How long to get from Smithers, BC to Seattle, WA?

[chrisann]

A friend of mine wants to go to WDW, and I'm thinking it be cheaper to fly from Seattle to Orlando rather than BC, so anyone have any ideas? They's need 4 seats on the plane and they want to go in October.

Thanks!

 

[Cath1967]

Add about 3 hours to how long it would take to get to Vancouver. Seems like a long drive for what you would save. My friends just flew to florida from Seattle, they had to get over the border and then ended up staying at a hotel the night before because the hotel would keep their car for the 10 days, the hotel was just a little more than the parking they would pay. I think from Vancouver they found it a lot of work .... so from smithers it would be like a whole extra vacation.

 

[bavaria]

The drive from Richmond BC to Seattle WA is 220 km. But one needs to factor in that this does not include freeway traffic to Richmond and/or tunnel traffic (depending on origin), border waits, or the drive from north Seattle to SeaTac.

I am very familiar with the route but also have a Nexus fly/drive cards which makes it much easier. I also know when to use I-5 vs I-405 around Seattle.

But the plane tickets from Smithers-Vancouver can be quite expensive and may be adding significantly to their cost. (a search on Travelocity for Smithers-MCO doesn't even return any results) They may also want to investigate flying out of another town closer to Smithers.

 

[chrisann]

to fly from Seattle, it's one stop and they'd be in Orlando. That total would be $1552. To fly from within BC, it'd be at least 2 stops and the total would be $3700. I know it'd be a long drive to Seattle, but to save $1200 plus the time you're actually in the air, would it be worth it?

 

[Cath1967]

Thats a substantial savings, but not entirely accurate. You would have to add in the gas to drive back and forth to seattle, parking while your car is in seattle, a few nights hotel along the way cause you couldnt do that drive then fly ... and you would have to leave some time to allow for border delays and travel delays etc... it would probably add 2 to 4 days to your travel time .... for me it wouldnt be worth it .. i hate to wait for an hour flight delay so that much extra travel would drive me nuts (grin) but no matter which way they go it will not be a direct flight ... so they have to weigh total costs and time etc... If they have no problem with the drive etc and would have to get to vancouver anyways then seattle is only another 3 hours......

 

[KRIS10420]

The drive from Smithers to Seattle would take approximately 15 hours.

 

[MouseFaninQueue]

Well it took me 11 hours to drive from Quesnel to Seattle. And YES the savings we got on our flights was MORE than worth it.

We got tickets out of Seattle to Orlando for $323 CDN return.

The BEST we could find out of Vancouver was over $700 return.
Considering we were buying 3 tickets that was a savings of $1200! We factored in the gas money (it was really only 3 hours longer drive so not much difference between Vancouver and Seattle gas wise for us), and then we also took a hotel in Seattle for $100 and parked the car for 2 weeks at Seatac ($200 USD). Include the return hotel room ($100) and the savings for us was still around $800. That's $800 that we could then spend on the trip.

Now we are looking at going again in May 2008 (cruise through the Panama Canal) and Seattle will definitely be an option to fly out of for us.

If your family can handle the long drive then the savings is worth it. However, if your family can't handle the long drive you may want to look at a flight out of Edmonton instead. Sometimes sanity is worth something.

 

[eryn the pooh]

I live only 2 hours from smithers and we always drive to vancouver, and once even to seatlle, but we only fly to disneyland. it takes us, from here, 9-10 hours to vancouver, add the 2 more hours from smithers and then the few to get to seattle, abouy 15 hours, as posted above me.