Victoria Gulf Islands Cruise and Butchart Gardens Day Trip Vancouver

Tsawwassen ferry terminal and the road from Vancouver

The day begins with pickup at a downtown Vancouver hotel stop and a drive of about 40 minutes south through the suburbs of Richmond and Delta to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal. The terminal sits at the end of a long causeway built out into the Strait of Georgia, close to the United States border, and is the main gateway from mainland British Columbia to Vancouver Island. Our driver-guide handles the ferry booking and the coach drives straight onto the vessel.

If you have wondered how to get to Victoria from Vancouver, this is the answer most locals use: the ferry carries cars, coaches and foot passengers across in about an hour and a half. Once on board you leave the coach and are free to explore the decks, the cafeteria and the outdoor viewing areas, so the crossing becomes a Gulf Islands cruise rather than a simple transfer. Bring a jacket for the open deck, even in summer.

The ferry crossing through the Gulf Islands

The route from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay threads through the southern Gulf Islands, a scattered archipelago of forested islands in the Salish Sea between the mainland and Vancouver Island. The narrowest and most dramatic stretch is Active Pass, a tight channel between Galiano and Mayne islands where strong tides swirl and the ferry passes close to rocky shores, wooden cottages and small harbours. Bald eagles perch in the firs, seals rest on the rocks and, with luck, orcas or porpoises surface alongside.

This crossing is the reason the tour is called a Gulf Islands cruise: the islands slide past on both sides for most of the 90 minutes, with the Olympic Mountains of Washington State visible to the south on clear days. The outdoor decks at the bow and stern are the best places to stand. On the return in the evening the light is softer and the islands turn to silhouettes, so each crossing feels different.

Butchart Gardens: the main stop of the day

Butchart Gardens is the highlight of any Butchart Gardens tour from Vancouver, and entry is included in this tour. The gardens began in 1904 when the Butchart family started planting an exhausted limestone quarry beside their house at Tod Inlet, north of Victoria. The quarry became the Sunken Garden, a bowl of lawns, flowerbeds and a lake seen from a viewpoint at the rim, and the estate grew into about 22 hectares of themed gardens that are now a National Historic Site of Canada.

Beyond the Sunken Garden are the Rose Garden, which peaks in June and July, the Japanese Garden of maples, ponds and stone lanterns that glows red in October, the formal Italian Garden and the Mediterranean Garden. Paths are paved and gently graded, and about two hours is enough to see every garden and the fountain. Spring tulips, summer roses and autumn colour mean there is no bad time to visit Butchart Gardens, and the greenhouses keep flowers in bloom in winter.

Victoria's Inner Harbour and historic centre

Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and one of the oldest cities in western Canada, founded as a fur-trading post in 1843 and grown into a port town of stone buildings, gardens and a mild coastal climate. The Inner Harbour is its heart: a sheltered basin ringed by the Parliament Buildings of 1898, the ivy-covered landmark hotel, the Royal BC Museum and a waterfront walkway where seaplanes land and water taxis buzz between the docks.

The coach drops you here for free time, usually enough for lunch and a walk. Government Street leads from the harbour through the Victorian shopfronts of Old Town to Chinatown, with Bastion Square and Market Square on the way, while the museum and the totem poles of Thunderbird Park sit beside the harbour. A Victoria BC tour that gives free time here lets you choose between a harbour-side meal, the museum or souvenir shopping before we regroup for the ferry.

Swartz Bay and the return to Vancouver

From Victoria the coach drives north along the Saanich Peninsula for about 30 minutes to Swartz Bay, the ferry terminal at the top of the peninsula where the island route to the mainland begins. The road passes farms, orchards and the coastal villages of Saanich, with glimpses of the sea between the hills. Our driver-guide times the day so that you arrive for the scheduled sailing without rushing.

The return crossing through the Gulf Islands takes the same route in reverse, often with the sun setting behind the islands in summer, and the coach then drives from Tsawwassen back to the downtown Vancouver hotel stops where the day began. The whole Vancouver to Victoria tour runs about 13 hours door to door, so it is a long day, but every ferry, ticket and transfer is handled for you and the coach is comfortable with a toilet on board.