One Way Trip to Canada, Eh? FINAL THOUGHTS 08/10

[mom3sonstt]

Oh no - you are almost done!

Not a fan of Duffy (he seems like a character forced on us for the sole purpose of selling stuff) but I do like the furry little Duffy hat!

I'm not a real big meat eater - but I'm with Dan, I think I would be left hungry if that serving was all that I received. Although, it would leave more room for desserts

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Good news:
There were two updates today!

Bad news:
Your cruise is coming to an end!

Love your farewell dinner and it looks like you had really nice tablemates. Did you ask to sit with them or was it luck of the draw?

I always want to have a Mickey Bar on the cruise as well, and never got one - something I want to tackle maybe this summer!

And I had to LOL too, when you said you browsed the shops after dinner - we do the same thing!

And another one ........ you are NOT alone, I always just glance over the Navigator and miss most of the fun! But there is so much to do and see that I really never get around to read it before the next day's one arrives!

I made our FE for this summer's cruise yesterday - 5 hours of work and now I am pretty pleased with it. I am going to post it on our pre-trip report, but I need to show Tom first.

We did have a wonderful table group! We had a few on our cruise meet thread asking if we wanted to link reservations for early dining, so I spoke up and soon we had a 10 person table set up!

Oh yes, you must make it a must do to have a Mickey Bar! You can get them from room service, too!

I will be excited to see your FE!

if they brought out a portion that size for me, i would say make it two...

but i bet with the appetizers and such it was a good amount.

That is what's so good about cruising - you can say make it two!!! You can ask for two entrees, or three, or two of anything! With all the food available, by the end of the cruise, you feel like you can't look at food any longer!

Sorry to see your cruise coming to an end.

Love the "shock and awe" picture.

I didn't even know I had that shot, but I thought it was funny!

Do they eat in Vancouver? Sometimes even I wonder Especially since I don't consider sushi food.

we shall see

Oh no - you are almost done!

Not a fan of Duffy (he seems like a character forced on us for the sole purpose of selling stuff) but I do like the furry little Duffy hat!

I'm not a real big meat eater - but I'm with Dan, I think I would be left hungry if that serving was all that I received. Although, it would leave more room for desserts

No, we are not Duffy fans, either - but the hat was fun!

See above - you can always have more!!!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Tuesday, May 3rd sadly came and it was time to leave our WONDERful home on the sea. It was also a day we were looking forward to, because we had all day to explore, and we were headed to my sister’s home for a couple of days!
We got up to see that we were pulling into the beautiful city of Vancouver.

And Captain Mickey parked us neatly up to the cruise terminal. I love how you can barely tell where the ship ends and the terminal begins.

The captain made an announcement that as soon as the ship cleared customs, they would allow us to start disembarking and clear customs.

We noticed a message on our phone, so I listened. They were having trouble with our credit card – please come to Guest Relations. Jim went to see about it, and then to Deck 9 to get me my coffee, and I started getting ready. Remember our crazy problems at boarding in LA? Well, they never swiped our CC. The one we gave them had expired since the time of registering it online. New card swiped, and we were good to go. Or were we???

At about 8:00, we figured most of the mad dash would be over – they had stated that they wanted everyone out by 9 am. We said one more good-bye to Michael, and headed to Beach Blanket Buffet for a bite to eat.

It was still quite crowded, and then with everyone bringing their carry-ons, it was a little more so. Some people felt the need to put their bags up on chairs and take up a 6 person table for just two people. Kind of like a teddy bear tea party, I guess! I kind of expected the fare to be a little sparse, because usually the mood on the last morning is “we’ve wined and dined you for ___ days now GET OUT!” Not today. They had a nice array of eggs, meats, French toast, waffles, cereals and the best of all – KRISPY KREME donuts. (We don’t have those here, so they are a novelty for us) We found a table for 4 and offered up the extra seats to people who were looking. I guess we forgot to comb our hair or something, because no one accepted until we were actually leaving!

Our luggage had been tagged with a character, and you had to wait until they called your group before you could leave and get your luggage. Ours was Blue Donald. They hadn’t called us yet by 8:45, so we sat up on Deck 9, which was quite pleasant with our sweatshirts on, and watched the Big TV and people watched. The crew was busily scrubbing the pool deck and the steps around the various crew entrances around the deck. At about 9:30, our group was called. I remember hearing that there was some kind of delay, but I don’t remember what it was. We headed out Deck 3 in the atrium where we had come in. I don’t know why I didn’t take a pic of the “See Ya Real Soon!” sign – probably trying to keep Jim from stressing. He doesn’t like unorganized crowds- in the military, you have to be in line, you know!

We went down the gangplank and into the hallway. For a moment, we got in the citizens line – then realized we were in Canada, so we were not citizens. It took about 30 minutes to get to the station where they swipe your card and clear you to leave. DA-DA-DA-DA! I was in front of Jim, and when they swiped my card, there was a hold on me.

She tried a couple of times, then asked Jim for his card. His cleared but not mine. “sorry, I can’t let you leave until I get clearance.” She called GS, and there was no answer. She called a supervisor, who sent a runner back in to the ship to get me cleared manually. In the meantime, they held up our line and the crowd was getting really angry behind us.

They did finally have us step aside while they let some more people through, and then once they cleared us, we had a hard time getting back in the line. You would think since they screwed up, they would at least help us get in to the building.
We went through another line to talk to customs, then got our bags and went through customs again. We took our bags over to a luggage storage service – all day for $4 a day – and we were out in the city! I think it was 11 am by now.
Our thought was to take a tour bus over to Stanley Park and then take the internal transportation there. We thought we might visit the aquarium there and other sites, as well as eat some fish and chips at a restaurant I had read about in the park. Well best laid plans….

We found the tour operators were crazy – everyone running up to you and yelling over the top of each other to see if they could entice you to hop on the “hop on – hop off” buses. This was an all day – all Vancouver tour. $37 each. If we wanted the whole city, that wouldn’t be bad, but we just wanted a ride to the park. In retrospect, we should have just gotten a cab. I had read that the cab ride would be $25 each way and that you might not be able to get a cab back from the park.

We decided to set out on foot and see what we could see. We headed up the street toward the old train station. Hmmm, we turned right up the street toward some nice office buildings. Vancouver is a very modern city with lots of Cement and Steel. We walked a few blocks, not finding any restaurants, except for a steakhouse or a bar or two. We went a few blocks N and S and still nothing really. We did go inside one building that looked like it held combined spaces, but all we found was a food court. About this time we are wondering where all the people who work down here eat? Do they eat in Vancouver????

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

oh man what an ordeal, and sounds like it was a little hectic on that leaving morning.
hope things calmed down a little.

 

[eandesmom]

UGH what a morning!!!!!

Jeff would have been crabby, I hope it goes smoother for us (not that I'll warn him, he'll freak on me lol).

I hope you found food. The cruise ship area is not really in the dining area (having walked from BC place on new years eve back up to the Robson area in an evening gown and heels due to a lack of cabs, I can truly attest to that).

What a bummer about Stanley Park, I hope it works out. It is a bit trickier to do without a car, I admit we've never attempted it for that reason when we've been carless.

I'm curious to see how customs goes on your way back. LOTS of complaints about it while I was in Whistler and it's making the papers. Which is a little funny if you ask me. Historically we've been the "slow" side and now Canada is just returning the favor. Didn't make sitting in line all that fun and some of the folks attending our conference were grilled for no reason but still, it's not anything the US side has never done.

Even with passports for the kids this time (which sped up the CAN entry) on the US side we got the different last name grilling, to the point of the guy asking the kids how long they'd known us.

And we were on our way HOME! Made me think a BC might be easier after all for the kids, at least my name is on that.

 

[dizneeat]

Maybe you should have offered to stay on board for another "round".

OMG what a mixup! Is disembarking by "character" a new thing? We didn't do that last summer .......... well, you learn something new every day!

Can't wait how this enfolds!

Oh, and btw I posted my FE on my pre-trip report, just in case you haven't seen it yet!

 

[glennbo123]

I like the "teddy bear tea party" visual! People can be so thoughtless sometimes.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

oh man what an ordeal, and sounds like it was a little hectic on that leaving morning.
hope things calmed down a little.

You know it is always a little hectic checking in and checking out. When you're leaving, it's a little more so because you have the government involved, so they always want to complicate things. It's kind of like taking a flight anywhere - you just know you have to go through security - it's part of the process, but worth it in the end!

UGH what a morning!!!!!

Jeff would have been crabby, I hope it goes smoother for us (not that I'll warn him, he'll freak on me lol).

I hope you found food. The cruise ship area is not really in the dining area (having walked from BC place on new years eve back up to the Robson area in an evening gown and heels due to a lack of cabs, I can truly attest to that).

What a bummer about Stanley Park, I hope it works out. It is a bit trickier to do without a car, I admit we've never attempted it for that reason when we've been carless.

I'm curious to see how customs goes on your way back. LOTS of complaints about it while I was in Whistler and it's making the papers. Which is a little funny if you ask me. Historically we've been the "slow" side and now Canada is just returning the favor. Didn't make sitting in line all that fun and some of the folks attending our conference were grilled for no reason but still, it's not anything the US side has never done.

Even with passports for the kids this time (which sped up the CAN entry) on the US side we got the different last name grilling, to the point of the guy asking the kids how long they'd known us.

And we were on our way HOME! Made me think a BC might be easier after all for the kids, at least my name is on that.

Hmmm, asking kids how long they've know their parents It was kind of like that on the train - I'll have to add that part in!

Maybe you should have offered to stay on board for another "round".

OMG what a mixup! Is disembarking by "character" a new thing? We didn't do that last summer .......... well, you learn something new every day!

Can't wait how this enfolds!

Oh, and btw I posted my FE on my pre-trip report, just in case you haven't seen it yet!

I know! Maybe I could have offered to peel potatoes or something if we could just stay!

I've only been on one other DCL, an Eastern on the Magic. We did it the same way that time. In fact, we were Blue Donald then - probably because we were on Deck 6 both cruises?

No, I haven't seen your FE - I'll be right over!

I like the "teddy bear tea party" visual! People can be so thoughtless sometimes.

It's the "I'm the only person on the planet" syndrome

 

[MAGICFOR2]

We headed back the other way, past the pier – up a couple of blocks to a busier street – more of the same, with the exception of a couple of drug stores and a couple of souvenier shops. I wanted something from Vancouver for myself and for our dog sitter, so we looked around in a couple of them, but didn’t really find anything much, except a lot of maple candy and maple syrup.


We started walking back down toward the pier, passing a couple of apartment buildings with great views of the bay. We ran into a gentleman who asked if he could help us find something. When we asked for fish and chips, he sadly shook his head and said “Believe it or not, there are no good ones here.” What? He said he and his wife had lived there for 5 years and had yet to find one – if they wanted Fish, they would drive 45 minutes out of town to get it. He suggested a few places around , one being a steak place on the water, and the other being an organic food court in the basement of one of the neighboring buildings.
The basement???? We checked both of those places out, and neither looked like what we were looking for. We realized that more of the eateries might be underground.

I thought I had more pics of the area, but this modern building near the pier has grass growing on the roof

I had to wait a few minutes for this one – there was a photographer sitting among the boys here, squatting just like they are – I think maybe she was getting close ups of their faces – she looked like she was trying to hide amongst them!

Up close, they look like Chinese monks, maybe. I'm not sure if it was a tribute to the workers who first built the area, or just art

We made our way back to the other side of the pier and went into a small underground mall, which had a food court, and a sit down place – sorry, I can’t remember what it was – almost like something you’d find in an airport. We got our table just in time – a convention broke for lunch and people lined up out the door waiting for a table. Jim ordered a burger and fries, and I ordered the Fish and Chips – how bad could it be, right? Well it was actually edible, but not good.

We finished lunch and left quickly so someone could have our table. I bought a few souvies from the shops out in the mall. I found a Canadian Mountie bear keychain that I can fix up as a Christmas tree ornament to commemorate our trip. We do a dated ornament every year for our tree.


Up at street level, we walked back toward the pier, and found a nice Sunny sitting area overlooking our ship. You could see people getting on for the trip to Alaska, and milling around on deck. I wanted to stay and wave good-bye, but that would have been cutting it too close

. We sat for awhile, and then about 2:30 we decided to just get a cab and head to the train station to wait. We got our luggage and drove by the “gaslight” historical area I had been looking for – just two blocks down from where we ate lunch – I had been going in the right direction, just needed to be more diligent to look. Our cab got us to the train by 3:15. I traded our voucher in for boarding passes and we waited for the check in to begin about 4:45 for our 5:30 departure to Stanwood, WA.

We had purchased business class tickets for just a little more than the regular seats. It was funny, because they set up a priority check-in area for business class, which turned out to be a huge line, and only 4 passengers were in the regular line!

Our Chariot:

Nice Comfy inside:

We really enjoyed our train ride. Very quiet, lots of leg room, free wi-fi and a dining car – we had a beautiful view of the water and mountains and small towns as we chugged along. We walked two cars up to the dining car and had a sandwich and a glass of wine.

At the border, some border guards got on and tried to be really intimidating about who we were and why we were coming to the states and what we were bringing with us. I think they were amused and bored with the “Disney Cruise” answer by the time they got back to us – there were several families from our cruise on board. There were a couple of kids sitting in front of us, and they did ask them who they belonged to and then because they'd already talked to the parents, they said, "Disney cruise, right?"

They did ask some of the people who were traveling for sales work if they brought samples or products across and why not? I thought any minute they were going to play "good cop, bad cop" with the passengers.

Soon we were pulling into the station at Stanwood - they don't have luggage service, so we had our bags in the front of the car. The conductor helped us get our bags off quickly, and there we were - out on the platform. DSIS was standing there waiting for us and we drove the 10 minutes to her home from there. It was great to see my 4 nieces, ages 20-10 at the house.

Tomorrow would be a big day - we were going to the Science Museum in Seattle and it was

May the 4th!!!


Can anyone guess what we will see?

 

[bbangel]

The building with the grass roof is the new (ok expansion) convention centre. It was one of the projects for the Olympics. The art is just art. Also part of the "Cultural Olympiad". There are now all kinds of strange public art pieces around town.

Sorry you couldn't find what you were looking for as far as eats/shopping. Downtown can be an odd place That couple was right, if I want good fish and chips I head for a village on the water called Steveston. That area is now technically a part of Richmond (where the airport is). Now I want fish and chips. Yum.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

The building with the grass roof is the new (ok expansion) convention centre. It was one of the projects for the Olympics. The art is just art. Also part of the "Cultural Olympiad". There are now all kinds of strange public art pieces around town.

Sorry you couldn't find what you were looking for as far as eats/shopping. Downtown can be an odd place That couple was right, if I want good fish and chips I head for a village on the water called Steveston. That area is now technically a part of Richmond (where the airport is). Now I want fish and chips. Yum.

Thanks for the info! I love hearing the "rest of the story!"

We can't get good F&C here, but I was thinking at the ocean in a tourist town we could! I think the area you mentioned is what he was talking about. At least you can go for the fish - It will be awhile for me!

 

[eandesmom]

They did ask some of the people who were traveling for sales work if they brought samples or products across and why not? I thought any minute they were going to play "good cop, bad cop" with the passengers.


Tomorrow would be a big day - we were going to the Science Museum in Seattle and it was

May the 4th!!!


Can anyone guess what we will see?

Ooh Ooh, I might know! Which means you might have seen my DAD there. LOL! We will see if I'm right.

As for the Fish and Chips, that's interesting. It was definitely on the menu of the place we ate at in Horseshoe Bay on the way up to Whistler last weekend. But that's not even in Vancouver so it doesn't count. I thought we'd had them once on Granville Island but again, not downtown. What a bummer to settle for mediocre food court food though!

On the product stuff they may well have had samples but let me tell you, as a tradeshow person, crossing the border with that stuff (or admitting you have it) requires a special letter from your event, that has both countries copied etc. If you said you have stuff and you don't have that letter...NO FUN.

It's never happened to me as I've been warned but I know people that have been put through the full grill deal on both sides if they have exhibit stuff.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Ooh Ooh, I might know! Which means you might have seen my DAD there. LOL! We will see if I'm right.

As for the Fish and Chips, that's interesting. It was definitely on the menu of the place we ate at in Horseshoe Bay on the way up to Whistler last weekend. But that's not even in Vancouver so it doesn't count. I thought we'd had them once on Granville Island but again, not downtown. What a bummer to settle for mediocre food court food though!

On the product stuff they may well have had samples but let me tell you, as a tradeshow person, crossing the border with that stuff (or admitting you have it) requires a special letter from your event, that has both countries copied etc. If you said you have stuff and you don't have that letter...NO FUN.

It's never happened to me as I've been warned but I know people that have been put through the full grill deal on both sides if they have exhibit stuff.

I think the guy said they were on the menu, just not good. I thought Granville Island looked like fun, I just wasn't sure how much time we needed, so I put that out of my planning mind. I would love to go back now that I've been there and have a better idea about things.

Sounds like alot of trouble for the trade shows. One lady said she mailed her stuff to avoid the whole customs thing - that seemed to really irritate the border guards.

 

[nenner1]

What a lovely last evening on board...I never knew that about the portholes overlooking the galley! I do remember the "smoking area" out on deck 4 it seemed all the galley staff were always hanging out at (after the shows we would exit outside and walk the promenade instead of fight the crowds inside). If we are ever back on the Magic I will definitely have to take a peek!

Quite a frustrating disembarkation. They have always used the character color tags for luggage, but in Port Canaveral we did not have to wait for that color to be called, it was simply for where to go to get your bags. You could leave whenever you wanted from PC, not so in the other ports. we had our first encounter with that on RCCL...ergh! Sorry you got pulled aside too, that happened to Ron once! Frustrating!

Vancouver is so interesting. It is quite pretty but like you I am surprised by the lack of obvious restaurants! I would not have thought of basement eateries myself either.

The Magic looks so pretty in your photos with the heavy grey clouds and the picturesque mountains. It seems so odd, but beautiful!

I have no idea what May 4th will bring so I for one will be surprised!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

What a lovely last evening on board...I never knew that about the portholes overlooking the galley! I do remember the "smoking area" out on deck 4 it seemed all the galley staff were always hanging out at (after the shows we would exit outside and walk the promenade instead of fight the crowds inside). If we are ever back on the Magic I will definitely have to take a peek!

Quite a frustrating disembarkation. They have always used the character color tags for luggage, but in Port Canaveral we did not have to wait for that color to be called, it was simply for where to go to get your bags. You could leave whenever you wanted from PC, not so in the other ports. we had our first encounter with that on RCCL...ergh! Sorry you got pulled aside too, that happened to Ron once! Frustrating!

Vancouver is so interesting. It is quite pretty but like you I am surprised by the lack of obvious restaurants! I would not have thought of basement eateries myself either.

The Magic looks so pretty in your photos with the heavy grey clouds and the picturesque mountains. It seems so odd, but beautiful!

I have no idea what May 4th will bring so I for one will be surprised!

Jen! Thanks for checking in! You need to come back more often - we were on the Wonder - not the Magic! Thanks for the compliments on the pics, though! I love that shot of the mountains, too!

Oh, now that you mention it, I don't remember having to leave by character at PC - just how to find the luggage. That did happen in Miami on RCCL, though. At PC, it really helped to get a porter - he breezed us right through customs. In Miami, it didn't do any good - he tried, but the TSA agents got mad at him and threatened to get him thrown out - then he put us on the wrong bus!

May the 4th coming soon!

 

[nenner1]

Whoopsie! That's right, the Wonder not the Magic! LOL. I have been on both an equal amount of time but since we were on the Magic last that's what I automatically think of.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Whoopsie! That's right, the Wonder not the Magic! LOL. I have been on both an equal amount of time but since we were on the Magic last that's what I automatically think of.

I actually kept forgetting it was the Wonder, too - since our other DCL was on the Magic!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

May the 4th Be With You
When I left off, we had just disembarked from the train which runs from Vancouver to Seattle, getting off in Stanwood.
We had a nice time catching up with DS Marsha and the nieces. We made plans to visit the Seattle Science Museum the next day!!!

Wednesday dawned bright and early and we actually left the house almost right on time, about 8:10 am – we needed to be back early in the afternoon so H's boyfriend, P who was our chauffer, could get to a family birthday party. J stayed home to get ready for her job at Starbucks.
We were all excited – we are all Star Wars fans, and there was to be a special exhibit at the museum in honor of May the 4th – MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU!!!

Marsha had a family membership to the museum, so it was just $4 each to get into the SW exhibit. We were given a time to enter and enjoyed science part of the museum for a couple of hours.

Looks like we're missing K - she is 10, so she must have been enjoying a younger type activity while we all waited (or maybe she was in the ladie's room)

Soon it was our turn to enter – the CMs were dressed in semi-costumes throughout the museum in honor of the day.

We enjoyed the SW room – there was a Tatooine dwelling in the middle where you could go in and view a film. It was really cool – they had various artifacts from the planet and the movie, and the film was about real robots doing lots of human like things these days, and R2D2 graced us with his presence in person!

There was a Landspeeder, and then the girls tried their hands at what it would be like to drive one

Here's my guy! "There is no try, only do or do not."

Funny how they covered all the personality types in the characters - this is one anal retentive droid!

Where's the Wookie?

Home School

CONT NEXT POST

 

[MAGICFOR2]

When we had landed back on Earth, (Cynthia did you see your Dad in my pics?) we headed out across the courtyard

Past the Space Needle (Sorry for all the sideways pics - I rotated and saved the images and they still show up like this )

And to Lunch! We went to a food court nearby so that everyone could have their favorite. This pic looks kind of like a Science Fair, but it was the entrance to the food area. Jim and I ordered Fish and Chips – still trying to get that Fresh from the Sea meal! We ended up ordering the Salmon and chips – YUMMO!

After lunch, we headed back to the museum

And into the insect room. There were lots of great exhibits and then there was the butterfly house. It was filled with tons of butterflies!

We had to be really careful not to touch them, hit them accidentally or step on them. They would land on you – these were especially attracted to purple. I was wearing a purple shirt and so were two of the girls!

A couple of them landed on my hands and camera. One little girl about 3 or 4 put her finger up so I could move one from my finger to hers – she was so excited!!!

You can't really see how big they are, but they have a wing span of about 8 in.

Hard to see here, but this is the outside of those same "eyeball" variety in the first couple of pics - when flying, they are an irridesent periwinkle color, and when they land or feel endangered, they fold up their wings and look like Owls.

Another "blue" variety (can you see how much I learned? )

After we had made our way through, we had to stop in the doorway and spin around so a CM could inspect us and make sure we didn’t have any hitchhikers (no, not ghosts) on our backs! Then we had to stop one more time in a glass outer chamber and inspect each other to be sure we didn’t let any of our little friends out.

We made our way out to the gift shop and spent quite a bit of time playing with the various science-type toys – magnets and steel nails and marbles and water and bubbles Oh My!

We headed home and had a nice dinner and some time to play games with the girls. Then we all went to bed early so Kirsten and Olivia could get up for school the next day.

Thursday, we had a nice relaxing day in the morning and then got ready to head to SEA to catch our flight. We had a 6:20 flight, so to avoid rush hour traffic, we left about 2:30 pm and arrived about 3:30. After we checked in, we decided to get a bite to eat. The United terminal was undergoing a remodel, so most of the restaurants were closed. The remaining ones were really crowded, but we managed to get a table eventually and had a nice BBQ beef sandwich and a glass of cab. We arrived back home about 10:30 pm and everything was nice and cold – it was about 25 degrees on May 5th 

Next: Best and Worst and Lessons learned

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

OMG what a mixup! Is disembarking by "character" a new thing? We didn't do that last summer .......... well, you learn something new every day!

I think they only do that when they are at a terminal other then the DCL one at Port Canaveral, as they are not set up in the same way that Disney has theres set up.