My TripAdvisor Review No.566: SkyTrain, Vancouver, Canada.

Fast And Cost Effective Way To Travel.

The SkyTrain of Vancouver Metro is a very quick and cost effective way to zoom through the city. It covers many parts of the city and the outskirts including the International Airport, Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby, Langley, Coquitlam, Port Moody and Maple Ridge among other places.

SkyTrain cuts through the traffic of Vancouver, and even if you have luggage it is very easy to board a skytrain as there are elevators and escalators at all the stations so that you do not even have to lift up your wheeled luggage which you would have to do to put it in the boot of a cab. We did use the skytrain instead of a cab to and from the International Airport and the Pacific Central Rail Station a couple of times.

One can buy a single use ticket or a pre-loaded Compass Card which we can load as a Day Pass or Monthly Pass or any stored value from the Compass Vending Machines located at all the SkyTrain stations or some select London Drug Stores. There are other convenient ways to buy and reload Compass Cards including at the two BC Ferry terminals in Vancouver, as well as the online method for reloading. We paid a deposit of CAD$6 for a Compass Card which got refunded to our credit card account after returning to India. We used the card for buying Day Passes on a couple of occasions.

While buying a ticket one must keep in mind that the city is divided into 3 zones for the purpose of fare calculation. This is shown on a screen at the ticket vending machine. If you are crossing from one zone to another the fare is higher. So have a look at this screen before buying your ticket otherwise the gate will not open when you try to tap out. Keep your ticket with you till you have exited the last SkyTrain station of your destination.

We had a very good experience of using the SkyTrain to get from point A to point B and toured Vancouver by the buses, Skytrain, and even the SeaBus ferry service.

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Date of experience: August 2019

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC