Hourly chauffeur service in Vancouver: YVR, downtown, the North Shore and the Sea-to-Sky on the Toronto standard

Vancouver, on the Toronto account

A client who keeps a chauffeur by the hour in Toronto lands at YVR and finds the same thing waiting: a vetted local operator from the LimousineWorldwide.Directory network, booked by the Toronto desk on the same account, the same three-hour minimum for a sedan or SUV and five for a Sprinter, the same flat hourly rate day or night, the same plate text and meet-and-greet, and one invoice at the end of the month. "Chauffeur service Vancouver" is the most-searched chauffeur phrase in Canada outside Toronto, and the Vancouver booking is the one the desk's corporate accounts use most: the executive's three days of meetings between Coal Harbour and the Broadway corridor, the film production's unit moves, the cruise passenger's day between YVR and Canada Place, the family's Whistler week up the Sea-to-Sky. The Canada hub explains the network; the pillar page explains the hourly product; this page is Vancouver.

YVR, and the meet

Vancouver International on Sea Island in Richmond is fifteen kilometres and thirty minutes from downtown by the Arthur Laing Bridge and Granville Street or the Oak Street Bridge, forty-five in the afternoon peak, and the local chauffeur meets a Toronto arrival at the international or domestic arrivals hall with the plate and the passenger's name, as the Pearson page describes in reverse: thirty minutes' waiting on a domestic flight and forty-five on an international one included, the flight tracked, the bags to the car. YVR's South Terminal for the floatplanes and the Harbour Air terminal at Coal Harbour for the Victoria flight are the same meet; the airport's own ground-transport rules put the chauffeured car at the designated pre-arranged curb.

The business day

Vancouver's business is in three places: the Financial District's towers along Burrard, West Georgia and West Hastings - the banks, the mining and forestry head offices, the law firms in Bentall and Park Place and the Shaw Tower; Coal Harbour's and the waterfront's hotels and the Convention Centre's two buildings on the harbour; and the technology and life-sciences corridor along Broadway, the Mount Pleasant and False Creek Flats offices, and the university at UBC's Point Grey campus twenty minutes west. An as-directed day of six to nine hours across them, with the chauffeur waiting on Burrard or Cordova between meetings, is the booking the desk's accounts make, and the roadshow page plans a day across the city, Burnaby's Metrotown towers and Richmond's industrial parks with the bridges' timing built in. The Convention Centre's conferences - the TED conference in past years, the mining industry's Roundup in January, the technology and life-sciences shows - are the multi-day bookings.

The hotels

The Fairmont Pacific Rim and the Fairmont Waterfront on the harbour, the Shangri-La and the Rosewood Hotel Georgia on West Georgia, the Four Seasons' successor sites, the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, the Pan Pacific at Canada Place, the Loden and the Westin Bayshore in Coal Harbour, the Opus in Yaletown, the Douglas at Parq: the Toronto account's executive stays in one of them, and the local chauffeur knows its porte-cochère as the Toronto chauffeur knows the Ritz-Carlton's.

A visitor's Vancouver, by the hour

Stanley Park's seawall and the Prospect Point lookout, the Lions Gate Bridge, Granville Island's public market, Gastown's steam clock and its restaurants, Chinatown and the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen garden, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Kitsilano's beach and Fourth Avenue, Queen Elizabeth Park's view and the VanDusen garden, the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain's gondola on the North Shore, and a dinner in Yaletown or on the West End's Davie Street: an eight-hour tourist day in the SUV with the local chauffeur's order - Stanley Park at 9 before the seawall fills, Granville Island at 11, lunch at the market, the Museum of Anthropology at 2, Capilano and Grouse at 4, dinner in Yaletown - and the car waiting at each. Destination Vancouver has the seasons; the local chauffeur has the parking rules.

The North Shore, and West Vancouver

Across the Lions Gate and the Ironworkers bridges, North Vancouver's Lonsdale Quay and its Shipyards, Deep Cove and the Seymour valley, and West Vancouver's Ambleside and Dundarave and the British Properties' estates above them, Horseshoe Bay's ferry terminal to Nanaimo and the Sunshine Coast, and Cypress Mountain's ski hill: the North Shore is where a Toronto account's Vancouver executive lives when the posting is long, and a West Vancouver household's standing arrangement - the YVR run across two bridges at 5 am, the school run to Collingwood or Mulgrave, the Saturday at Park Royal - is the desk's Vancouver version of the Rosedale household's. The Lions Gate's three lanes and their counterflow are the local chauffeur's daily problem.

The Sea-to-Sky, and Whistler

The Sea-to-Sky Highway from Horseshoe Bay to Whistler - a hundred and twenty kilometres and two hours along Howe Sound past Squamish and the Stawamus Chief and the Shannon Falls, the road rebuilt for the 2010 Olympics - is Vancouver's Muskoka and its Blue Mountain in one, and a Toronto family's Whistler week is a one-way flat fare each way from YVR in the SUV with the ski gear, or a multi-day booking with the chauffeur staying; the Whistler page has the village and the mountain, and the Muskoka page's cottage-run rules apply to the Sea-to-Sky's winter, when the highway's chain-up requirement and its closures are the local chauffeur's knowledge and DriveBC is the dispatcher's screen.

Canada Place, the cruise terminal and the film industry

Canada Place's cruise terminal at the foot of Burrard - the Alaska cruise season from May to September, the ships that board at 11 and sail at 4, the passengers who fly into YVR in the morning and need the six hours between filled - makes the cruise-day booking the desk's Vancouver summer: the YVR meet, the bags held, a half-day of Stanley Park and Granville Island, the drop at the terminal's coach loop at 1. Vancouver's film industry - Hollywood North's studios in Burnaby and on the North Shore, the productions on the downtown streets every week - is the film and production page's other city, with the unit moves and the talent's on-set rules the same as Toronto's.

Where the car waits, in a table

A Vancouver day, timed (book 9)

7:30 YVR, the S-Class, a Toronto managing director off the 6:00 from Pearson; the meet at domestic arrivals. 8:15 the Fairmont Pacific Rim for a shower. 9:00 a mining head office in Bentall 5 on Burrard; the car on Burrard. 11:00 a law firm in Park Place. 12:30 lunch at the Hotel Georgia. 2:00 a technology company on the Broadway corridor. 3:30 UBC's research park. 5:00 the Pacific Rim. 6:30 dinner in Yaletown; the car on Hamilton Street. 9:00 the hotel. Nine hours from the arrivals hall on the Toronto account's invoice, the local chauffeur's Burrard Bridge timing used twice, and the Toronto desk's plate text sent at 7:15 Pacific.

The car

The network operator's fleet in the same classes: the Executive Sedan for the business day and the YVR run; the Mercedes S-Class for the managing director; the Luxury SUV for the family, the Sea-to-Sky with the gear and the North Shore; the Executive Sprinter for the conference delegation, the cruise group and the film unit. The fleet page has the Toronto classes and the desk confirms the Vancouver vehicle on the booking.

What it costs

The Vancouver operator's class hourly rate times the hours, from three (five for a Sprinter), quoted by the Toronto desk at booking and billed with the Toronto bookings on the account's monthly invoice, plus British Columbia's taxes and the gratuity you set; no surge, no meter, and YVR's and the bridges' tolls - there are none - not an issue. The rates page explains the Toronto number and the desk quotes the Vancouver one; the corporate accounts page explains the one-invoice arrangement.

Booking Vancouver

A call or an email to the Toronto desk with the flight, the hotel and the days - the travel desk handles the multi-city trip - or the booker with Vancouver as the pick-up city; the desk confirms the local operator, the vehicle and the chauffeur's name the day before, and the plate text arrives at the meet. A business day two days ahead; the cruise season's mornings and Whistler's Christmas week weeks ahead.

From our network: LAI - Vancouver (YVR) operators · LimousineWorldwide.Directory - Canada · HotelsWorldwide.Directory - luxury hotels in Canada · VacationsWorldwide.Directory - Canada · BookingWorldwide.net - Vancouver hotels, flights and activities.