Seattle to Vancouver: Train or Bus?
 

I know the train is supposed to be great, but there are busses all through the day and the train is only early in the morning. Has anyone taken the bus? Is it that much worse than the train?

From everything we had read, renting a car was much better. We enjoyed having it. All we had to do was turn it in at the airport when we flew out. You would just turn yours in before you board ship. LOTS of people do it that way.

A great website for cruise info is www.cruisecritic.com

I'm guessing you are doing this before a cruise????

I had read that there's an enormous drop-off fee is you rent in Seattle and drop in Vancouver. You didn't find this to be true?

if I rent the car in Seattle and drop it off two days later in Vancouver, the rental is $583 vs. $140 if I return it in Seattle. The train or bus to Vancouver is only $35 per person.

We took the train from Vancouver to Seattle recently and really enjoyed the scenery. The bus is faster, but I hear there is a longer wait at the border. With Amtrak, our stop was only about 10 to 15 minutes. So I guess your travel choice should depend on how much time you want to spend on the journey and on departure/arrival times.

<i>if I rent the car in Seattle and drop it off two days later in Vancouver, the rental is $583 vs. $140 if I return it in Seattle. The train or bus to Vancouver is only $35 per person.</i>

Check other agencies. I've never paid more than $140 for a one-way rental (2 days.)

After going through Orbitz, Kayak, and Expedia, the lowest rental price I've found is $126 per day PLUS tax. That's picking up at SEA-TAC at noon on one day and returning at Vancouver Airport two days later. I'm over $300 for car rental and gas; the $105 for three of us on the train sounds pretty good!

I'm not sure about all dates, but when I've checked, the only train from Vancouver to Seattle is at night, arriving at something like 10:30 PM. and the only one from Seattle to Vancouver is quite early in the morning. There are numerous buses with better hours for me.

Thanks for all your help! I think we'll use Quick Coach from Seattle to Vancouver, which picks up in downtown Seattle and will drop us off right at our hotel in Vancouver.

Is Quick Coach the $35 one?

Two things - first, if you don't need to go to Vancouver airport, you'll save a lot of money on a rental car if you can drop it off downtown rather than the airport. Same goes for picking up in Seattle - the extra fees and taxes at both airports can drive the price up by 25%. Often the on-line agencies (Orbitz, Expedia et al) don't offer this option, so use them to see the best price, then go directly to the car company's website.

Second, don't know when you're traveling, but Amtrak will be adding a second daily service sometime before next cruise season, with a mid-afternoon departure from Vancouver and an afternoon departure from Seattle. They want it ready before next cruise season (May) and well before the Olympics.

We took train to Seattle once, and the connecting Amtrak bus to Vancouver was waiting for us to take over the border.

There is only one train, but several Amtrak buses. They are clean, safe, dependable.

Three of us are landing in Seattle on 5/24/09, staying at a B&amp;B downtown, and leaving 5/26 for Vancouver, spending the night there, and then starting a cruise on 5/27.

I understand that there is a savings by not renting a car at the airport. In other cities I have gone out of my way to rent a car outside the airport, and to me it was always more trouble than it was worth. Plus, I have no need of a car in Seattle because I have friends in the downtown area and that's where we'll be staying.

At this point, it seems much easier for the three of us to take a taxi downtown ($50 or so), then take Quick Coach or the train if in fact there's a later one by then, which will cost about $105 for the three of us.

Quick Coach drops us right at our hotel in Vancouver. Or, we'll take a taxi from the Vancouver Amtrak if we take the train. Originally renting a car seemed like a good idea, but the more I look into this, the more I think I'll be sitting back and leaving the driving to someone else!

Postal,

Mrs. Dutch and I did the same thing a couple of years ago.

We took Amtrak to Vancouver. We took a taxi from the train station to our Downtown hotel. Easy as pie.

On our return home, we took the Sky Train from the cruise terminal to the train station for our trip home.

My only complaint was that the train was three hours late on our trip back to Seattle, which made it pretty late when we finally checked into our hotel.

I'm curious about the comment above that the border crossing is very slow by bus but quick by train. Both schedules are pretty much the same.

But I too have heard the train is often very behind schedule. I've not heard that about the buses.

There's extensive discussions--pros and cons of each--on www.cruisecritic.com forums.

I remember there being some cons to the cheap bus but don't remember what exactly. It's been a couple of years since I researched and took that trip.

FYI, there are car rental places just blocks from the cruise port in Vancouver to drop off your car.

I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to relate a recent experience.

I flew to Vancouver (where I spent a few nights) and then I took the Quick Shuttle to Seattle (where I would stay a week before flying home to Boise)

The Quick Shuttle was clean, comfortable and very efficient! It was a beautiful drive - the stop at customs went quickly.

Best part, it was under $40!

I have absolutely no regrets!

Since this thread is revived, I'll add what I found out for my upcoming trip. I'll be in the general area for several weeks. I'm flying in and out of Seattle. I was going to rent a car just for part of the time and turn it in either in Victoria, Nainamo (?) or Vancouver thinking I wouldn't need a car for my week's stay in Vancouver. Then I figured I'd take the bus back to Seattle. After days and hours of checking everybody, I discovered I could pick up a car in downtown Seattle and return to the Seattle airport three weeks later for LESS money than any 10 day rental I could find dropping off in Canada. Since my Vancouver rental apartment has free parking, needless to say -- keeping the car the whole time really seemed like the best option.

Patrick, That sounds like a very fun trip. Welcome to my neck of the woods (Seattle). Having the rental car the entire time will definitely make it a smooth and easy trip. Nice planning!

suze, the surprising thing is that other than a single night when I arrive in Seattle but leave for Olympic Park and Crescent Lake the next day, and a single night at an airport hotel before I fly down to San Francisco, I'm really missing Seattle this time all together. How did that happen?