Hi! I swear I posted this already -- this morning -- but now I can't find it, so I'll try again.

I'm hoping to plan a trip to the Seattle area for our anniversary. We'll have about 9 days (haven't bought plane tickets yet) and hope to visit Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria. I was wondering if anyone has a suggested itinerary, or at least an opinion on how long to spend at any one of those places.

My husband is more interested in the "natural" sights rather than the city, if that helps.

Also, our local newspaper just ran an article about the Victoria Clipper ferry, and we were considering doing that. Any thoughts?

Obviously this is in the beginning stages of planning, so any and all input is appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

I think 2/3 nights in each of Seattle and Vancouver and one night in Victoria would be enough to give you at least an overview of each city. I'd also urge you to spend at least 2 nights in an area that isn't a city--some possibilities would be the Olympic Peninsula, the San Juans or the North Cascades, depending on what natural sites you'd like to see. Of course, some natural sites can be seen on day trips from Seattle or Vancouver (such as Mt. Rainier and the spectacular drive to Whistler from Vancouver) but I think coming to the NW and staying only in the cities would be a shame...JMO.

As for whether you take the Clipper or rent a car and take one of the car ferry options--that kind of depends on where else you're going.

It would be helpful if you mentioned when you plan to make this trip--that would make a difference. But I agree with NWWanderer about including either the Olympic Pennisula, San Juan Islands or North Cascades, depending on the time of year. While Victoria has the Buchart Gardens, IMO the San Juans have more to offer for a nature lover.

There have been lots of trip reports on this area and you can check out guidebooks and google various sights to get a pretty good idea of what you would really like to do.

With only 9 days, there are so many "nature sights" that I would suggest leaving Vancouver for another visit--crossing the boarder alone can take up to 2-3 hours each way.

Click on your own name to find threads you've posted to. Here's the one you made earlier - http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...1&tid=34933720

Try posting your question on the Canada site. There are some very knowledgeable - and of course helpful folks who frequent that site. Last summer I got some great ideas form them. First, apply for your passport now. And since you asked, last summer we went to BC for about 14 days. Here is the abreviated version.We flew up to Seattle and rented a car. We stayed one night in Seattle with family and drove north the next day to Whistler. The road was under much construction between Van and Whistler for the 2010 olympics, so drive early or late in the day to avoid it, if you go. We drove up to Pendleton one day to get pies and fruit at North Arm Farm (also are at farmers'market in whistler), took the gondola and ski lift (yikes) up to the top of Black Comb Mtn. Great view . Back in Vancouver city we stayed in North Van where there is nice hiking - we went to Lynn Canyon's suspension bridge is free. one day we took the boat over to Van City, took monorail and went to museums, traveled on the little harbour boats went to the artists' area on Granville Island, took the bus back across town and the ferry back to Nroth Van. Another day: drove to the city and went to the Van something gardens with the hedge maze, over to the UBC's museum with wonderful totem poles and masks, then over to a beach for a nice picnic. Another day we rented bikes and road around the big park (name escapes me) and visited the aquarium. We also stopped by a very friendly and interesting Islamic festival and a farmers' market (where we got the name and address of a dairy on vancouver island..which we visited later). The next day we took the Horseshoe Bay ferry over to Vancouver Island and drove way north (4.5 hours)up to Port McNeil. We stayed at a lodge for two nights and went on an amazing orca watching trip (this was in August when Johnstone Straight's resident Orcas are very resident - wow!). Then we drove south to Parksville and stayed at Tigh Na Mara - a nice modern family resort on a beach. The next day we drove about 2 hours south to Victoria, stopping by the dairy farm on the way for fresh ice cream. We ate at a great brew pub/restaurant across the harbour from Victoria called...hmmm (no can't remember it). The rest of the family took the little harbor boat across while I drove around to downtown. We stayed at the Royal Scot (or something like that). I went to Buchart Garden first thing the next morning by car and met up with everyone else at wonderful museums later. After 2 nights in Victoria we took the Ferry from Sydney back to Washington State and drove south back to Seattle. The food in Vancouver and Victoria was very good. The First Nations' art (totem poles and masks) is quite spectacular. Folks are super nice. Prices are about the same as SF.

I believe the name of the pub in Victoria is Spinnaker's ;-).

Thanks for the info. We're planning to go the week before Labor Day.

(And I'm sorry that there are two threads posted by me with the same title. I posted the other one before I went to work and when I came home, it was absolutely nowhere to be found, so I reposted. Then the original one showed up an hour later. My apologies.)

Hi blrn1,
Sorry, I haven't read all of the above so excuse me if I'm repeating anything. We did exactly this same trip but backwards (Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle) in August. We're actually more interested in city sights than natural ones but I thought my trip report (below), including the Victoria Clipper, might be of some help to you.


Here it is:

Vancouver

We landed in Vancouver (from Toronto) on July 1 – Canada Day – after a beautiful flight through clear blue skies and over the Rockies and checked into the Hotel Le Soleil (www.lesoleilhotel.com) on Hornby. It’s a lovely boutique hotel, quite formal in its décor, and the rooms were very nicely decorated. It’s a suite hotel which I prefer since I stay up late and R gets up early. There was a small living room and a small bedroom connected by a little hallway which had the bathroom door on one side and the minibar/sink/wardrobe on the other. The bathroom was a good size with all the amenities and the hotel was very clean. There’s a bar/restaurant downstairs but we never used it. A nice touch was that the reception desk always had a big bowl of Granny Smith or Delicious apples on it.

Anyway, it was mid-afternoon so we went out for a walk. The hotel is in a great location, about a block away from the Art Gallery and Robson Street in one direction and a couple of blocks from the harbour and Old Town in the other. We set off towards Robson and the first thing we noticed was a BIG crowd of people in the square in front of the Art Gallery and a rock band, so of course we had to go over and see what was happening. Well, by the time we were 20 yards away we could smell the pot. Honestly, I felt like I’d fallen into the wayback machine and come out in the 70’s. Hippies, punks, rock music, guys selling joints and baggies, stands set up about legalizing marijuana and how to grow your own, and the air was thick with smoke. Talk about your contact high! Now, I’ve always heard that Vancouver is a little more ‘relaxed’, shall we say, about drugs but what the heck? Anyway, I asked one of the joint sellers if this went on all the time and he explained that it was just because it was Canada Day and on that day they had the right of free assembly and no one would bother them. I’m pretty sure they have the right of free assembly every day but they were a pretty peaceful group. Wish I’d had the munchies concession though.

That was our welcome to Vancouver and a very groovy one it was, too. I won’t tell you every single thing we did but we had a great time. We walked tons, went to Old Town, Chinatown, Granville Island, Commercial Avenue, South Granville, Kitsilano Beach, the formal gardens in Chinatown and Dr. San Sun Yen’s garden (take the tour) which is right next door, Stanley Park, the aquarium, and R. even surprised me with tickets to see Il Divo at the GM Centre. As we usually do, we walked miles and there was music everywhere since that was the week of the jazz festival, so that was an extra little bonus. Robson Street was packed and felt a little like a carnival, with all the street music.

As far as restaurants go – well, we had some great recommendations. We had a great dinner at Vij’s (Indian with a twist). They don’t take reservations so we put our name down on the list and during the half hour wait we went for a walk to do some window shopping on South Granville. If I lived in Vancouver, that’s the neighbourhood I’d like to live in. Anyway, we passed by a restaurant called Ouisi – pronounced WeeZee (as in Louisiana) and there was a great Cajun band playing so we stopped in there for a pre-dinner drink before going back to Vij’s. I’d go back for dinner too; their menu looked interesting. But dinner at Vij’s was great. We had two dinners at Earl’s on Hornby; I believe Earl’s has several restaurants out there but this was the big new one, very lively bar, slightly quieter dining room, good food. We explored Commercial Avenue which is row upon row of ethnic eateries and had a great dinner at the Havana Cafe. Sit outside if the weather’s nice – it’s such a lively interesting street. Our other dinner on Commercial was a disappointing one at Memphis Blues BBQ. It had been recommended by several people and we love BBQ so we were anticipating a great dinner. Well, the food was big but bad. I had ribs that tasted more boiled than bbq’d and R’s brisket was just not good; it tasted stale or something. Oh well, they can’t all be winners. We had a mediocre lunch someplace on Granville Island but great samples at the market there (I’m a big fan of markets) and good gelato too, and a pretty good dim sum lunch at Floata in Chinatown. It’s about a block from the gardens and Vancouver has a pretty good Chinatown, so that makes for a nice afternoon. If I sound a little wishy-washy about it, it’s only because Toronto has an enormous Chinese population with several vibrant Chinatowns and lots of great dim sum so I’m spoiled. We also had a pretty good lunch at Sophie’s Cosmic Café in Kitsilano. It doesn’t get great reviews but it was recommended to us and we enjoyed it. It has an interesting menu and the place is very funky and fun.

The only sad thing is that on our walk from Gas Town to Chinatown, we walked through blocks and blocks of a very large depressed neighbourhood with many boarded up stores and lots of shopping cart people, most of whom seemed to be Aboriginals. I’d read an article about the ‘binners’ and I guess this was their neighbourhood. I’m no stranger to poverty in Toronto. I worked for many years in a Health Centre in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city but there’s nothing like this here. For one thing, property values here would (sadly) have chased such a large population of homeless and/or poor people out. But I wonder about the social services in Vancouver. I know nothing about BC politics and social services; we passed a few storefront social service agencies but the neighbourhood on the whole was very depressed. Sorry, Vancouverites. I hate it when visitors talk about street people in Toronto but I have to recognize the problem of homelessness here.

Still, I liked Vancouver very much. So much, in fact, I’d love to live there for a year when R. has his next sabbatical in a few years.

So…on to Victoria.

Victoria

We’d decided to do the whole trip without a car so we took the BC Ferries to Victoria and what a fabulously easy and pleasant trip it was! We took a cab from our hotel to the bus station and boarded the bus which took us to the ferry dock. Then the bus, passengers and all, drove onto the ferry (along with a zillion other buses and cars – it’s a very big boat) where all the passengers got out and spent the rest of the 1 ½ hour trip on the very comfortable, beautiful ferry. We were on The Spirit of Vancouver. There was a lovely cafeteria where we had lunch and the food was surprisingly good, big lounges with comfy chair, a video arcade for the kids, and a private lounge if you needed a quieter place. I think they also had computer access in there. And, of course, you could walk the decks and look at the gorgeous scenery.

At the Victoria end, we got back on the bus which drove off the ferry and took us to the bus station. We hopped in a cab to get to our hotel which turned out to be basically around the corner and down the street – we could have walked. We stayed at the Hotel Magnolia (www.magnoliahotel.com), which was very nice. Our room was very large and on the city (not harbour) side of the hotel and we had a gas fireplace. Of course, we didn’t need it in July but it would be nice in the fall or winter. The room rate came with breakfast which was in Hugo’s restaurant downstairs and it was a reasonably good buffet of the usual stuff, cereal, breads & bagels, pastries, sliced meat, fruit, etc. The hotel staff was very helpful with recommendations and directions and even arranged for R. to play golf one day including transportation to and from the course.

Victoria is a charming city but a little to small for my tastes. I understand there were other neighbourhoods to visit if we’d had a car but as we were only there for a few days, we stayed around the harbour area. Everyone had told us that we must go to the Empress Hotel for their famous high tea but honestly? I don’t love high tea and there are many hotels here that do it very nicely. However, I do love a good vodka martini, so we went to the Empress Hotel for drinks instead. The hotel itself is gorgeous and at least deserves a walk-through. Their bar is the called Bengal Lounge and we felt like we were in India at the time of the Raj – lots of leather chairs and dark wood and big, flat fans waving on the ceiling. We’d already made our plans for dinner but we noticed that they had a very nice small but fabulous looking Indian buffet set up ($28 pp) with a death-by-chocolate dessert buffet for an additional $12 pp so we decided to come back the next night. Anyway, off we went for our dinner at Chandlers where we both had the wild west coast salmon. I didn’t think the restaurant was anything special and R. liked it moderately more than I did.

We did go back the next night for the Indian buffet (didn’t partake of the chocolate, though) and it was fabulous. It was some of the best Indian food I’ve ever eaten. I’ve been to other Indian buffets where there were a million dishes badly made but this was a smaller (though very broad and interesting) selection of first-rate food. As it turns out, there was jazz in the room that evening too and we had an excellent dinner with entertainment for $28 pp plus the cost of drinks. I’d very much recommend it when you visit Victoria. By the way, the service was excellent too – professional, helpful and not obsequious. By coincidence, we had the same server both nights, something I didn’t realize till we were ordering drinks. When I couldn’t remember the drink I’d had the night before, I pointed to one on the menu and said to R. ‘oh, I think that’s what I had last night that was so good’ and our server said ‘oh no, you had this one’ – I couldn’t believe that she remembered me and what I ordered and that she cared enough that I might be ordering the wrong drink. How much nicer is that than the ‘hi, my name is Francine’ type of service?

Even more than Vancouver, there was amazing music in Victoria wherever we went. Government Street was filled with musicians and I mean GREAT music, not just a guy with a guitar and a hat. We stopped to hear a fabulous marimba band on the street (yes, a whole band of about 6 musicians) and a great, great blues guitarist. There was an international festival at the harbourfront (which turned out to be little more than food stands and chachka sellers) and we heard some good bluegrass music at the stage. That first evening after dinner, we stopped into the Irish Times for a drink and listened to a wonderful duo (guitar & fiddle) and liked them so much we went back the next night for dinner (pretty good food, too).

One day we explored the Bastian Square crafts market and the very interesting maritime museum there. We had lunch at a place called Fan Tan – my notes say ‘mediocre’ and it really must have been because I can’t remember it at all – and then took the harbour cruise to see the floating houses. Not houseboats…houses. If you saw the movie ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ you’ll remember that Tom Hanks and the little boy lived in a floating house. Theirs seemed to be ‘stand-alone’ but these were in a neighbourhood of many, many floating houses. It was a lovely cruise, too, because we could see the beautiful vista of Washington State Mountains and Mount Olympus. We also spent a day at Butchard Gardens and it was just beautiful, especially the Japanese Garden and the Sunken Garden. And no need for a car – we just took the bus.

And so to Seattle…

Seattle

I would have loved to surprise R. with a seaplane ride from Victoria to Seattle but it was a little bit too much of a splurge for me. Instead, we took the high-speed catamaran, the Victoria Clipper, from Victoria Harbour to the Seattle Harbour and it was a great ride through absolutely gorgeous vistas.

We checked into the Inn at the Harbour Steps (www.innatharborsteps.com) which is just steps from Pike Place Market. The hotel was fine. The lobby is lovely and there’s a beautiful terrace on the 5th floor overlooking the harbour over the top of the market. We got a good deal on a city-side room so we chose it over the harbour side and, as I say, it was fine. It was a good-size room, nicely decorated with a little foyer, a very large bathroom, and a tiny Juliet balcony that overlooked the street. The amenities (body lotion, shampoo, soap) were some very nice brand – I can’t remember the name but the lotion smelled like cut grass and I tucked the little bottle away every day. I’m still using some now! There’s a very nice-looking restaurant in the hotel but we never ate there. The only thing I didn’t care for was the fact that because the hotel doesn’t have central air, there was an AC unit in the wall of the room. Not one of those ugly ones – it was sort of built into the wall and stuck out like a ledge -- but it was no big deal. I did get to see one of the rooms on the harbour side (I asked the housekeeper if I could go in. This kind of thing drives R. crazy) and it was extremely large and very pretty.

We loved Seattle and did tons of stuff. Of course, we went to Pike Place Market almost every day and it’s so much fun. We have a very good market here but there are more crafts and art at PPM and fabulous flowers, as well as the great meat, fish and produce selection. That’s where we chose to buy our ‘bring home’ gifts – chocolate covered dried cherries for just about everyone we know! We went to Pioneer Square and took the Seattle Underground tour which I thought was interesting. We also went to the Experience Music Project, a fabulously eccentric Frank Gehry building (note – FG is a Toronto native and is now re-doing our art gallery). We had fun but to be honest, we both thought that the rock n rock exhibit in Cleveland was better. We did have a great lunch at the restaurant in the EMP, though. We did rent a car for one day so we could drive out to the Boeing factory and take their tour which was fascinating. We were in the largest building in the world – 75 football fields can fit in there – and stood on the 4th floor observation deck looking at nine full-sized planes in various stages of assembly. The place is so big that the workers ride around it on bikes! We also explored the posh 5th Avenue shopping area which was just 5 avenues from our hotel in the other direction from the market.

Another Chinatown, another Chinese lunch but this time we just went to the food court of the big Asian supermarket. The market was great, the lunch just your average food court noodles. That night we went to a bar called the New Orleans Café near Pioneer Square and had a blast! We’d walked by it the day before and there was just a sign in the window saying ‘live music nightly’ so we decided to check it out and we had a ball! The place itself is pretty much a dive – arborite tables and wood chairs, no décor to speak of except for drawings and photos of ‘the greats’, no special drinks, no food to speak of, but the music was good. The band was oldish guys playing swing music but the best part of the evening was the dancers. There was a dance floor down the middle of the room, just about 20 feet long by 6 feet wide, and there was a bunch of kids swing dancing like they were in a Broadway play or something! They all seemed to be in their 20’s or early 30’s, just dressed in jeans and tee shirts and they all seemed to know each other. The dancing was fabulous! We thought they might be in a dance program at some university but when I asked one of the girls she said, no, they were all just part of “the lindy hop scene in Seattle”. It seems they just dance together at certain bars and dance halls on regular nights and we just happened to luck into the New Orleans Café! As it turns out, it got us interested in swing dancing so now we’re taking some lessons and have found a place where there’s a dance with a live band almost every week.

We had fun one night at Teatro Zinzanni which, for those of you who don’t know it, is a sort of combination dinner theatre and Cirque du Soliel. We pretty much screwed up our reservations, though. I’d booked over the internet and thought I’d finished the booking when I really hadn’t. The problem lies with how their ‘thank you’ was set up – you get thanked before you really finish and I got to that point and thought I was done. Anyway, we got there and found out they didn’t have our reservation. They were very nice and still found a seat for us but it wasn’t a very good one – right in the back row at the side of the stage instead of the ringside table a friend had tried to arrange for us (and couldn’t, of course, because there was no reservation under our name). It’s not a big place and you can see pretty well from everywhere but you’re much more ‘in the action’ if you sit near the centre of the room. The food was good (done by the same guy who owns Lola and that group of restaurants) and the show was fabulous so all in all it was still a great evening and I’d certainly recommend it for a special night out or a special occasion. Our hotel gave us excellent service that night. We’d asked the doorman to get a cab for us and told him we had to be there at 6:30. He had trouble finding one, I guess because it was rush hour, and time was passing so he went and got the hotel car, a beautiful cream-coloured town car, and drove us to the restaurant. He gave us the hotel’s card and told us to call him when we were ready and he’d come pick us up. We felt quite posh being picked up by a uniformed limo driver after the show! Now that’s good service, I think. Don’t you agree?

OK, I’m almost done.

Restaurants: We ate in so many good places in Seattle. We discovered a strange and wonderful little restaurant called La Pichet around the corner from the hotel. It had a very special wine list and the food was delicious and rather unusual. For example, my soup had figs and shrimp in it was it was great! At several people’s recommendations, we had dinner one night at Etta's and I had the salmon with that onion bread pudding dish that everyone loves. It certainly was good but incredibly rich. Dinners like that just make me want to roll back to the hotel and into bed. Hey, to sleep! One night we walked over the the Flying Fish for dinner but the menu didn’t appeal so we went across the road to a very strange Hawaiian restaurant called Oxana and had a remarkably good dinner. On the way to the New Orleans Café we had dinner at McCormick and Schmidt. I know it’s a chain but we don’t have them in Canada and I’ve never been to one in the US, so we thought we’d try it. The place was very pretty and the food was good but I honestly feel that the waitress tried to cheat us. I’m not normally paranoid about stuff like that but there were just too many mistakes in the order and on the bill and it would have been very easy for her to void the error-laden bill after we left, pull up a new one, and pocket the difference. I like the place but that really left me with a bad feeling. Fortunately, the New Orleans Café ended that evening and our visit to Seattle on a big high. Of course, we started on a big high in Vancouver, now that I think of it.

We had to go back to Vancouver to catch our flight home so we took the Amtrak train from Seattle all the way up the coast. It leaves early (7:30 a.m.) but it was worth getting up for. We sat on the ‘scenic side’ of the train, the west side if you’re traveling north, and the views were fabulous. It was a lovely way to spend the day. The train had a few unexpected delays and was about an hour late getting into Vancouver, so I wouldn’t recommend it if you have to make connections. We just went back to the Hotel Soleil for our last night, had dinner at Earl’s again, and flew back to Toronto the next day.

9 days is a nice amount of time to see those three cities plus maybe one "natural" destination. If your husband would like more nature and less city, there's no end to all the beautiful destinations nearby to those cities. Maybe he could sift through these suggestions in these threads, look at the websites for WA's three national parks (www.nps.gov), decide whether he'd like to see mountains, islands, ocean beach, rainforest, etc, to help narrow down the choices.

Spending at least a night in the San Juan Islands (you'll be there in the height of whale season) makes sense-you could start in Seattle, go to the islands, keep ferrying on to Victoria, then ferry to Vancouver. But this is only one of many possible itineraries, and if you'd rather spend your time seeing mountains, maybe your time would be better spent at Rainier or Olympic (you could also ferry to Victoria from the Olympic Penisula-Port Angeles-after visiting that park).

The Victoria Clipper is a popular way to get to Victoria, since it leaves right from Seattle and is fast. It's great for a day or overnight trip. Keep in mind it is a passenger only ferry, and that the ride isn't particularly scenic, since the windows are always covered in salt spray and there is no outdoor area to hang out in (besides a teeny, unpleasant little area near the engines).

blm1 - Also - if you plan to use a car on your trip, make the ferry reservations for the car early. Without a car it's not as much of an issue.

NWWanderer - Ah yes! Spinnakers in Victoria. Thanks for remembering the name. Great view of downtown Victoria across the Harbor and great food. My family had Pizza. I had the 6 beer sampler (small glasses ) each paired with a local cheese. Mmmm. They also had a beer sampler paired with different chocolates (really!) and they have a chocolate shop at the front of the restaurant.

hdm - Thanks for the Seattle restaurant reviews. I'm going to have to try those out when I'm visiting family up there next!

I second suggestion for Teatro Zinzanni-one of the most fun nights you can experience in Seattle.

and if you are going to TZ, make sure you specify a ring-side (that is, central) table so you can participate in the fun.

My wife and I spent a few days this past summer in Seattle, and took the Victoria Clipper up there for an overnight. I don't offhand remember the name of the Victoria hotel we stayed in, but it was right on the harbor. As we sat out on the deck that evening watching the float planes come in and leave, we decided that next time we visit Victoria, we'll travel by float plane.

Thank you all for the information and trip reports! I'm going to start looking into some of these places right away.

I flew in by float plane once - it was very fun- lands right in the harbor - its kind of expensive but worth it do at least once