Renting a Car After a Vancouver Cruise: Open Desks, Seattle and the Drive Home

The port says most cruise arrivals and departures happen between 7 AM and 5 PM, with the peak from early May to late September. You’ll be off the ship somewhere in that window — and the desks don’t care which part of it.

Try Sunday at 9:30. Enterprise opens at 9 and shuts at 2, the station desk never opens, and Hertz on Seymour gives you four hours at most.

Then try Wednesday. Enterprise drops out of the list entirely — the only downtown desk we read with a weekday closure.

A Sunday or Wednesday disembarkation is where the airport earns its fee. YVR’s counters open between 6 and 7 in the morning, a train ride from the ship.

Hertz’s US site lists Mon–Sat 8 to 4 and Sunday 8 to 2; its Australian site lists the same desk, under the name “Fairmont Pacific Rim”, closing half an hour earlier. We use the earlier times..

For a pick-up on the morning you dock, the gap barely matters. It matters on the afternoon you bring the car back, when 3:45 is either half an hour early or fifteen minutes late.

Call the desk before you rely on the later time — 604-606-1666 is the number on its page.

Kayak lists Thrifty and Dollar at the same address with the earlier hours, which nudges us toward those, though we found no Thrifty or Dollar page to confirm them.

Holland America lists luggage storage at Canada Place, 8 AM to 5 PM. That’s one line’s listing, and we didn’t find it confirmed elsewhere, so check with your own cruise line.

If it suits your line, one of you walks to the desk with nothing in hand while the other waits with the cases. That beats a cab to the counter and a second one back — and it keeps the cases off the sidewalk.

Count suitcases before seats. A midsize car swallows a couple’s cruise luggage, not a family’s.

Enterprise, National and Alamo say cars rented in Canada can be driven throughout Canada and the US, not Mexico; Avis says “Canadian vehicles may be driven into the U.S.” (cross-border questions: 1-800-879-2847).

Hertz’s Canadian terms allow the US but ask you to tell the counter, carry the rental agreement, get a pass from the border guard at entry, and bring the car back to the renting location — so no one-way into the US from Hertz Vancouver.

So a round trip south is allowed at several brands. A one-way that finishes in Seattle is a separate question, and we found no brand that publishes the fee for it.

BC counts a one-way drop fee as part of the rental price, so PST applies to it — 7% of whatever that charge turns out to be.

The province also keeps taxing a BC contract after it crosses the line — your Washington miles still carry PST and the daily rental tax.

Coming back into the US by road, US citizens need a WHTI document. The Seattle drive page lists them, along with the train that skips the border line.

Peace Arch is about 32.4 miles from Canada Place on our routing, 54 minutes with no traffic. The wait beyond it is anyone’s guess.

At C$50 a day, four days collected downtown and driven to SEA come to about C$271 before any drop charge, our arithmetic. From YVR, about C$340.

The whole gap is the airport’s lines — the fuel is the same. What you get for it is a counter that’s open the morning you dock, whatever the day.

If the four days include the Sea-to-Sky, the tire rule applies to any trip from Oct 1.

GasWizard’s Vancouver regular price, 210.9 cents a litre on Oct 2, 2026 — about C$7.98 a US gallon, our conversion. CAA’s national average was 175.2 cents.

Vancouver’s pump price sits well above that national figure — about 36 cents a litre higher. Read your contract’s fuel line before deciding whether to refill.

If you’re driving to Seattle, the tank is yours to manage across the border — Washington sells by the US gallon, not the litre.

For a downtown return, fill up on the way in, not the morning after. The closer desks shut early, and you don’t want to be queueing at a pump at 3 o’clock.

Pick the counter by the day of the week your ship gets in. On a Wednesday or Sunday, look hard at the airport.

For a Seattle finish, ask the company about the one-way before you pay, and see our one-way guide for how drop charges work.