We had an amazing staycation at Vancouver’s Westin Bayshore Hotel in August of 2022. We recommend what we did to both locals and tourists! It was so much fun!
We stayed one night at The Westin Bayshore in a beautiful room overlooking Stanley Park and Coal Harbour. On the first day we rented electric scooters from Go Scoot which is a locally-owned rental business located at the hotel. We also went to the Vancouver Lookout to admire even more views of the city.
To learn more about what we did on our staycation, continue reading. For the hotel’s official website and to book your own stay, visit the Marriott.com website. And to learn about our experience at the same resort during a colder time of the year, see Our Westin Bayshore Hotel Vancouver Winter Staycation article.
A One-Night Summer Staycation at The Westin Bayshore Hotel
In this article we describe our stay at the hotel and our adventures during our one night and two half days in the city. Whether you are a resident of the Lower Mainland or visiting from out of town, consider this as an example of what you can do on a short stay in Vancouver. We had so much fun! If you do the same or something similar, we bet you will too!
There are lots of great places to stay in downtown Vancouver. We chose The Westin Bayshore Hotel which is arguably one of the most prominent hotels in the city. It was our first time staying there, and we loved it! It’s such a nice hotel! Its restaurant, the H2 Kitchen + Bar, is also excellent. We enjoyed both our dinner and buffet breakfast there immensely!
Our hotel experience, the scootering adventure, walks along the Coal Harbour Seawall and trip up the Vancouver Lookout all made for an incredible 24-hour mini holiday!
The Westin Bayshore, Vancouver
Our stay at The Westin Bayshore was exceptional. We had never stayed there before this trip, but we have wanted to for a long time.
The hotel’s address is 1601 Bayshore Drive. It’s right on the Coal Harbour Seawall just a short distance from Stanley Park. The location is exceptional!
Being local residents of Metro Vancouver who love Coal Harbour’s waterfront, we have passed by the hotel so many times on walks and while cycling. We’ve admired the restaurant’s attractive outdoor patio and gotten glimpses of the hotel’s beautiful swimming pool. Staying at the hotel was definitely on our bucket list! We finally booked a night there, in August of 2022, and we weren’t disappointed!
In addition to its exceptional restaurants, the hotel has a couple of lovely swimming pools and a fitness centre, plus complimentary bicycles for those that want to borrow them. Staying there, we felt like we were somewhere exotic at a fancy resort (but didn’t have to fly anywhere to get there)!
Our Room at The Westin Bayshore
We checked in at the hotel and made our way to our room. It was room number 1888 on the 18th floor and it had the most amazing views of Coal Harbour, Stanley Park, Burrard Inlet and the North Shore Mountains. To say that the view was spectacular is an understatement! (See further below, towards the end of this article, for a 360-degree look at what we saw.)
Our room was very nice. It was modern, clean and very comfortable. It had a king-size bed, a fancy tile shower, and standard features like the TV, bar fridge, desk area and a couple of chairs, plus a coffee maker with Starbucks coffee. It also came with a small outdoor balcony with the incredible views, and house coats for the swimming pools.
To learn more about the specifics of the hotel and its main restaurant, see our articles about the Westin Bayshore and H2 Kitchen + Bar, or visit the Westin Bayshore or H2 Kitchen‘s websites.
Our Go Scoot e-Scootering Adventure
We arrived at the hotel at 1:00 pm which was a couple of hours before our check-in time. As planned, we had wanted to start our mini vacation early with some e-scootering around the area.
Before getting our room we visited the Go Scoot rental shop located in the hotel at the edge of the Coal Harbour Seawall. There we picked up a couple of e-scooters so we could spend the first two hours of our holiday scooting around nearby Stanley Park.
We have seen people on e-scooters before, but never tried one ourselves until then. They are so much fun! And they are easy to ride too!
On the e-scooters we zipped along the seawall and all the way around Stanley Park and back to the hotel in time for check-in. We always highly recommend walking and cycling along the Stanley Park Seawall. Now we highly recommend e-scootering too. And it was so easy to do from the hotel!
The Vancouver Lookout
After checking in at the hotel and resting in our room (and admiring its views) for about an hour, we went for a walk along the beautiful Coal Harbour Seawall.
From the hotel to Gastown it took about 25 minutes. That route along the waterfront is so beautiful! It’s world class in fact! We’ve travelled all over the world, and, in our biased opinions, few urban places are anywhere near as spectacular!
At the edge of Gastown is the Vancouver Lookout which offers the most incredible 360-degree views of the city from its 550 foot-high observation deck. (The view from our hotel room was arguably better, but it wasn’t 360-degrees so we couldn’t see everything.) We had a fabulous time looking around at the Vancouver Lookout, and seeing where we had only just minutes before walked from.
This attraction isn’t just for tourists! It’s so interesting for locals like us too. Because we know the Lower Mainland, in fact, it’s probably even more interesting for us because we recognize everything we can see. You can learn so much at the Vancouver Lookout too. Its displays and audio tour provide so much information!
Back at the Hotel
From the Vancouver Lookout we walked back to the hotel, again along the waterfront. After dinner we went for a swim and for some relaxation time in the hot tub. We also admired the views from our hotel room again. What a lovely first day of our mini holiday did we have!
After a great night’s sleep we had a delicious buffet breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, the H2 Kitchen + Bar. We had fresh fruit smoothies, pastries, smoked salmon lox, gourmet muesli, eggs Benedict, pancakes, yogurt, fresh fruit, juice, and coffee and tea.
After breakfast we thought about borrowing a couple of the hotel’s bicycles, which are free for guests, but decided instead to go for another leisurely walk, again along the Coal Harbour Seawall. It was a simple, yet wonderful way to end our mini holiday getaway!
The Hotel’s Restaurants
The Westin Bayshore has a couple of restaurants. We ate at the H2 Kitchen + Bar which is a newly renovated and recently rebranded establishment that specializes in smokehouse-style cuisine. It’s famous for its rotisserie chicken and barbecued meats. At the hotel there is also the H Tasting Lounge. We didn’t have anything there on this trip, but have promised ourselves to go back another time.
Dinner at the H2 Kitchen
When we ate dinner at the H2 Kitchen + Bar it was exceptional! We sat outside on the patio where we had a view of the swimming pool area. It was a perfect spot to enjoy the warm summer weather and some great live music.
For dinner we had a couple of cocktails and the meat platter for two which was delicious! It included generous portions of barbecued ribs, brisket and pulled pork, plus a selection of vegetables. There was so much food, and it was oh so good!
Breakfast at the Hotel
On the morning of our stay we treated ourselves to the buffet breakfast. Before tip and taxes it cost us $67 and was well worth it. One of us had the full buffet and the other had the continental. Both included a nice selection of breads and pastries, fresh fruit, coffee and juices.
For breakfast there were fruit smoothies as well as granola and other cereals and yogurts. There was also a meat and cheese platter which included smoked salmon lox as well as fancy cups with either exotic muesli or chia concoctions. With the full buffet, there was also everything from fresh omelettes to pancakes and eggs Benedict!
360-Degree View of Vancouver
Below is a 360-degree photo of the view from our hotel room on the 18th floor at The Westin Bayshore.
Assuming the device you’re using to read this article has the necessary technology, the video should appear at first like a video. If you click it though, the photo will stop moving and you can swipe the view from side to side, and up and down, for views from all around. You can also zoom in and out.
As you’ll see in this 360-degree photo, the view of Burrard Inlet and Coal Harbour from The Westin Bayshore is unbelievable! We absolutely loved our room!
Other Information
There are lots of great hotels in downtown Vancouver, including The Westin Bayshore, which is now one of our absolute favourites. We’ll be back there again one day!
There are also so many wonderful things to do in the city, including free things like walks along the Coal Harbour waterfront and visits to Stanley Park.
We live in such an incredibly wonderful and beautiful place! It’s no wonder that millions of people from around the world visit Vancouver each year. More local Lower Mainland residents should treat themselves to mini staycation getaways here too! It’s nice exploring Vancouver during the day. Such a treat though to stay downtown overnight too!
To learn more about the places we visited on our 24-hour getaway visit The Westin Bayshore, H2 Kitchen + Bar, Go Scoot and Vancouver Lookout websites.
Other articles on our website that might be of interest include the following:
- The City of Vancouver
- Coal Harbour Seawall
- Stanley Park Seawall
- Vancouver’s Best Attractions
- Vancouver Vacations & Staying in Downtown Vancouver
- StayVancouverHotels.com
- Restaurants in Vancouver
