Anyone have experience with tour packages including these three cities? I plan to meet a friend in Seattle (early June or August) and we want to see Victoria and Vancouver, but we don’t want to drive. I’m having trouble putting together a good itinerary since I don’t know the area at all. Is the Amtrak from Vancouver to Seattle reliable? How is the ferry transportation between the three cities? I will search for other similar threads, but looking specifically for package tour options at this point.
You can take Victoria Clipper from downtown Seattle to Victoria. Downtown Victoria can be easily explored on foot, and I am sure there are transportation options to get to Vancouver and Butchart Gardens that don’t require renting a car. You can take the train back to Seattle.
It looks like Clipper offers overnight packages and tour packages - something worth to look into:
I wonder if it would be easier to first do round trip Seattle-Victoria then a second round trip Seattle Vancouver, perhaps by train. Is a day trip sufficient for Victoria?
A day in Victoria could be sufficient depending on what you want to see. I would go to the Gardens. You can also look into Kenmore Air trips from Seattle to Vancouver or Victoria.
Cool -Kenmore flies from Seattle’s Lake Union directly into Coal Harbor in Vancouver!
https://www.kenmoreair.com/destinations/Vancouver-Coal-Harbour-BC/
We stayed at the Courtyard at Lake Union last fall with a great view of the seaplanes taking off all day long. They kind of make their own runway depending on boat traffic.
There is a ferry between Victoria and Vancouver as well, you can book a package with BCFConnector that picks you up in downtown victoria by bus that drives onto the ferry and then off again in Vancouver with multiple drop off locations throughout Vancouver including airport and train station. The ferry ride from Victoria to Vancouver is beautiful and takes most to the day, you get off bus and are free to walk around, find seats, have something to eat, etc during the trip. Other option would be a whale watching tour that goes from victoria to vancouver, can’t remember the name of company but you can google it. Many ways to get from downtown Victoria to Buchart Gardens. And Victoria is much more than a day trip, you can spend several days there especially if you want to go to the Gardens which yes are spectacular. And consider booking afternoon tea while you are at Buchart, was great especially out on porch and cost much better than at Fairmont. Need to book in advance though.