Ride the IKEA Bus from Victoria to Richmond for a Shopaganza!

UPDATE: NEXT IKEA BUS LEAVES VICTORIA ON FEBRUARY 23, 2013

I often grumble that Victoria doesn’t have its own IKEA store. Why must we be denied regular access to this Swedish warehouse-retailer’s low-priced home decor and organizational solutions—its Bergsbo and Billy shelving systems, its Faktum kitchen cabinetry, its Bågviks, its Lämpligs, its Ringskärs and Domsjös? (It’s a bit like being dropped into a Dr. Seuss story, wandering an IKEA store amid these peculiarly named products.)

Fortunately, there is a surprisingly little-known solution for IKEA-starved Islanders: the Pacific Coach Lines’ IKEA Day Trip.

For $65 per person, you can ride a PCL bus from downtown Victoria to the Richmond IKEA store, spend the entire day shopping, and bring home all your purchases in the bus’s big luggage compartment. That price includes your return fare for both the bus and ferry rides.

The special IKEA bus leaves the 700 Douglas Street depot at 7:30 am, and it deposits you back there with your IKEA motherlode at 7:30 pm.

IKEA has special goodies for Pacific Coach Lines passengers, too.

• A visitor name badge that gets you 15% off in the IKEA store restaurant;
• A coupon for a $50 discount if you buy $250 or more worth of merchadise;
• A ballot for a chance to win a “Swede Shop prize pack.”

There isn’t a hard-and-fast schedule for these PCL shopping tours. Check the PCL website for future trips, or, if none are listed there  (not uncommon), call the PCL office for more information.

• Pacific Coach Lines (250-385-3348, 1-800-661-1725; www.pacificcoach.com), 700 Douglas St., Victoria, BC