Alaskan cruise trip report - Day 1 - Vancouver

-

Austin to Vancouver

Our day began with a 5:30 AM alarm. My step-father picked us up at 6:40 and delivered us to the airport around 7:30. We hadn’t been able to check in online the day before and when I tried to use a kiosk, I was denied there as well so we had to wait in a really long line. We probably waited over 30 minutes to check in, but we arrived at the gate in plenty of time for our 9:10 flight.

Our flights were fairly uneventful. From Austin we flew to LAX and then from there into Vancouver, arriving around 2:30 in the afternoon. It was a long travel day and we were tired, but thankfully there were no delays or issues.

[​IMG]

Customs and passport control in Vancouver wasn’t too busy and we headed out to take the train to downtown Vancouver. Of course, just as it was our turn in line to buy our tickets (they needed more than two ticket machines) a train arrived. But the machine wouldn’t take our credit card. Thankfully, I had gotten some Canadian dollars prior to our trip and we were able to use those. Another train arrived pretty quickly, though, so we were on our way. After about a 25 minute ride and a 10-15 minute walk, we arrived at our hotel,The Blue Horizon. It wasn’t upscale, but it wasn’t a dump either. It was middle of the road, comfortable, clean and was a good location.


[​IMG]

We relaxed a little and organized some luggage before taking a short cab ride to Canada Place to ride Flyover Canada. Canada Place is also the cruise terminal, a convention center and a hotel. There happened to be an anime con going on that weekend so we got to see some really fantastic cosplays all weekend long.

There was a long line for Flyover Canada and we probably waited 30-40 minutes. The ride itself was about 20 minutes, but it was great. It’s exactly the same ride mechanism as Soarin’ at the Disney parks, but with Canadian scenery. I have to give it up for Canada and its amazing scenery.

After Flyover Canada, we walked to a restaurant for dinner called Scoozie which served a unique Italian/mediterranean style menu. I got a unique dish that was sort of like an Italian take on quiche. It had a layer of crust along the bottom, then on top of that it had eggs, on top of that was a thin layer of tomato sauce then toppings on top of that (I had a variety of veggies) and then it was all topped off with mozzarella cheese. It sounds odd, but it was delicious. Roger enjoyed his dish of meatballs with tzatziki sauce. Emmaline had salad and pita breads. They didn’t have a children’s menu, which, I actually think they should have in order to earn the Yelp designation of “good for kids.” She was happy enough, though.

After dinner, we walked a little further towards our hotel to Thierry Chocolate and Pastry shop where Emmaline got a palmier and Roger and I split a strawberry tart with pistachio cream and a chocolate eclair. Everything was amazing. We walked the short distance back to our hotel, where we further organized some belongings and got all our things ready for our adventures the next day.

Click here for Day 2. 
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10-Night France, Iceland, and Norway Cruise - Day 7 At Sea

-
Image
At Sea It’s another day at sea. And this time without laundry (don’t worry, more laundry is coming). Which is good because the day was jam-packed with activities we wanted to do. I woke up at 6:30 and headed to the gym. I found a tiny little piece of real estate and I did a BODYCOMBAT. I had already started learning the chorey for the next release I would be teaching and I knew it somewhat and so I put on the masterclass and listened, but didn’t watch (there really wasn’t any way to watch anyway). I’m sure people thought I was a weirdo punching and kicking in a little corner. It wouldn't be the last time I'd eke out a little corner to punch nothing for an hour. After that I went back to the room and showered and put on my pajamas. Yes, my pajamas. It was time for our FB cruise meet group pajama breakfast. We all descended on Royal Palace at 8 AM decked out in our jammies for breakfast. It was a lot of fun and some families went all out in matching PJs. Emmaline ate breakfast wi
Read more

Fitness Instructor Journey, Part 4: Unbreakable

-
Image
It's been one year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Not that this is something to celebrate, but it's going to be a hard day to forget for the rest of my life. As I've said previously, I'm not an "everything happens for a reason" person but I do find that sometimes the course of our lives can shift in unexpected ways when we face great challenges.  As I stood on the podium this morning to teach my BODYCOMBAT class, I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that if I had not faced the challenge of having cancer, I likely would not have ever become a BODYCOMBAT institutor. Taking that journey was far outside my comfort zone and not something I ever thought I would do.  When I started working for Fitness Connection 5 years ago, I took a BODYPUMP class for the first time and immediately fell in love with it. I loved the music and how it made me feel. I had a big goofy grin on my face the whole class. I also took a BODYCOMBAT class. I did not love it. I
Read more

10-Night France, Iceland, and Norway Cruise - Day 17 Copenhagen to Austin and Final Thoughts

-
Image
Copenhagen to Austin We woke up at 3:15 AM to be out the door by 3:45 AM to make it to the airport at least two hours early for our 7:25 AM flight. Yay. While I was finishing up the last of the packing, Roger said that we had an email from British Airways. Our flight was delayed by two hours. We all piled back into bed with our clothes on and set an alarm for two hours later.  We woke up (again) at 5:45 and hauled our stuff to the train station. There was a 6:27 train to the airport so that worked out really well. We were at the airport by 6:50 but the checkin wasn’t open and things were confusing because they had us stand in a line to “rebook” us and I kept telling them we didn’t need to rebook and I finally heard them letting other people check in for our flight and I asked why we couldn’t and she said, “well, we need to rebook you because you’ll miss your connection.” I explained that, no, we wouldn’t, as our connection wasn’t until 11:45 AM so then she finally let us check in and g
Read more