franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
Welcome to my Alaskan cruise trip report!
This trip really wasn't on my radar.
Well OK, after reading a few DCL TRs, I had mentioned to Fran it would be fun to go back and do another Alaskan cruise with Disney.
But in my mind it was much farther away than this year.
Now Fran will tell you that I book all the cruises, but this one was all her.
She doesn't remember that now.
Even Darcy (our housekeeper) pointed out that it was Fran's idea to book another cruise when Fran was complaining the week before we left that we never get anything done at home because I keep booking trips.
It was even her idea to bring my parents along.
So here's the skinny. Fran and I are the Disney Fanatics. Before there was a Disney cruise line, we went on an Alaskan cruise with Celebrity. This was only my second vacation with Fran and I had no idea of the exciting adventures we had in store! We took a helicopter flight that landed on a glacier.
We took a jet boat through the alluvial run off of a glacier.
And we flew in a float plane that landed on a lake.
We visited saloons and just had an all around good time!
Sure it was cold
And we cleaned up OK
We even had some fun in Vancouver after the cruise.
Some of these adventures might be happening again on this trip, but we have a whole host of new ones as well. Can you believe how young we look in all those pictures?
Here we are with my parents, it's really hard to get them in pictures. This was probably 10 years ago, maybe more.
Most of the time when we visit with them, we take pictures of all our food, but rarely do we take pictures of ourselves. These are from mine and Fran's wedding.
We provided wine at the wedding based on a policy we learned at a party at the Grgich winery. Your table could have all the bottles of wine you wanted (which I provided the reds from my cellar) but you had to bring back your empty bottle to get a new one. My Dad knew that there were quite a few well aged Ridge wines in the bunch and he kept sending "runners" up to get another bottle. He was the only man seated at that table with 7-9 all younger women and they were calling him "Daddy Wine Bucks".
Needless to say they had the most bottles, and long after Fran and I had gone home, they were out on the dance floor recreating the modern dance recitals my mom used to be in when I was in High school.
These are a couple photos of us over the last 3 years or so, I've got them in somewhat chronological order.
And then this is the whole extended family including my sister’s offspring. We did Thanksgiving at their place in Everett, WA, a couple years ago, which was interesting to say the least!
For the most part my parents are mild mannered computer geeks, both retired programmers who were in the field before anyone even knew what it was. Mom is now in the Iris Society and the Mum society. Her yard is like a botanical museum complete with tags identifying each plant by name. She is also into birding. I believe some of the excursions she has booked include identifying various species of birds in the area.
Dad is very quiet and subdued, but he doesn't miss a beat of what's going on around him. Most of the day he sits at his computer and after dinner he watches TV all night. I'm curious to see how he entertains himself on the cruise!
So now that you have an idea of who we are, let's get on with the trip report!
First off there will be no sunrise pictures. With sunrise occurring at around 4:00AM even if I was awake then, I decided to go back to sleep rather than stand out on the balcony in a robe in 50 degree weather.
Second, there will be no contest, so the updates may come a little faster than my current WDW trip report. In fact it's very possible both TRs will wrap up around the same time, which might just be when I leave on my next trip to WDW! Imagine that!
Third, if you’re perplexed by the Title, let Google be your friend. Or you could just wait it out until I get to the ‘splainin’ part.
So, without further adieu let's get on with this thing.
Day 1, Travel Day
I don't know what possessed us to travel on Friday of a major holiday weekend.
Perhaps we just weren't thinking when we made the reservations.
Then take into account that only three days earlier terrorists had blown up a bunch of people in Turkey.
As a result, to say security was really tight would be like saying spanx are comfortable.
Cops were everywhere.
They were routing everyone to the arrivals level from the direction where we entered the airport. We tried exiting the airport and coming back, but again that just put us on the lower level where the arrivals were.
Finally, Fran just decided to pull over and get out at the arrivals level.
One terminal past the one where we needed to be.
We would have to take an elevator to the departure level once I came back from parking the car, and then walk back one terminal with our four suitcases and two carry ons. If you’ve been to LAX before you understand what a PITA this is.
To confuse things even more, we were trying a new parking service and I wasn't exactly sure where they were located. Turns out when I left the airport, I should have gone North on Sepulveda Blvd, but instead I went South. The GPS quickly rerouted me and I got a fun little tour around the back end of the airport, all 4.7 miles around it! I was slightly freaking out. Our plane left at 9:50 and by this time it was 7:15, all the news programs were saying arrive 3 hours before international flights. Technically Fran had arrived at the airport, but she needed me there too and I was parking the darned car! I found the new place and saw that uncovered self parking (the cheapest) was on the roof and there was a sign that stated no elevator access to the roof. I just said "screw it" and grabbed the first spot I saw and headed for the shuttle stop. At least our car won’t be as dirty when we get back. It hasn’t been washed in almost a year now due to the drought.
At 7:25 I called Fran to tell her I was almost back at the airport, and once the bus dropped me off I took the elevator down to find Fran. At least she was right in front of it, so we schlepped our bags upstairs and back one terminal. Fran scooted ahead to get us a skycap. For whatever reason he couldn't check us in outside, so he took us inside to an agent. He sent us ahead and said that he would take care of the bags for us. As we were being helped by the gate agent, he asked us, "Where is your van? Don't you two normally show up in a van?" Great. Now we're notorious! We told him about the whole debacle with the arrivals level and gave him $10 for his trouble.
For whatever reason we got cleared for TSA Precheck, we have an appointment when we get back from this trip to actually go and pay the $80 or so to guarantee it for the future, but it was nice to randomly get it on this trip.
Fran got pulled aside for special checking so I went and sat on a bench to wait for her. This guy comes through the Precheck screening, and he stops in front of the glass where all the other poor saps are waiting in a HUGE line and starts silently waving his hands over his head and sort of making a gestures as if he is screaming and making a scene. Then he takes his suitcoat from over his shoulder in a very suave move and starts to put it back on as he walks towards me. By this point I'm staring directly at him and he is looking at me. I'm like, "I know that guy!" And I wanted to blurt out, "Hey Tony!" Then I got a hold of myself and realized that's Michael Weatherly, he doesn't know me.
Finally, I recognized a celebrity that wasn't a chef. The only other time I recognized one was Timothy Omundson who played Detective Lassiter on Psych or the King on Galavant when he was waiting for his car from the Valet at the Grand Californian.
But I digress. We were going to the remote terminal. Not the one we flew out of for our flight to Orlando, but the civilized one which is more like a mini terminal for American Eagle. First we stopped at Dunkin Donuts, we split a bagel with cream cheese and a fruit cup. I got an iced coffee and a sugared donut, she got a maple bar and a Boston Creme donut. Sorry about the lack of pictures, everything was so hectic I just didn't feel like pulling my camera out of the bottom of my purse. Don’t worry, it gets better.
We boarded the bus to the remote terminal and the bus driver made a comment about "Nice to see you ladies again!" We were both a little stunned, "You don't remember me?" He asked, "I drove you two ladies on your way to Florida."
Definitely notorious.
We ate our halves of bagel on the bus to the terminal and then ate the fruit cup while waiting for boarding.
Getting on the plane was an adventure, they let us on first and evidently we missed the sign that says, "leave your scooter here" because going up the hill, the scooter konked out. I started pushing it, not so easy with two carry ons and a purse. We realized pretty quickly that it wasn't going to go up to the door of the plane and now all the other passengers were coming behind us. Fran went ahead to tell the plane staff that we messed up and I stayed with the scooter for a little bit, but I realized that if I didn't get on the plane soon all the overhead bin space would be gone. So I got on and started trying to put the bags in. Well this was an American Eagle flight and they have smaller overhead bins. Fran had packed her carry on so thick that it wouldn't fit. We'd had this problem before, and I knew the solution. So I started grabbing stuff out of the bag and handing it to her. Finally, I got it to fit. She had thrown her over shirt on my seat and I sat down on it to get out of the aisle. Then we stuffed everything I took out of the overhead bin bag into her other carry on bag.
Once she seemed settled I said, "Can I now take your Overflannel out from under my butt?" So I stood up in my seat and pulled the Overflannel off the seat, and that's when I found the bag with our donuts.
Our flat donuts.
We ate our flat donuts in peace and finally the plane took off.
Our stewardess was a complete and total idiot. When she asked me what I wanted to drink, I asked if they had any V8.
She looked at me as if I had three heads and said, "What's that?"
I wasn't even sure how to answer her! I just asked for water and went to work on my phone chronicling the day’s events so far.
About an hour into the flight she came around asking what people would like to eat. I heard her saying a chicken Caesar wrap or a chicken salad. When she got to me she asked if I would like a chicken salad. "You're already out of the wraps?" I asked, and she confirmed.
I asked what was in the salad and she told me there was chicken, cheesecake.....and I'm like "huh?" Again I asked, "What is in the SALAD?" She told me tomatoes, cheese, not once did she say lettuce so I still had no idea if it was chicken salad like tuna salad or a bowl of lettuce with chicken on top. I decided to try it and it didn't look half bad.
Until I noticed this.
I asked if they had any other dressing.
She said no.
So I tried a little bit.
NASTY!
Oh well we arrive in Vancouver around 1PM and we can get lunch then. The chicken was dry too. The cheesecake wasn't half bad, so I ate that.
They came through the cabin with customs forms and I filled that out. For the rest of the trip I just played solitaire and other games on my phone.
When we landed, we were the last ones off the plane (as usual) and they were very prompt at bringing Fran's scooter up. We headed up the gangway and at the top, we stopped to regroup and put all the bags on the scooter. Then we walked, and we walked and we walked some more. Finally, we came to an elevator.
When we exited the elevator we were inside the customs clearance area. They were directing Canadians to one line and all foreign passengers to another huge line. When they saw Fran the gentleman directed us in completely the opposite direction and we ended up going through the window for foreign diplomats, with no wait!
We found our baggage carousel and since all the rest of our plane had to wait in the huge line, our bags were not riding the carousel all lonely and by themselves! I started to pull them off the line and a porter approached us. Fran was going to wave him off, but I disagreed.
Best.
Decision.
Ever!
That was easily a great $20 spent. You see three of our bags were (just) under the maximum weight for Coach and one was 54 lbs, but they let it go since were flying Business Class. I was already tired from only 4 1/2 hours sleep and pushing the bags from terminal 5 to terminal 4 at LAX, plus this guy knew exactly where we needed to go, what we needed to do and got us there in the minimum amount of time. Of course it was equally as long to the rental car location as we had already walked, and he walked twice as fast as I could. I was winded by the time I got to the rental car counter. They were in the ground floor of a parking garage that was next to but not physically connected to the terminal.
He left our bags on the curb in the garage outside the counter area. It was interesting, they have a schedule of how much they charge posted on the cart, I tried to read it, but when he said $17, I stopped trying to figure it out. Fran gave him US$20 so I hope he was happy.
We have learned to put things in my name, that way if Fran is feeling bad and doesn't want to go in and deal with it, I can do it. They were able to add her as a secondary driver while she sat and guarded the bags. We were up graded from a Ford Escape to a Flex, which was nice. We have been debating if we liked the Flex or a Chrysler minivan. We said that we would need to go to the car dealer with four large suitcases, four carry ons, and a scooter and try the Flex. Well we got our chance. Spoiler: we still like the minivan better. Everything fit but it was tight. It's a lot smaller than our Expedition. Plus she had a hard time getting her foot into the car, so it’s a no deal.
Next stop the hotel! But here we are approaching Downtown Vancouver and crossing the bridge.
We programmed the hotel address into the GPS and it began to tell us where to go.
We got to the hotel (with a few trips around the block) and our room was ready! Fran went up to the room with our bags and the bellman while I parked the car in back. I was fairly happy with the room, it was huge and was totally going to meet our needs for the next two nights. Fran hated the place and said, "Future reference, never stay at this hotel again." Oops!
Our view
I unpacked a little bit, hung up some of the clothes we'd be wearing in the next days, and by then it was already 3PM. My parent’s plane landed at 4:15 and it's a good half an hour back to the airport. Plus we still had not found something for lunch. If you haven't been to Vancouver, there is a large Asian population and this is very evident along Hwy 99 which leads from Downtown to the airport. Not that I don't like Asian food, but it's hard to slurp down a bowl of Pho behind the wheel of a car! We had seen a Safeway on the route and decided that if we didn't find anything before that, we would just go there and have a deli sandwich. It ended up being a roast beef and cheddar. No pictures as we ate it in the cellphone parking lot at the airport.
My parents made good time through customs, they texted me as they were picking up their bags, so we drove into the airport and by the time we reached the front of the line at passenger pick up, they were waiting.
We caught up on the ride back downtown and the bellman took their bags for them. I went and parked the car and then went to the lobby to see if they were still checking in and they were gone, but the bellman was still there with their bags. The elevators were small and he couldn't ride if anyone was in one, he told me that he wastes more time standing around at the elevators.
I checked out my parent’s room and it was large, same amenities as a DVC Studio, and then I came back up to mine and Fran's room. She was asleep. We had about 75 minutes until we had to leave for dinner, she told me to wake her in 40 minutes. I tried to sleep. I was pretty tired, but naps just don't happen for me. So I got up and decided to fire up the computer. I had written up the first part of this TR on my phone on the plane so I emailed it to myself and started to format it in word and add the filenames of the pictures where I would eventually place them once I'm home and upload them to PB.
When it became clear that Fran wasn't going to take a shower today, I invited my parents up for a glass of wine before we went to dinner.
And I’m going to stop here for the first post of the TR. Up next our first dinner and how we get the weekend in Vancouver started.
This trip really wasn't on my radar.
Well OK, after reading a few DCL TRs, I had mentioned to Fran it would be fun to go back and do another Alaskan cruise with Disney.
But in my mind it was much farther away than this year.
Now Fran will tell you that I book all the cruises, but this one was all her.
She doesn't remember that now.
Even Darcy (our housekeeper) pointed out that it was Fran's idea to book another cruise when Fran was complaining the week before we left that we never get anything done at home because I keep booking trips.
It was even her idea to bring my parents along.
So here's the skinny. Fran and I are the Disney Fanatics. Before there was a Disney cruise line, we went on an Alaskan cruise with Celebrity. This was only my second vacation with Fran and I had no idea of the exciting adventures we had in store! We took a helicopter flight that landed on a glacier.
We took a jet boat through the alluvial run off of a glacier.
And we flew in a float plane that landed on a lake.
We visited saloons and just had an all around good time!
Sure it was cold
And we cleaned up OK
We even had some fun in Vancouver after the cruise.
Some of these adventures might be happening again on this trip, but we have a whole host of new ones as well. Can you believe how young we look in all those pictures?
Here we are with my parents, it's really hard to get them in pictures. This was probably 10 years ago, maybe more.
Most of the time when we visit with them, we take pictures of all our food, but rarely do we take pictures of ourselves. These are from mine and Fran's wedding.
We provided wine at the wedding based on a policy we learned at a party at the Grgich winery. Your table could have all the bottles of wine you wanted (which I provided the reds from my cellar) but you had to bring back your empty bottle to get a new one. My Dad knew that there were quite a few well aged Ridge wines in the bunch and he kept sending "runners" up to get another bottle. He was the only man seated at that table with 7-9 all younger women and they were calling him "Daddy Wine Bucks".
Needless to say they had the most bottles, and long after Fran and I had gone home, they were out on the dance floor recreating the modern dance recitals my mom used to be in when I was in High school.
These are a couple photos of us over the last 3 years or so, I've got them in somewhat chronological order.
And then this is the whole extended family including my sister’s offspring. We did Thanksgiving at their place in Everett, WA, a couple years ago, which was interesting to say the least!
For the most part my parents are mild mannered computer geeks, both retired programmers who were in the field before anyone even knew what it was. Mom is now in the Iris Society and the Mum society. Her yard is like a botanical museum complete with tags identifying each plant by name. She is also into birding. I believe some of the excursions she has booked include identifying various species of birds in the area.
Dad is very quiet and subdued, but he doesn't miss a beat of what's going on around him. Most of the day he sits at his computer and after dinner he watches TV all night. I'm curious to see how he entertains himself on the cruise!
So now that you have an idea of who we are, let's get on with the trip report!
First off there will be no sunrise pictures. With sunrise occurring at around 4:00AM even if I was awake then, I decided to go back to sleep rather than stand out on the balcony in a robe in 50 degree weather.
Second, there will be no contest, so the updates may come a little faster than my current WDW trip report. In fact it's very possible both TRs will wrap up around the same time, which might just be when I leave on my next trip to WDW! Imagine that!
Third, if you’re perplexed by the Title, let Google be your friend. Or you could just wait it out until I get to the ‘splainin’ part.
So, without further adieu let's get on with this thing.
Day 1, Travel Day
I don't know what possessed us to travel on Friday of a major holiday weekend.
Perhaps we just weren't thinking when we made the reservations.
Then take into account that only three days earlier terrorists had blown up a bunch of people in Turkey.
As a result, to say security was really tight would be like saying spanx are comfortable.
Cops were everywhere.
They were routing everyone to the arrivals level from the direction where we entered the airport. We tried exiting the airport and coming back, but again that just put us on the lower level where the arrivals were.
Finally, Fran just decided to pull over and get out at the arrivals level.
One terminal past the one where we needed to be.
We would have to take an elevator to the departure level once I came back from parking the car, and then walk back one terminal with our four suitcases and two carry ons. If you’ve been to LAX before you understand what a PITA this is.
To confuse things even more, we were trying a new parking service and I wasn't exactly sure where they were located. Turns out when I left the airport, I should have gone North on Sepulveda Blvd, but instead I went South. The GPS quickly rerouted me and I got a fun little tour around the back end of the airport, all 4.7 miles around it! I was slightly freaking out. Our plane left at 9:50 and by this time it was 7:15, all the news programs were saying arrive 3 hours before international flights. Technically Fran had arrived at the airport, but she needed me there too and I was parking the darned car! I found the new place and saw that uncovered self parking (the cheapest) was on the roof and there was a sign that stated no elevator access to the roof. I just said "screw it" and grabbed the first spot I saw and headed for the shuttle stop. At least our car won’t be as dirty when we get back. It hasn’t been washed in almost a year now due to the drought.
At 7:25 I called Fran to tell her I was almost back at the airport, and once the bus dropped me off I took the elevator down to find Fran. At least she was right in front of it, so we schlepped our bags upstairs and back one terminal. Fran scooted ahead to get us a skycap. For whatever reason he couldn't check us in outside, so he took us inside to an agent. He sent us ahead and said that he would take care of the bags for us. As we were being helped by the gate agent, he asked us, "Where is your van? Don't you two normally show up in a van?" Great. Now we're notorious! We told him about the whole debacle with the arrivals level and gave him $10 for his trouble.
For whatever reason we got cleared for TSA Precheck, we have an appointment when we get back from this trip to actually go and pay the $80 or so to guarantee it for the future, but it was nice to randomly get it on this trip.
Fran got pulled aside for special checking so I went and sat on a bench to wait for her. This guy comes through the Precheck screening, and he stops in front of the glass where all the other poor saps are waiting in a HUGE line and starts silently waving his hands over his head and sort of making a gestures as if he is screaming and making a scene. Then he takes his suitcoat from over his shoulder in a very suave move and starts to put it back on as he walks towards me. By this point I'm staring directly at him and he is looking at me. I'm like, "I know that guy!" And I wanted to blurt out, "Hey Tony!" Then I got a hold of myself and realized that's Michael Weatherly, he doesn't know me.
Finally, I recognized a celebrity that wasn't a chef. The only other time I recognized one was Timothy Omundson who played Detective Lassiter on Psych or the King on Galavant when he was waiting for his car from the Valet at the Grand Californian.
But I digress. We were going to the remote terminal. Not the one we flew out of for our flight to Orlando, but the civilized one which is more like a mini terminal for American Eagle. First we stopped at Dunkin Donuts, we split a bagel with cream cheese and a fruit cup. I got an iced coffee and a sugared donut, she got a maple bar and a Boston Creme donut. Sorry about the lack of pictures, everything was so hectic I just didn't feel like pulling my camera out of the bottom of my purse. Don’t worry, it gets better.
We boarded the bus to the remote terminal and the bus driver made a comment about "Nice to see you ladies again!" We were both a little stunned, "You don't remember me?" He asked, "I drove you two ladies on your way to Florida."
Definitely notorious.
We ate our halves of bagel on the bus to the terminal and then ate the fruit cup while waiting for boarding.
Getting on the plane was an adventure, they let us on first and evidently we missed the sign that says, "leave your scooter here" because going up the hill, the scooter konked out. I started pushing it, not so easy with two carry ons and a purse. We realized pretty quickly that it wasn't going to go up to the door of the plane and now all the other passengers were coming behind us. Fran went ahead to tell the plane staff that we messed up and I stayed with the scooter for a little bit, but I realized that if I didn't get on the plane soon all the overhead bin space would be gone. So I got on and started trying to put the bags in. Well this was an American Eagle flight and they have smaller overhead bins. Fran had packed her carry on so thick that it wouldn't fit. We'd had this problem before, and I knew the solution. So I started grabbing stuff out of the bag and handing it to her. Finally, I got it to fit. She had thrown her over shirt on my seat and I sat down on it to get out of the aisle. Then we stuffed everything I took out of the overhead bin bag into her other carry on bag.
Once she seemed settled I said, "Can I now take your Overflannel out from under my butt?" So I stood up in my seat and pulled the Overflannel off the seat, and that's when I found the bag with our donuts.
Our flat donuts.
We ate our flat donuts in peace and finally the plane took off.
Our stewardess was a complete and total idiot. When she asked me what I wanted to drink, I asked if they had any V8.
She looked at me as if I had three heads and said, "What's that?"
I wasn't even sure how to answer her! I just asked for water and went to work on my phone chronicling the day’s events so far.
About an hour into the flight she came around asking what people would like to eat. I heard her saying a chicken Caesar wrap or a chicken salad. When she got to me she asked if I would like a chicken salad. "You're already out of the wraps?" I asked, and she confirmed.
I asked what was in the salad and she told me there was chicken, cheesecake.....and I'm like "huh?" Again I asked, "What is in the SALAD?" She told me tomatoes, cheese, not once did she say lettuce so I still had no idea if it was chicken salad like tuna salad or a bowl of lettuce with chicken on top. I decided to try it and it didn't look half bad.
Until I noticed this.
I asked if they had any other dressing.
She said no.
So I tried a little bit.
NASTY!
Oh well we arrive in Vancouver around 1PM and we can get lunch then. The chicken was dry too. The cheesecake wasn't half bad, so I ate that.
They came through the cabin with customs forms and I filled that out. For the rest of the trip I just played solitaire and other games on my phone.
When we landed, we were the last ones off the plane (as usual) and they were very prompt at bringing Fran's scooter up. We headed up the gangway and at the top, we stopped to regroup and put all the bags on the scooter. Then we walked, and we walked and we walked some more. Finally, we came to an elevator.
When we exited the elevator we were inside the customs clearance area. They were directing Canadians to one line and all foreign passengers to another huge line. When they saw Fran the gentleman directed us in completely the opposite direction and we ended up going through the window for foreign diplomats, with no wait!
We found our baggage carousel and since all the rest of our plane had to wait in the huge line, our bags were not riding the carousel all lonely and by themselves! I started to pull them off the line and a porter approached us. Fran was going to wave him off, but I disagreed.
Best.
Decision.
Ever!
That was easily a great $20 spent. You see three of our bags were (just) under the maximum weight for Coach and one was 54 lbs, but they let it go since were flying Business Class. I was already tired from only 4 1/2 hours sleep and pushing the bags from terminal 5 to terminal 4 at LAX, plus this guy knew exactly where we needed to go, what we needed to do and got us there in the minimum amount of time. Of course it was equally as long to the rental car location as we had already walked, and he walked twice as fast as I could. I was winded by the time I got to the rental car counter. They were in the ground floor of a parking garage that was next to but not physically connected to the terminal.
He left our bags on the curb in the garage outside the counter area. It was interesting, they have a schedule of how much they charge posted on the cart, I tried to read it, but when he said $17, I stopped trying to figure it out. Fran gave him US$20 so I hope he was happy.
We have learned to put things in my name, that way if Fran is feeling bad and doesn't want to go in and deal with it, I can do it. They were able to add her as a secondary driver while she sat and guarded the bags. We were up graded from a Ford Escape to a Flex, which was nice. We have been debating if we liked the Flex or a Chrysler minivan. We said that we would need to go to the car dealer with four large suitcases, four carry ons, and a scooter and try the Flex. Well we got our chance. Spoiler: we still like the minivan better. Everything fit but it was tight. It's a lot smaller than our Expedition. Plus she had a hard time getting her foot into the car, so it’s a no deal.
Next stop the hotel! But here we are approaching Downtown Vancouver and crossing the bridge.
We programmed the hotel address into the GPS and it began to tell us where to go.
We got to the hotel (with a few trips around the block) and our room was ready! Fran went up to the room with our bags and the bellman while I parked the car in back. I was fairly happy with the room, it was huge and was totally going to meet our needs for the next two nights. Fran hated the place and said, "Future reference, never stay at this hotel again." Oops!
Our view
I unpacked a little bit, hung up some of the clothes we'd be wearing in the next days, and by then it was already 3PM. My parent’s plane landed at 4:15 and it's a good half an hour back to the airport. Plus we still had not found something for lunch. If you haven't been to Vancouver, there is a large Asian population and this is very evident along Hwy 99 which leads from Downtown to the airport. Not that I don't like Asian food, but it's hard to slurp down a bowl of Pho behind the wheel of a car! We had seen a Safeway on the route and decided that if we didn't find anything before that, we would just go there and have a deli sandwich. It ended up being a roast beef and cheddar. No pictures as we ate it in the cellphone parking lot at the airport.
My parents made good time through customs, they texted me as they were picking up their bags, so we drove into the airport and by the time we reached the front of the line at passenger pick up, they were waiting.
We caught up on the ride back downtown and the bellman took their bags for them. I went and parked the car and then went to the lobby to see if they were still checking in and they were gone, but the bellman was still there with their bags. The elevators were small and he couldn't ride if anyone was in one, he told me that he wastes more time standing around at the elevators.
I checked out my parent’s room and it was large, same amenities as a DVC Studio, and then I came back up to mine and Fran's room. She was asleep. We had about 75 minutes until we had to leave for dinner, she told me to wake her in 40 minutes. I tried to sleep. I was pretty tired, but naps just don't happen for me. So I got up and decided to fire up the computer. I had written up the first part of this TR on my phone on the plane so I emailed it to myself and started to format it in word and add the filenames of the pictures where I would eventually place them once I'm home and upload them to PB.
When it became clear that Fran wasn't going to take a shower today, I invited my parents up for a glass of wine before we went to dinner.
And I’m going to stop here for the first post of the TR. Up next our first dinner and how we get the weekend in Vancouver started.
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