Warning, today’s lecture may prompt to you to bust out a frightfully off-key but spirited rendition of O Canada! regardless of nationality (forgive me stars and stripes) and book a cruise to Alaska from Vancouver just for an excuse to experience this pre or post cruise excursion.
Or you can do like I did and sail on a one night cruise from Seattle to Vancouver with the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park as your only consolation as security escorts you off the ship with the threat of a lifetime ban if you don’t, “stop flailing about and begin walking on your own two feet, ma’am!” Apparently even just one night of cruise binging can make one’s dead weight nearly impossible to drag.
Thankfully I’d planned ahead for the time between my inevitable forced disembarkation and my tearful bus ride back home to Seattle that evening by pre- purchasing a ticket to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park located just 20 minutes from the cruise terminal in downtown Vancouver and reached via a complimentary shuttle. Read on for an overview of the top spots in the park and my 10 extra credit pro tips for making the most of your visit to one of my all-time favorite excursions.
These days I generally use the word “highlights” for its off label meaning: gray hairs. For which I now have more of than my former strawberry blonde. So while my online dating profile reads “Emily: a strawberry blonde with soft gray highlights seeking her Captain Stubing,” I’d state my name to the polygraph machine as Sarah AKA Prof. Cruise and describe the color of my unruly mane as gray with a few strawberry blonde highlights so subtle as to be almost entirely invisible to the naked eye.
But in this context, I use the word “highlights” to describe my favorite areas of the Capilano Suspension Bridge park.
The Story Center is near the entrance and offers an introduction to the history of the bridge and the local area. I was surprised to learn that the bridge dates all the way back to 1889 and loved the park even more for being 89 years my senior, but showing no signs of decay, instead continuing to grow and improve with age: no grays on Capilano, highlights or otherwise.
Capilano Suspension Bridge Park has long and deep ties to the local First Nations people. In fact, “Capilano” came from the word Kia’Pilano, meaning “beautiful river.” Kia’palano was also a Squamish chief who lived in the area in the early 1800’s.
In 1935, then owner “Mac” MacEachran invited the local First Nations people to house some of their totem poles in the park. Today, the Kia’Pilano area of the park continues to display many of these poles as well as highlighting the connection between the First Nations people and the natural world.
You can also take a photo of your noggin peaking through a hollowed out hole in a totem pole to confuse your grandparents: “well all be damned, that pole looks just like little Tommy.” Kind of like that time at our local amusement park when my parents paid for a fake travel magazine cover to be superimposed on a photo of my brother and I in hula costumes to trick my grandparents into thinking we’d been discovered by a modeling agency on our family vacation to Hawaii. They totally fell for it and this story became fodder for boisterous laughing around many a Thanksgiving dinner table to come (which I did not appreciate, believing that my prospects as a covergirl shouldn’t be viewed by my own family as so absurd).
You may find yourself on the other side of the Capilano suspension bridge thanking the good lord that you survived, casting aside your germophobia in favor of acrophobia as you aggressively kiss solid ground: I love you, I love you, I love you!
At this point you’re probably also wondering about the process to immigrate to Canada and searching for suitable housing on this side of the bridge as a return trip across the Capilano is the only route back to Seattle (or wherever it is you hang your buffet pants between cruises).
Might I recommend you avoid the “Treetop Adventure” and instead follow the arrow toward the “Natures Edge Walk” where you will find this charming cabin perched on the banks of a picturesque trout pond. Sadly, the bolted door and “no fishing” sign suggest that you’re not the first one to contemplate settling here, heartened at the condition of the roof, “that should see me through the winter,” and the sight of plentiful edible fish.
You can continue to ponder your fate as you meander along gentle wood planked pathways level with the forest floor.
If you were the first person in the history of the Alaskan whale watching excursion company you selected for “guaranteed whale sightings” to receive a full refund when nary a distant spout could be spotted through high powered binoculars let alone the bubble feeding or full breach your dinner-mates in the MDR reported having seen on their excursion that very same day, you’ll want to bring your good camera along to Raptors Ridge to capture a close-up for your Facebook friends, N=24, of the “Alaskan wildlife” you’ve been optimistically boasting about since booking your cruise 23 months ago. I won’t tell them the bird was captive. Or that the photo was taken in Vancouver. You promised them wildlife, you’ll give them wildlife!
If you, like me, require platform shoes to reach the minimum height requirement for carnival rides leading you to envy the views afforded to canopy dwellers or wish you were a bird so you could poop on overly uptight humans from 110 feet in the air then hoot from a hidden perch as they search the sky to assign blame and desperately rummage through their purse for a hanky, you’ll love the Treetops Adventure at Capilano Park.
The Treetops Adventure includes seven suspension bridges that allow you to travel, towering high above the forest floor, between eight 250 year-old Douglas-fir trees.
This impressive feat of engineering was bad news for mountain goats who, prior to 2011 when the Cliffwalk was added to Capilano Park, would arrogantly proclaim: “you humans with your fancy opposable thumbs may have figured out fire, agriculture, writing, large-scale cooperation, and tools, but I bet you can’t do this:”
Yes, we can…
The cantilevered wood plank and glass floored pathways – jutting out from the granite cliff face in some areas and hugging close to it in others – offer spectacular views of the Capilano River far, and I mean far, below.
As a professor, you may assume I stop to read educational signs and would be eager to spend some time at this area offering water and erosion education. But, while I enjoyed the little waterfall and skipping across the creek, I came to this park to dangle off the edge of stuff and quickly moved through these displays, finding them too subdued.
Which finally brings me to the main attraction, thrilling to some, terrifying to others, but rarely described as subdued:
At 460 feet long and 230 feet above the Capilano river, getting to the other side of this thing requires both bravery and balance. Build up a reserve of the former to allow you to stop midway across and gaze out at the spectacular scenery surrounding you. Or, if you’re a single gal hoping to attract the favor of a handsome gentleman 10 paces ahead of you, run toward him and slip him your number. No, seriously. In 1974 a famous psychological experiment was conducted on the Capilano Bridge. Findings suggested that men were more likely to call women who approached them on the suspension bridge than on a more solid bridge across the same river. It seems the men were mistakenly attributing arousal caused by fear to sexual attraction toward the women. Now if I could just figure a way to meet a cruise ship captain out there…
In order to maximize your day at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, I recommend the following:
| Adult | Child 6-12 | Child 0-5 | Youth 13-16 | Senior |
| $44.33 | $13.93 | free | $24.61 | $40.22 |
If you purchase your tickets online prior to arriving at the park, you can skip to the front of the line and head right in. This is a very popular attraction with well over 1 million visitors a year and the wait to purchase tickets can be quite long at times. I bought my ticket through Viator here. Be sure to remember to print your ticket and bring it along with your other cruise documents.
Included with your ticket is a free shuttle with several different stops around the downtown area, including one near the cruise ship terminal.
As a bonus, you’ll get to drive through some interesting areas of downtown and Stanley Park and over the Lions Gate Bridge with your friendly driver providing commentary.
Do as I did and hop on the first available shuttle of the day which will deliver you to the park a few minutes before it opens. With your pre-purchased ticket, you’ll be one of the first visitors inside the gates.
Assuming you take my advice above and arrive at the park early, you’ll want set a new sprinting record for yourself as you head directly for the bridge. Don’t get distracted by The Sugar Shack’s soft serve and add an extra 10 minutes to your already 20 minute mile like I was tempted to do or you’ll miss the chance to snap a cool photo of the bridge before the hoards arrive (the photo on the left above was taken right after the park opened and the one on the right just 20 minutes after opening – it got even more crowded as the day went on) and ask yourself: “is there a weight limit on this thing?”
I saw it twice, once perched in the trees as I looked down toward the river from the Capilano Bridge and once flying around near that same area.
Learn why mature Douglas-firs are able to survive forest fires but why you’d be more flammable than a liver at a frat party if you stood next to one.
Grab a map and passport book as you enter the park and collect stamps at the major attractions. Take your completed passport to Guest Services to receive your “I made it” certificate. I feel like in this day and age there should also be a certificate for those who don’t make it, “nice try,” but I suppose your family will be too busy planning your funeral to pick it up.
If you’re an actual child or just accused of being a child by your humorless wife (What? Just because you spit in her hair and pelted her with a conifer cone from the Treetops Adventure), you can earn a rainforest explorer badge by recording some scientific observations. Grab a clipboard from the tree house at the start of the Treetops Adventure.
Refuel with coffee and sweets from Dr. Wood’s Cabin or The Sugar Shack, grab a casual lunch at Logger’s Grill, or rest your quads over a sit-down meal at The Cliffhouse Restaurant. Then grab a souvenir for the 6 year-old you abandoned to the care of Mr. Cruise for the weekend in favor of “me time.” #solocruise #momoftheyear #sorrynotsorry
Breathe deeply, until sweet air extinguishes the burn of fear in your lungs and every breath is a beautiful refusal to become anything less than infinite. – D. Antoinette Foy
Then use the free park-wide wifi to book your next cruise! And with that…
Class Dismissed.
Homework (10 points): Check out all my Alaska port reviews here and go here for information about the debarkation process in Vancouver. And don’t forget to subscribe to the blog to receive new Cruising 101 content direct to your e-mail (scroll up to the top right if on a computer or keep scrolling down if on a mobile device) and follow me on social media:
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