Vancouver

Stanley Park is really nice

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Stanley Park is really nice

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another vote for stanley park. you can rent a cruiser bike and do a quick loop around the park, that was fun. there's also a nice aquarium in stanley park.

another poster mentioned granville island, worth checking out but busy. we bought spot prawns for dinner off of a boat there. got fish and chips and a smoked oyster sandwich from go fish (worth the long wait).

downtown: go to medina for breakfast, order the cassoulet. eat a japadog and get the butter/soy sauce fries on the side.

gastown: lucky's donuts and killer espresso bars on every block. revolver and timbertrain stand out as two we enjoyed. went to the alibi room for dinner and awesome local beers.

we actually enjoyed getting out of the city more than the city itself. spent a day hiking and trail running capilano river park (ok, so pretty much in town - north vancounver) and checking out the salmon hatchery. went to squamish and hung out there, took the sea to sky gondola and did the shannon basin loop (about a 6 mile hike). didn't make it to whistler, but wishing we had.

Horseshoe Bay is gorgeous

I like Vancouver a lot, been there twice. The ride to Whistler is great but if you are only there a few days you probably don't have time for that. This was taken as we were driving to Whistler.
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Stanley Park is worth going to but we enjoyed just walking around the downtown area. The first day we were there we went to Stanley Park; did not have a very good map, got turned around and ended up walking a lot farther than we intended. We had taken one of the hop-on & off buses there and we had to find a stop.

Rather than walking around you could rent a bike. That's what these people are doing and there are bike lanes on some of the streets.
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We stayed in a hotel on Hornby street about 3 or 4 blocks from where the cruise ships dock and about 1/2 mile from Gastown.
We were there in August for 3 days after a cruise. When we were leaving for the flight at 4:00 am there was a group of sharply dressed early 20 year old girls, I'm guessing, coming out of what I thought was a bar next to the hotel. I thought WTH, I'm getting up and they are just now going home. I looked it up when we got home.

It is Brandi's Exotic Show Lounge. That might be worth checking out.

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Gotta go to Vancouver for a few days for a conference. Any tips/suggestions?

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Really depends on what you dig. If you like the cosmopolitan aspects of the city or are in to nature.

See a lot of talk about Capilano which is cool - a smaller but more local place is Lynn Canyon which is also in North Vancouver.

I was born and raised there - I will keep an eye on this post if you have any specific questions.

Just finished up a day in Vancouver (stayed a day for a Disney Cruise )

Did the hop-on-hop-off bus. It was really easy to head through town that way. Got to see all of Vancouver. We were in an open air bus .

Drove through Stanley Park. Not too bad.

Granville Island was nice.

Ate at Medina’s for breakfast, awesome!

Went to China Town for lunch, found a cool spot , China Town BBQ. Get the BBQ pork and chicken. Luckily the manager spoke English , no one else in the restaurant did!

Lots of bums and used needles

Overall , nice town.

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China Town

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You mean all of Hongcouver? Lol.

You couldn’t imagine how different that city is since pre Expo 86 (followed by the ‘98 Hong Kong matter). Night and day. All cities grow and change but the dynamic in play there was surreal.

Only thing that didn’t change is the Canucks will never win the Stanley Cup. We got Stanley Park instead lol.

Bonus vancouver trivia - lions gate bridge was built by the Guinness family (ie Guinness book or world records) in exchange for the “British Properties” (significant portion of West Vancouver).... which is now some of the most expensive real estate in a very expensive city.

One other note - when thinking Capilano suspension bridge and area, don’t forget about the little sister of Lynn Canyon. Same concepts but free and more local. Lynn Valley was my hood growing up.

No Uber or Lyft, take a taxi

Anyone have experience with the car share services they have? Like zipcar, cars2go, and evo? Seems like a great deal, but how readily available is free public parking? I worry about having to search all over the place to park when I'm finished with the car.