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Visiting Nanaimo During the 2010 Olympics?

Tourism Nanaimo has developed a handy reference to help you plan your way from Nanaimo to any of the Olympic events.

The purpose of this Olympic Transportation Planner is to give you a handy reference that provides the earliest time one could leave Nanaimo in the morning and arrive at any Olympic venue and the latest one would have to depart an Olympic venue if they were to safely make it back to Nanaimo on the last ferry.  This “Transportation Planner” assumes use of public transport only (i.e. BC Ferries, Translink, and the Olympic Bus Network). As a rule the total travel time (there and back) for a Vancouver based venue is about 8 hours while a Whistler based venue is about 13+ hours.   As you use this “Transportation Planner” there are some very critical things that you must keep in mind:

  1. This Transportation Planner is meant as a guide to approximate your travel time to an Olympic venue.  All travel times and schedules should be verified with the transportation provider.
  2. Without a valid ticket to a Whistler or Cypress Mountain based event you cannot access the schedule for the Olympic Bus Network.  This Transportation Planner assumes that buses will be leaving fairly regularly (i.e. every 10 - 15 minutes) but we really have no idea if this is the case and if they only run every hour or so travel times may increase dramatically – therefore, arrival times to the venues in the morning would be later and departure times from the venues would have to be earlier.
  3. This schedule assumes no delays in any of the various modes of transportation and this seems like a very dangerous assumption – especially for the return trip home.  For example, it would not surprise us at all that people will be delayed trying to access Translink buses after an event.  Any appreciable delay could mean you would not be at Horseshoe Bay in time for the last ferry which means the you would be spending the night at the ferry terminal (since it is a very safe bet that there will be no accommodation available in Horseshoe Bay). 
  4. There may be significant delays entering an Olympic venue due to security protocols.  These security delays are not accounted for in this Travel Planner and will delay your earliest arrival at an Olympic venue.
  5. Here are the websites that people should access to organize their travel plans:

Ř       BC Ferries - http://www.bcferries.com/schedules/mainland/hbna-current.html  Please note that this is a link directly to the Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay route and that anyone using this schedule should make sure they select the schedule (i.e. Date range) that encompasses the Olympics.

Ř       Translink - http://www.translink.ca  There is a pretty handy “trip planner” right on the home page but unfortunately, as mentioned previously, the schedule during the Olympics is not yet available.  

Ř       Olympic Bus Network - http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-spectator-guide/transportation/from-vancouver-to-cypress-mountain-and-whistler-venues  

We sincerely hope this Travel Planner provides you with helpful information in your consideration of Nanaimo as an alternative accommodator during your Olympic stay. 

Click here to view Tourism Nanaimo's 2010 Olypic Travel Planner.

 

 

Nanaimo, British Columbia.

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Nanaimo Visitor Information

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