &quot;rough it&quot;!

Generally speaking the farther away you get from the Downtown Core of Vancouver the better buy you can get on a hotel room. So long as you are on one of the Skytrain routes staying away from the City Centre is not a great hardship. The Burnaby Metrotown Area has some very good hotels, (Hilton, Raddison, Holiday Inn, etc), and their rates would probably be much less than the equivilant downtown hotel. Metrotown is the largest shopping/entertainment complex in Greater Vancouver so there's that plus as well although it is totally generic and not very 'Vancouver'.<BR><BR>Downtown does have some reasonable, decent quality hotels, (i.e. below $150CAN), and you can probably swing a pretty good deal through priceline. a lot of hotels do include breakfast so you don't need a B &amp; B necessarily. If it was up to me I'd stay in the downtown area because that's where you get the real flavour of Vancouver.<BR>Bear in mind though that the weather is likely to be cool and damp, (though so far this winter it's been extraordinarily dry with no snow on the mountains at all). It's not going to be colder than it gets in Atlanta but the days are very short - about 8 hours - and if it's very rainy as it usually is thisd time of year then walking around outdoors will not be terribly pleasant. <BR><BR>The best thing I can reccomend for you guys to do is to take the gondola up Grouse Mountain on a relatively clear night, (even if you don't ski - and hopefully there will be snow there by then), and drink in the view of the city as it unfolds below you. Also walk the Seawall, Stanley Park, go to the Museum of Anthropology and shop on Robson Street - Vancouver's Rodeo Drive. Take a ride on one of the Haurbour boats and watch the Carol Ships all lit up with Xmas Lights. There's lots to do except on Xmas Day which is totally dead. <BR><BR>The day after Xmas is what we call Boxing Day, also a holiday, and is the time of the huge blow out sales sorta like your day after thanksgiving. Most restaurants, stores and Malls are open on holiday hours that day. Have a ball!

Thank you....now about the airfare...How can I obtain Cheap tix? They are running around 515 from Atlanta...any suggestions for discounted tix?

United, American, Continental, Northwest and of course Air Canada are the major North American Airlines you can use to fly into Vancouver from Atlanta but you should appreciate that you are traveling at a peak period so good buys are going to be tough to come by especially this close to your departure day. If the $515US is round trip I think you're not likely to do much better other than standby and that's pretty risky at such a busy time. <BR><BR>Try Priceline and other places like travelocity and maybe you'll do better but don't count on it.

Oh, one other possibility. Sometimes it can be cheaper to fly to Seattle and rent a car or bus up to Vancouver. It could save you a few bucks but frankly i don't think the inconveniance is worth it.

I was in Van. last year from the 22-24 and went to the The Fish House in Stanley Park for both a lunch and a dinner; beautifully decorated for the season and terrific food and service. Even on a budget, with US $, you should be able to do at least lunch. or make this your blow out special dinner! Well woth it and very romantic.

The Fish House would be gorgeous at this time of year!<BR><BR>I just thought I'd post this. The Vancouver Sun tends to print a &quot;Christmas Guide&quot; in their newspaper... and some of it is online. It'll let you know what kind of stuff to see and do around Christmas.<BR><BR>http://www.canada.com/vancouver/features/holidayguide/<BR><BR>Two places never to miss, no matter what time of year, are Stanley Park and Granville Island. Stanley Park's the huge city park (with beaches, the Vancouver Aquarium, the seawall, gardens, lookout points, weekend sidewalk art galleries, etc). Granville Island is underneath the Granville Street Bridge with the public market, little boutiques, art galleries, theatres and cafes - has a really great atmosphere at Christmas time.<BR><BR>If you get a chance, go out to the UBC campus and visit the Museum of Anthropology, one of the best museums of its kind. http://www.moa.ubc.ca/<BR><BR>Van Dusen Gardens has its popular &quot;Festival of Lights&quot; Christmas light displays. They're on all December. It's well worth visiting if you're looking for something festive. I think it's quite magical...<BR><BR>http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks/parks&amp;gardens/vandusen/default.shtml<BR><BR>As Gary said, the Carolling Ships are always an option. I've never been on one, but they're a dinner/dance party held on yachts that are decorated with Christmas lights, and they cruise through the city's harbour... Here's a link: http://www.boatcharters.net/carolship/index.html<BR><BR>One idea, if you want to escape downtown Vancouver and want to stroll down a cute neighbourhood to do some old-fashioned Christmas shopping, you can go to Kerrisdale, on West 41st Avenue and Arbutus. It's a high class neighbourhood, but it's really cute and festive around Christmas. Lots of great cafes, flower shops, cheese shops, clothing boutiques. It's my family's tradition to go there around Christmas time. That's just one idea. They even have their own website: http://www.kerrisdaleonline.com/<BR><BR>Anyhow, there are, of course, plenty of other things to do and see in Vancouver around Christmas... those are just my ideas. I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself either way!

Why don't you use Priceline for a Hotel downtown? We got the Hyatt Regency for $50 this summer. You can't beat the location or service there. Check out biddingfortravel.com and you will have a better idea of what categories to bid for. No sense staying farther away (as we used to ) when you can be in walking distance of some great things to do.

You might try flights to LAX, they run cheap (say $250) and then you'll find a cheap flight to Vancouver from LAX (say $120). That's about $370 (a little better). I've often gotten cheaper flights to SEA and driven up - nice drive if time's not a problem