Day Trip to Victoria with a Toddler
I’m clearly so bad at updating our blog that it takes me another trip before I make one more of these. Since so many of you were asking what we did on our day trip to Victoria, here’s what we did!
Surprisingly, after living in BC for 12 years now, I had never been to Victoria. My family certainly went, but I’ve just had so many conflicts, so yesterday was my first time stepping foot on the Island. We went on the 8AM ferry. The Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal is pretty fun normally because it’s got a number of stalls, but because it was pretty early a lot of the stalls weren’t open just quite yet. The terminal does have a little playground though, so it’s nice to hang out in while waiting for boarding.
Now that BC has opened most restrictions, and masks are optional, we definitely saw less people with masks these days, even on the ferry. We explored the ferry a little bit but since we had brought our own breakfast, we ended up hanging out in C’s Tesla cause… it’s so nice to have AC and stay in the car and watch TV in a relaxed mode! We watched one of Clement’s favorite movies of all time, Peter Pan.
It took about an hour and half to arrive at the Swartz Bay Terminal ( we did make reservations btw, ferries are at full sailing most of the time these days), then about another half hour to get to Downtown Victoria. First order of things, we checked out the Royal BC Museum. IMAX is still closed right now but at least the exhibits are all open. They had a Natural History section, which is always fun to see all sorts of animal exhibits.
The Royal BC Museum was pretty fun. Chase wasn’t too interested in watching C & I read every single panel and kept running away (lol), so we completed the entire museum in less than 2 hours. I do hope to go back to check it out in more detail one day. We didn’t have to order tickets in advance, we just bought it at the entrance. The tickets were around $26/adult and Chase was free. It was incredible to see the amount of detail they had especially about First Nations. We got to explain the Canadian history to Chase a little bit more through the exhibits and we was super fascinated with the totem poles, his new word this trip. He just kept pointing at all of them throughout the city. Chase really enjoyed looking at the Old Town, too, and so did we! It was a beautiful, carefully curated collection of vintage shops and I personally loved seeing all the stationery and letterpress. I also had fun exploring the Museum Shop - I got myself a couple of carving kits that I’m excited to work on.
After our museum trip, we headed off for some lunch. We wandered around a little bit and found Red Fish Blue Fish. We didn’t realize how busy this place was, but it was good! Line up + food took around 20-25 mins. We ordered way too much, but it was delicious! We had the chowder (a bit on the spicy side), cod fish and chips (I’ve always liked cod for fish and chips, I find it less dry and more flaky which is what I like), the cod dog and the albacore tuna tacones. The tune tacones was a pleasant surprise! Clement devoured the cod dog.
We honestly didn’t realize how busy / popular this spot was until we researched it again later on. We just knew we wanted to have some seafood, so we were pleasantly surprised. It was such a beautiful day to be out on the pier though, and grateful for no seagulls attacking us - which would’ve normally been the case at Steveston or Granville Island.
With our bellies full, we walked back to our parking spot, while taking some photos and videos around the Government Street and the harbor area. Such a beautiful day to be in Victoria! Lots of street performers, ice cream stands, a flurry of people walking back and forth, more totem poles…
Then, we headed to Hatley Castle. We were all quite tired from the early call time, so by the time we arrived at the Castle parking lot, we were all passed out. This property is closed permanently but you are allowed to take photos around it, so once we all woke up we trekked up this little hill to check this X-men mansion out. Funny enough, I was part of this photoshoot a while back when I was just starting out in my business, never got to visit it until now.
Afterwards we were going to head to the Craigdarroch Castle but then we discovered they were going to close in 30 mins (it was already 3:30 at this point), so we headed back to Downtown Victoria and went to the Bug Zoo.
When I saw the recommendations of this place I was really excited about it and it really didn’t disappoint! The entry was $14 per adult and Chase was free. They had a person who explained more about the bugs and could take them out, which we thought was pretty cool. They had some really big bugs that I couldn’t believe really existed. A lot of them were from Africa, which made sense… cause I had seriously never seen some of these bugs in real life. Some bugs gave me the Indiana Jones vibe, and they even had this spider looking bug (scientifically called Amblypygi) that Professor Moody demonstrated the unforgivable curses on. I definitely recommend going there to check all these cool animals out!
Afterwards, we walked around Downtown Victoria again. A lot of places close pretty early on a Sunday (or possibly normally) so we weren’t planning to check out yet another place, but we found this ice cream shop called Favoris that had a line up. We had to check it out! Their unique proposition were this chocolate dips and additional sprinkles to make it extra pretty. Def had its “Willy Wonka” chocolate factory feel to it!
Honest review - I think the chocolate dip is too thick. You can’t break it with a spoon and you have to bite into it really hard. It’s good for the gram - but the taste of the ice cream was pretty average. We got the cotton candy dip for Chase over vanilla (cause Chase just likes these simple), but then he also wanted to try getting a “mustache” on his ice cream which is cotton candy. I wish they put a bit more emphasis on the inside ice cream tasting better, too, and pare back a little bit on the dip. The strawberry milkshake was pretty average, too. Chase ended up not even eating any of the outside parts and just had the vanilla on the inside, LOL! But he did like the milkshake, cause… who wouldn’t!
Our ferry back was at 7PM, so we picked up some easy takeouts for our dinner and started heading back to the terminal. We must’ve devoured so many snacks and fruits along the way. Enjoyed just hanging out again in the car - a huge plus because of C’s electric car. Definitely will come back to explore other parts of Victoria another day!
xoxo,
Karla