AMAZING Vancouver Seaplane trip - Harbour Air

Hello and welcome to another video. I'm Paul Lucas and today I'm in Nanaimo in British Columbia

Today I'm going to be doing something I've never done before. I'm taking a seaplane with harbour

air to Vancouver. Enjoy the video. Nanaimo is a beautiful town on Vancouver Island in British

Columbia, Canada. Harbour air seaplanes can be found down naturally at the seafront. It's well

signposted from the main road and you certainly can't miss the terminal, this beautiful wooden

structure jutting out into the sea. The building contains not just the departure lounge, but also

a pub and restaurant. It seems hard to believe that from such an idyllic place, people actually

commute by plane into Vancouver Harbour. Check-in is located across the road from the main terminal

building. Here, your bag will be weighed and tagged. Interestingly, they seem to have put the weight of

the bag on the tag here in pounds rather than kilos, which is standard in most civil aviation

This is definitely one of the most unusual places I've ever checked in for a flight before

I'll talk more about costs later in the video, but if you have a large bag to check in, you'll

need to go for the GO Gold fare. With this, you get a free drink at the destination, Vancouver

and also priority seating. It was incredibly easy to check in. There's no security checkpoint, so all you have to

do is head on over to the departure lounge which is located in the main terminal building

The restaurant and pub is on the right-hand side of this picture but it's

actually too early to go to the pub. It doesn't open until 11am. The departure

lounge is pretty small after all it wouldn't need to hold more than one or

possibly two flights worth of people at once. Regardless of fare, everyone has access to the departure lounge. There are free local

newspapers, tea, coffee and filtered water. It's a higher standard of service than most

mainstream airlines. Free Wi-Fi is also available in the departure lounge, although you probably

won't be there for very long. You can check in with bags as late as 25 minutes prior to departure

Our aircraft lands on schedule. This is the inbound working from Vancouver Harbour

The company also serves Vancouver Airport's seaplane facility from here, and an inbound

flight can be spotted arriving just now. Today aircraft is a de Havilland Canada Turbo Otter This carries a maximum of 14 passengers and with so few people to board the captain does it herself

I think everybody's going to be ready. If you have a reserved seat, looking for a card, if not, any other seat without a card

Thank you. I've reserved seat number one, which is right at the front of the aircraft, behind the bulkhead

separating the cabin from the pilots. If the flight is only being operated by a single pilot, you can actually request to sit in the co-pilot's seat

However, there are two pilots on this flight, and so that's not an option

Curiously, on these aircraft, the safety briefing is delivered via an iPad

This was my first time ever in a seaplane, and as the engine started, I was particularly excited

Let's just sit back and enjoy the take-off. Trouces Two Music

As we climb away from Nanaimo Harbour, let's familiarise ourselves with just how short this flight is

The harbour to Vancouver is just 39 miles. The entire flight takes no more than 20 minutes to complete

The ferry will take you around an hour and three quarters. The seaplane is an incredibly visceral form of flying

Just a few thousand feet above the water, the entire flight is conducted within sight of the ground

The Pacific Northwest is one of the most stunning parts of the world

and Vancouver and Vancouver Island are no exception to this. The scenery is stunning all the way along the route

Leaving Nanaimo Harbour we come across Snake Island

This is a popular diving spot as well as being a nature reserve and seal breeding spot

in terms of facilities on board there's an individual air nozzle above the seat

there's a storage pocket in front of the seat and there is a reasonable amount of legroom

considering we're in a very small aircraft the seat pocket also contains a local business magazine

which is testament to the fact that this flight does appear to be used mostly by commuters

Harbour Air even have a full page advertisement in this magazine There's also a large Harbour Air route map in the seat pocket

and that lists everywhere the company flies to As well as the routes that you can see here

Harbour Air also operates sightseeing flights You can find all of their sightseeing and tour flights on their website

which I will link to in the description below Don't forget that if you don't already

you can follow me on my social media I'm on Instagram and Twitter

where I talk about travel and live blog all of my trips in real time. Something which I didn't realise until much later on in the flight is that the

side windows are actually bubbles. This means that you can actually peek your head around the

outside of the aircraft and get a very good view forward or backwards. As we approach the city of Vancouver, the weather turns a little for the worse and clouds over

There's a lot of sea and air traffic around. Here's the ferry which goes to Vancouver and

here's another flight on its way to Nanaimo from Vancouver Harbour

Our approach over Burrowed Inlet is spectacular. As well as the sights of West Vancouver, there's

also a fair amount of industry to be seen as well As we approach the Lions Gate Bridge the aircraft starts descending towards Vancouver Harbour where we make our landing on water

Thank you

This flight cost me around 129 Canadian dollars one way

That's about 73 pounds and included a large checked bag, priority seating, refundability

and flexibility. This is the highest fare type that the company offers. If you travel towards

the middle of the day when there's less demand, you can find fares as low as $76, but they don't

include any of the features which I spoke about earlier. This was a truly incredible experience

and even though the flight was only 20 minutes long, I definitely feel I need more seaplanes

in my life. Let me know in the comments what you thought of the journey, and whether you've been

on a seaplane before, and what you made of it. I make an effort to read every comment

so keep them coming and that's it welcome to downtown vancouver now i've not taken the ferry

between nanaimo and vancouver but i have to say it can't be more exciting than that i really hope

you've enjoyed the video definitely something a little bit different for the channel i'll see you

again in a few days with another flight review until then take care