I am from Cape Town and will be visiting friends in Vancouver in late June. I'd like to do the one day ferry trip from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert (or Bella-Bella) and return back to Vancouver. Is it possible to do this as a 2 day/one over-night trip and how do I get to Port Hardy from Vancouver? The only option I could find is with Pacific Coastal Airlines, but the earliest flight does not arrive in time for the ferry departure (at 07h30)? If anyone could help I'd be much obliged!

The Port Hardy-Prince Rupert ferry is 18 hours, one way, and the ferry doesn't depart every day. It would take one day to get from Vancouver to Port Hardy, and then all day to get from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert. You'd have to wait however long until the next one, and do the entire thing in reverse. I would say the absolute minimum you could do this in would be 4 days, assuming the return ferry is the next day, and not say, the following week.

But honestly, I don't see why you'd want to do this - you could make better use of your time and see a lot more without taking that particular ferry. Is it just for scenery? The scenery isn't as spectacular along that journey as you may anticipate.

If you're looking for an overnight trip somewhere, I would instead recommend doing an overnight in Victoria on Vancouver Island. Take the ferry one way from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay and take a float plane with Harbour Air or West Coast Air on the way back.

To answer your question about getting to Port Hardy, the alternative to flying would be to drive from Vancouver to Horseshoe Bay (30 minutes), take the ferry across to Nanaimo (1 hour, 40 minutes), then take the Greyhound bus from Nanaimo to Port Hardy.

The problem is that Greyhound only leaves once per day, so by the time you get to Nanaimo, you may have already missed it. According to the Greyhound website, it takes 7 hours and 10 minutes to drive from Nanaimo to Port Hardy, and it departs Nanaimo at 8:30 in the morning.

Dear Carmanah
Thanks so much for the speedy and detailed reply. I was hoping someone from Vancouver would see it and know the details as its tricky to figure it all out from here. So again thanks very much. I have been to Vancouver before (not for long only about 2 days but I've seen the typical tourist stuff like Gastown, walked around the harbour area and took one of those double-decker tourist buses). The only reason I wanted to do the Inner Passage was to experience the scenery of the Paficic Coastline. Could you suggest something similar and do-able within a day or two? Is the trip to Victoria worth it? I heard Victoria is pretty, but if I had to choose I'd rather see some of the rugged coastline of the Pacific, so any suggestions would be great. And thanks again!! Janis

Alternate Option - You might want to consider taking BC Ferries to the Sunshine Coast area of BC. I've found some sites you might want to check out.

sunshinecoast.ca
www.bigpacific.com
www.sunshinecoasttours.bc.ca

A few years ago I ended up driving to Port Hardy and staying there overnight, as I had the same problem you've encountered---difficulty making ferry connections.