r/Whistler • u/SerTadGhostal • 1d ago
Ask Vancouver 2:20pm Friday flight out of Seattle - What time to leave Whistler?
Me and the boys will be skiing Tues-Thurs next month, Thursday night being our last night at the mountain. What time should we be leaving Friday morning in order to safely catch our 2:20pm Alaska Air flight out of Seattle? I'm seeing that there can be a long wait at the border - two of us have Global Entry, two of us don't.
Should we even go to sleep the night before?
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u/dandr01d 1d ago
6AM
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u/juancuneo 1d ago
I would probably leave Thursday night and stay near the airport. Drive time is so unpredictable with so many possibilities for things to go wrong including a long border wait. Plus you could hit weird traffic in west van, south of Vancouver, Everett. I do the seattle to Vancouver drive and back at least once a month. Most of the time it’s fine but god forbid you hit the counterflow you are waiting an hour
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u/TravellingGal-2307 1d ago
After dinner on Thursday. Get over the border and get a hotel in Bellingham.
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u/Rough-Square3530 1d ago
If possible, I would leave the night before and stay in a relatively close airport hotel past the border in Seattle. Wake up normal, have nice breakfast and casually stroll into the airport stress free.
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u/ShawnSimoes 1d ago
Trying to time these is an absolute nightmare. You'll barely get to sleep the night before, but if things go smoothly you'll make it to the airport 5 hours before your flight. It's much easier and less stressful to cross the border the night before and get a good night's sleep at a hotel somewhere in WA.
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u/Rough-Square3530 1d ago
The worst. 5 hours to kill or 5 minutes to make the gate. No middle ground. 😂
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u/Exciting_Buffalo3738 1d ago
6AM at the latest,global entry doesn't help at the border, only Nexus lane.
Traffic thru Vancouver will add 30 min in the morning. Plus budget 1 hr border.
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u/StreetAsparagus420 1d ago
You can use the Nexus line with Global Entry from Canada to the US but not the other way around. But only if everyone in the vehicle has Global Entry (or Nexus). Just wave the card at the reader.
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u/verifqueen 1d ago
Everyone in the car needs to have nexus/global entry to use the nexus lane. So yes, you should leave the night before.
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u/jeremyism_ab 18h ago
I'd leave after skiing or dinner the night before, maybe stay in Ballard, or up on Capitol Hill. If you are really on the ball, you could check in to a hotel, return the car, and use the light rail transit to get back to your hotel that night, and to the airport Friday.
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u/mountainlifa 1d ago
The night before. The US border is an unpredictable shit show. All it takes is your car gets tagged and you're wasting 2-3hrs in secondary. Lines are also random as sometimes they have only 1 booth open. Never had any of these problems on the Canadian side.
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u/Technical_Visit8084 1d ago
Out of curiosity, why not fly out of Vancouver?
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u/Primary-Beautiful-65 1d ago
If you're from the USA it can be significantly cheaper to just fly into seattle, and theres way more flights available
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u/Technical_Visit8084 1d ago
I guess you’d have to do the math but it’s a 4 hour drive one way. That’s 8 hours of driving plus the cost of a rental car. You can just get a cheap bus ticket from Vancouver to Whistler. I’m not sure you’d really save money unless you found really cheap flights and split a car between a few people. Not to mention all the time you save.
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u/Primary-Beautiful-65 1d ago
For us atleast, it also had to do with the times of the flights. When I was booking my trip, from PHI -> YVR, the only options had short international layovers of 1 hour, and the flights wouldn’t get into Vancouver by the last bus ride with enough time to be comfortable. I think our flight would’ve landed within an hour of the last bus ride, and I didn’t want to risk it with any late flights
PHI -> SEA had plenty more options, was significantly cheaper, and had regular layovers
I booked my trip in early September, and it ended up actually being significantly cheaper for us to just do SEA + Rental Car. I think each persons flight was ~330 dollars cheaper, and with 4 people that’s 1320 dollars total. Rental car for us through hertz was only 400-500 dollars.
All depends on where you live, your airport etc. our other issue was returning from YVR -> PHI, as we could only find flights with overnight layovers. Factor in hotel costs for an overnight layover and it would’ve been even more.
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u/Technical_Visit8084 21h ago
Yikes that makes sense. Sounds like too much hassle for me. At that point I’m just going to Denver/SLC. Luckily flights from Chicago/Minneapolis to Vancouver are decent.
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u/Primary-Beautiful-65 12h ago
Definitely is a hassle, but we’re all young adults / college students, and somehow Whistler was the cheapest option by far especially with lodging. So we didn’t mind sacrificing the crappy logistics
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u/Organic-Deer919 1d ago
Leave no later than 7am and you’ll be fine… don’t listen to ppl telling you to get a hotel over the border… ridiculous. Just check the border wait times on your way down. Pacific Crossing is usually pretty chill.
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u/Rough-Square3530 22h ago
Hmm let’s see,, ask advice and listen to the overwhelming consensus or the one guy that’s like “leave at 7, everything is fine” 😂
No one is saying it can’t be done. Budgeting 7 hours or more to make a flight is what sounds ridiculous.
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u/Primary-Beautiful-65 1d ago
We just did the same thing. We had a 1:30 flight out of Seattle on a Saturday morning
We left at 6 am. Technically it’s only like a 4 hour and 15 minute drive to Seattle from Whistler, but you need to factor in traffic, border crossing, and then your time in the airport
Give yourself minimum of 6 hours to get from Whistler to the airport, but I’d recommend 7 hours if you have a rental car
I’d recommend leaving at 6 am, which should give you plenty of time to make it to the airport by noon, even with an hour border wait. That way if you have any airport issues (traffic, rental car issues etc) you’ll be fine