Voice of Travel

Vancouver Review

Vancouver is Beautiful.

I had heard that Vancouver was a beautiful city, but I didn’t realize how impressive it was. Even before the plane landed in Vancouver, I was in awe of what I saw. I was above snow covered mountaintops, and it was just beautiful. I hadn’t even started my trip, and was already excited and taking pictures…and Vancouver wasn’t even going to be the most beautiful part of the trip!

Vancouver is a very expensive city to stay in, especially the hotels near the cruise terminal. Since I was only staying the one night, and didn’t want to spend a lot of money, I used Priceline, and ended up with a room at the Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel, which was only a few blocks away from the cruise terminal. It was a really nice hotel, and I would stay here again. It was nice and clean, and the room was a decent size, The front desk was very friendly, and helpful as well.

Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel

The hotel was in the perfect location, and had a great view when you walked into the lobby. What I also really liked about the hotel was that there was a hop on hop off bus tour that had a stop right outside it!

Before leaving home, I bought tickets on the Big Bus Vancouver hop on hop off tour through Viator, and right after checking into the hotel and getting lunch, went across the street and got on the bus.

We wanted to find something to eat near the hotel before going on the bus tour, and found a really cute small grocery store/restaurant called Urban Fare and ended up going there for lunch. It was really good. They had a bunch of different sandwiches, as well as hot foods such as burgers, chicken, etc, and everything was really tasty. If you’re looking for something for lunch and you’re in that area, I really recommend it. It was so good, we went back here for dinner!

I knew that I didn’t have much time in Vancouver, but wanted to see as much as I could. I had about a full day to plan for, half the afternoon that I arrived, and the other half the next morning before I got on the cruise ship. Because of this, a hop on hop off bus seemed like a great option as it let me see the area as a whole, and allowed me to visit Stanley Park and the Aquarium, which I had really wanted to see. If I had time, I would have loved to see a lot more, but unfortunately there just wasn’t enough time this trip. This is just one more reason it would be nice to go back!

The Vancouver Hop on Hop Off Bus Tour

The Hop on hop off bus was great. It stopped at a lot of the big things to see in the city, as well as by a lot of the hotels, so it was easy to get wherever you wanted to go. I thought that Granville Island looked like it would have been fun to walk around, and I would make sure next time that I had time to do that. After going through the whole tour (and spending time in Stanley Park), I got off at Gastown to walk around and then walked back to the hotel from there. It was a nice walk, and I got to pass by the cruise terminal while walking back to the hotel.

If you’re interested in any of the other things I did while in Vancouver: the Vancouver Aquarium, the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Capilano Fish Hatchery, or Grouse Mountain, I’ll be writing about them next.

Enjoy,

P.S. If you’re ready to book your cruise to Alaska (or anywhere else for that matter), I strongly suggest using Cruise Compete. You’ll be sure to get the best price as different agencies will give you their best quote, and you can choose the lowest price!