Okay, it looks like DLC Vancouver is going forward. First of all, given this, two things we need to know.
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What dates work best for you?-
Will you be attending? (and/or likelihood of doing so)General information that may help with planning:
-If you intend to come, are not from Canada, and don't yet have a passport, start applying for your passport
NOW. I can't stress this enough. Don't let your holidays be hostage to your government's bureaucracy. The passport is good for 10 years anyway (in many countries, at least) so it's hardly a bad investment even if you end up having to cancel.
-There are a few different ways to get to Vancouver by air:
--Vancouver airport (YVR) is by far the simplest. It's a quick Skytrain ride (20 minutes max) from there to downtown Vancouver, our apartment, and various other parts of the city. The downside is it has high fees to airline prices to Vancouver can be pretty pricy depending on where you are flying from.
--Seattle is about 2-3 hours away by car and 4 by bus. There is
bus service which connects directly from Seattle-Tacoma airport to Vancouver, with only a small number of stops along the way (though the border takes a while). The travel time will obviously be longer if you go plane + bus, but it
might be cheaper. (It might also not be, you'll have to do your research.)
--Bellingham is a small city just across the border from Vancouver. The same bus that services Seattle to Vancouver stops in Bellingham, so you can take that too. In my experience though, the only cheap flights Bellingham connect to relatively nearby parts of the country, but could be worth looking at for Californians.
--You can also fly to Seattle/Bellingham and rent a car (or, if you're coming from California or any other "close" places, drive from there). Do be careful, though: if you're renting, not all rentals will allow you to cross the border. (Some will, though.)
-We will most likely be renting a house, similar to what we've done in San Francisco in the past. The price will obviously depend on what we're able to find and how many people attend. We've tentatively found places which would run about $200 CDN ($150 US) per person for 12 people for 4 nights (Thursday night to Monday morning). You might want to budget a bit more than that in case prices rise by the time we actually get confirmation for dates and can book things.
-Prices for food and similar things in Vancouver are expensive, i.e. similar to priciest US cities like San Francisco and New York... normally. However, the current Canada-US exchange rate is extremely favourable for US travellers ($1 CDN = 74 US cents, at the time of this post), that should help a good deal; this is definitely the best time to visit Canada in this regard since DLCons first became a thing. (I haven't looked into the current exchange rates for Australia or Finland or the UK or Japan or anywhere else, sorry.)
More to come at some point, but for now, that's the basic info. Please give feedback about your availability as soon as possible.
