Sailing Away From the Vancouver Cruise Port

We love Vancouver.

It was our home for many years before we moved to Victoria, BC.

You probably know Vancouver ranks right up with Florence, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Vienna as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Vancouver also consistently ranks as one of the most “livable” cities in the world, according to The Economist.

Vancouver has a beautiful cruise port! — Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world

Photos of our sail-away from the Vancouver cruise port

Anyway, we got the chance to cruise from Vancouver on the elegant Le Boreal expedition ship to Acapulco (operated by French cruise line, Ponant).

And the sail-away gave us a rare opportunity to see some of the city’s beauty from the vantage point of passengers leaving on a cruise from the Vancouver cruise port.

A highlight was passing underneath the iconic Lions Gate Bridge – it felt like we could almost reach up and touch it!

Here are some photos as we cruised out of Vancouver…

A cruise ship passes underneath the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver. — A cruise ship passes underneath the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver

Sailing away with a glass of champagne in hand

Passing by the community of North Vancouver

In posh West Vancouver, condos crowd the waterfront, while homes climb up the forested mountain

This is what walking along the West Vancouver seawall in winter looks like. See the Lions Gate Bridge in the distance?

Who wouldn’t want to take a selfie on *Le Boreal*, while sailing out of the Vancouver cruise port?

Even the moon wanted to be in this pink-sky picture!

5 fun facts about the Vancouver cruise port

1) More than 1,000,000 cruise passengers travel through Vancouver each year.

2) Vancouver is the 4th busiest cruise ship terminal in the world.

3) Hundreds of Alaska cruises depart each summer from Vancouver. (When walking on the two-mile-long West Vancouver “seawall” on late summer afternoons, we see many of the ships cruise by as they leave the Burrard Inlet.)

4) Vancouver is ranked as the “most passenger-friendly cruise port in North America,” according to the Berlitz travel publishing company.

5) The city is the only homeport offering one-way and roundtrip cruises up the scenic Inside Passage to Alaska – sorry Seattle, you just can’t compete :-).

Don’t miss Vancouver when you sail away!

In Vancouver, cruise ships dock at Canada Place, just steps away from shops, restaurants and lovely seaside walks. — In Vancouver, cruise ships dock at Canada Place, just steps away from shops, restaurants and lovely seaside walks

One reason passengers love the Vancouver cruise port is because ships dock at Canada Place, right in the heart of the city.

From there, you can walk to funky Gastown or the city’s downtown shops, or stroll along the beautiful Coal Harbor waterfront (maybe stopping at one of the cafés or patio lounges along the way).

If you go to Vancouver for an Alaska cruise, don’t just cruise-and-dash.

Be sure to add a few days for sightseeing here. We don’t know how many times we’ve overheard passengers saying they wished they’d known – they would have stayed longer to visit our city.

We’d hate for you to have similar regrets!

Vancouver is too beautiful just to zip in and out (you need to spend a few days in the city)

Beautiful BC Guide

Pssst! See our “British Columbia Travel Guide”

It’s packed with lots of great info on unmissable destinations, wineries, secret places, other cool things to do in BC (like storm watching in Tofino!), epic hikes, taking the ferry between Vancouver and Victoria, the best time to visit and more…

Photo credits: 3 to 9 © Janice and George Mucalov, SandInMySuitcase

About the authors:

Janice and George Mucalov

Luxury travel journalists and SATW, NATJA and TMAC “Best Travel Blog” award winners, Janice and George are the publishers of Sand In My Suitcase. Between them, they’ve traveled to all 7 continents.

Find destination guides, global food-and-wine stories, luxury hotel reviews, articles on cultural explorations and soft adventure trips, cruise reviews and information, insanely useful travel tips and more!

Frank

Tuesday 10th of November 2015

I love Vancouver, my favorite Canadian city. Reminds me in many ways of where we are right now: Cape Town. (including the high Airbnb prices!) Stanley Park has to be one of the most beautiful walks anywhere, love the sea wall. Taking the ferry to Vancouver Island also something I'll always remember from childhood when I went to boarding school near Nanaimo, especially for the Orcas along the way. Great city. Frank

Janice and George

Monday 16th of November 2015

Stanley Park is one of our favorite places in the city too. In the summer, we love bicycling around the seawall, then continuing on the paved seawall path around False Creek, ending up in Granville Island for coffee or a late lunch.

Suze

Monday 9th of November 2015

My parents have been to Vancouver and absolutely loved it, I'd really like to visit one day and see the view from the port!

Shikha

Boast away - it looks so beautiful! My husband has visited Vancouver before but I've still not seen any of Canada yet! I would definitely want to spend more than just a fly by day visit if I was in Vancouver though. I had no idea it was such a popular cruise port - slowly picking up lots of new cruise-related facts ahead of my first ever cruise next month!

Hopefully you can get to visit Vancouver some time in the future too :-).

Irene S. Levine

Thursday 5th of November 2015

What a beautiful cruise port! And so nice to have it so close to home~