Alaska Questions

[tchrrx]

- What hotel do you recommend for the night before the cruise?
- Without renting a car, what’s the best method to get to a hotel and then the cruise?
- What time should we book our return flight? We don’t want to rush, but we don’t want hours and hours at the airport either.

 

[anricat]

- We stayed at the Blue Horizon. I'm not sure about your budget, but it's clean and comfortable affordable option. Not budget, but not as expensive as something like Pan Pacific or Fairmont. There are ample restaurants nearby and we found it easy to take a quick cab right to the port or take the (complimentary) bus to the Capilano suspension bridge.

- We use the sky train to get from the airport to our hotel, but cabs are also available. We used a cab to get from hotel to the port. Blue Horizon was about $8 for the cab. Downtown Vancouver is fairly compact, especially in the port area and both public transit and cabs are easy to come by and not too expensive.

- Disney recommends no earlier than noon: https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/guest-services/ground-transportation/

 

[Starwind]

We are planning on staying at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport and using DCL's transfer to the port [$25 per person one way]. We are going to arrive a few days in advance and will use public transit to explore the city - there is a Skytrain station in the airport.

We also considered the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Vancouver-Downtown as well as the Pan Pacific and the Fairmont Waterfront.

We ended up going with the Fairmont Vancouver Airport largely because of their hypoallergenic floor, which will be helpful for our family. It is also convenient transportation wise since it is in the Airport and since DCL has transfers.

One thing to consider for budgeting your return flight, if you are flying from Vancouver to the US [i.e. next airport you go to is a US airport] you will clear US Customs in Vancouver Airport. Be sure to budget the extra time this will take.

SW

 

[Chemist]

Our plan (this summer, cancelled) was the Residence Inn downtown. Walking distance to restaurants, etc. Easy taxi (or longish walk) to port. Breakfast included.

 

[ajo]

We stayed at a WorldMark property arranged through some friends.

We took cabs from the airport to the WorldMark property. The morning of the cruise a group of us walked about 6 blocks to the port. We thought it was fun! The rest of our group took cabs.

Our flight left at 3:00 or so. We paid to have our luggage transported from the port to the airport. We had a lovely lunch near Canada Place and enjoyed the scenery before taking cabs to the airport.

 

[BruinEd03]

- What hotel do you recommend for the night before the cruise?
- Without renting a car, what’s the best method to get to a hotel and then the cruise?
- What time should we book our return flight? We don’t want to rush, but we don’t want hours and hours at the airport either.

We've stayed at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre - walking distance to a grocery store (just bring an empty carry on luggage to cart whatever you buy back). As for car - lots of taxis are available. However, this year, I think they just started offering Lyft and Uber.

Return flight - I would recommend something at noon or later and preferably at 1 p.m. or later. Depending on the number of cruises that are in port that day, it could take forever to get a taxi. If the Wonder is the only one, then it will be really easy to get a taxi. However, if the ship is delayed disembarking, you could be in trouble.

 

[TikiThunderPirates]

During our stay pre-cruise we only had one night in Vancouver before the cruise. We stayed at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel right next to the cruise port. We found it a really convenient location because you can walk right over to the cruise terminal, there are places to eat/shop directly below the hotel, and it was within easy distance to several sight seeing options downtown.

We did book DCL transportation from the airport, a bit pricey but it was our first cruise and we didn't want the hassle of figuring out transportation. On every other cruise since we've just used a taxi at the airport to get to the hotel, and again from the hotel to the cruise terminal if needed. It's not always the cheapest but we find it convenient. Most hotels will gladly pre-book a taxi for you, that can be really helpful in a small down (like Dover) where everyone needs a taxi to get onboard the ship at the same time.

A tale of caution on booking that return flight out of Vancouver. We again used Disney transportation to get form the ship to the airport, and we were quickly loaded on a bus once we retrieved our luggage. Our bus driver took us right to the airport, and then got lost. No seriously. We were on the first Alaska cruise for DCL that season and the bus driver was new. We drove all around the airport while he tried to figure out where to drop us off, we even sat in some far remote parking lot for about 20 minutes. Eventually he took us to the pick up point for passengers arriving at the airport. We probably added 30-45 extra minutes to our transportation time, all driving around the airport. At this point there was more then one family who was going to miss their flight on our bus. Once we arrived at the wrong spot, DCL staff went into action and helped guide us all and drag all our luggage up a small elevator to the correct floor for check in.
Thankfully we had booked a later flight, and while annoyed, were not super stressed. The downside was we couldn't even check our bags in until 3 hours before our flight, so we sat around in the pre-check in ticket desk lobby. There were a bunch of people from our cruise doing the same thing, so we all sat and enjoyed about an hour swapping stories.
Most of the time booking at flight after 11am is just fine post Alaska. You can be off the ship by 8:30am, and to the airport by 9:30 in a taxi. But sometimes everything doesn't work out ok. I'd always rather have a few hours to waste then a missed flight. I wouldn't book a flight that left before 1:00pm, just to make me feel conformation when issues like this arise.

Vancouver does offer a hotel onsite that allows for the 4 hour half day room option. We really considered this but just decided sitting in the airport was fine since we only had about 4 hours total to wait.

You can read about our experience at the Fairmont Waterfront here http://frequentlyaskeddisneyblog.com/disney-cruise-alaska-part-17/

And our "free tour" of the Vancouver airport here http://frequentlyaskeddisneyblog.com/disney-cruise-alaska-part-28/