Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is located on gorgeous Vancouver Island and is considered one of the world’s most beautiful cities. It is famous for the historic Empress Hotel, the Parliament buildings and beautiful Butchart Gardens. Upon leaving Vancouver, you will take a scenic ferry ride from the Vancouver mainland through the Gulf Islands to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island. From here, you will have a driving tour to Victoria, and of Victoria’s downtown area featuring the Inner Harbour, The Fairmont Empress Hotel, Mile 0 and the historic Chinatown. There will be free time to explore downtown Victoria at your own pace. Then on to the internationally renowned Butchart Gardens. Today the garden showcases 55 acres of themed garden displays, including a Japanese Garden, Italian Garden and Rose Garden. Wind down your day with the scenic return sailing aboard BC Ferries and then back to where your tour began.
Posted By : gia m
I can't give enough kudos to our guide, Rene! He was informative, entertaining, and made a long trip super enjoyable.
The trip would have been more enjoyable, with Rene, of course, and shorter if we had just gone to the Butchart Gardens and not gone to Victoria. It was a LONG day!
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Posted On : 2024-05-17 12:14:51 
Posted By : Pepe M
The day was fully packed and well organised. Victoria is a quaint island town with a variety of interesting shops, restaurants and water activity options. Butchart gardens a must see with specific focus on the sunken and Japanese gardens. The traveling coordination (road & ferry) which makes up ~ 6 hrs of the tour was well planned. René our guide was pleasantly excellent with great subject and general information knowledge adding an element of fun
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Posted On : 2024-05-07 02:06:28
Posted By : katrinawS1270KQ
Amazing journey and Rene is a great tour guide, well organised and very funny . We have enjoyed it very much. Rene has gone out of his way to make our experience a pleasant one.
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Posted On : 2024-05-06 23:41:20
Posted By : SeniorCoupletogether
Collected beautiful memories. Worth the money and the efforts. Do not miss the garden. Appreciate the efforts made for restoration and conservation at the time when environmental awareness was so low.
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Posted On : 2024-03-06 08:59:33
Posted By : SeniorCoupletogether
An absolute days of beautiful nature, lots of history and interesting anecdotes relaxed and fun filled itenary. Thanks to our tour guide Ian for making a beautiful trip more memorable.
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Posted On : 2023-11-07 01:33:14
Posted By : jsw002020
Kim was great. She provided a lot of good information on the bus, but did not talk the entire time. She personally took us around, or showed us where to go, when we were off the bus. 10 out of 10 for sure. Kim was an excellent guide and also very easy and pleasant to talk to!!
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Posted On : 2023-11-04 19:20:54
Posted By : Donna_B
Our ferry ride to Victoria and Victoria itself was wonderful. Great scenery and somuc( to see. But hart Gardens are absolutely amazing, just beautiful grounds, gardens, flowers and plants. It is a must when visiting.
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Posted On : 2023-10-18 10:39:29 
Posted By : rosiog615
Great trip. Was easy to get to & from each stop.
Our driver Zac was knowledgeable gave us some history . He was awesome!!
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Posted On : 2023-10-13 16:32:51
Posted By : Akram A
Excellent, efficient tour , our tour guide (Kim) was so friendly, funny and knowledgeable, she took us as many as places possible in a one day tour, really enjoyed the Victoria , it’s really worth to see , such a beautiful place, highly recommend.
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Posted On : 2023-10-09 22:57:10
Posted By : MikeTaylor
I think this trip tries and just about succeeds to get the best of Vancouver Island in one day. There is a lot of time spent on the bus, the driver / guide was good and had plenty of information to pass on.
The first surprise was that despite being told to meet for a start time of 0800 hrs at the Vancouver cruise pier, on the Waterfront, the ferry service to Vancouver island leaves from the BC Ferry terminal at Tsawwassen a 40 minute drive to the south and dependent on traffic / roadworks, and time to kill/ waste when we got there.
The ferry left at 1000hrs and arrived 90 minutes later. There was then another 40 minute drive to get to Victoria our first sightseeing stop at 1230hrs. 2hrs 15 minutes to see the sights and get some lunch was a bit of a push.
Once on the coach another 30 -40 mins drive to the Butchart Gardens arriving at 1520hrs to get tickets and stepping off the bus at 1530hrs. Our driver said we had until 1745hrs to explore these beautiful gardens, the problem we all found - the place closes at 1700hrs so all catering and retail outlets were pushing folk out on time. We returned to the car park, our bus was the sole vehicle there. Sadly we were just too late arriving back at ferry terminal to get on the 1800hrs boat and had another wait for our booked service at 1900hrs. More time to kill.
It would have been better to have got underway at the start an hour earlier to make the 0900hrs boat. There would have then been more time to enjoy both Victoria and the Gardens. It is an expensive tour and to spend much of it in a bus isn't quite what I was expecting nor had it been advertised as such.
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Posted On : 2023-10-07 05:05:34
