Our Big Canadian Adventure, Part 1 - intro.

[Hilary]

Our Big Canadian Adventure – Summer 2003

The adventurers:
Me - Trip organiser and planner. Subject to sudden bouts of insanity when activities such as white water rafting sound like a good idea and the ‘book now’ button gets pressed before the brain fully engages. Always on the look-out for laundry facilities.

DH - Has two main hobbies of angling and eating out. Lone male of the group who is happy to go along with whatever has been arranged for him as long as it fits around his fishing trip(s) and meals. Always on the look-out for next restaurant.

DD1 - (18) Wary of her mother’s rash decision to book any activities more hazardous than painting fingernails, but is looking forward to the trip before coming home to face her ‘A’ level results.

DD2 - (14) Very laid back about the whole trip. Has been saving up to pay for a tandem paragliding trip as seen on one of the web-sites (but not booked by her mother)!

How did we find ourselves about to embark on this trip? Well, although Florida has been the mainstay of our family holidays for the past seven or eight years, we have always said we’d like to go to Canada ‘one day’. Like most things that are consigned to ‘one day’, there was a distinct possibility that ‘one day’ would
never arrive – or at least not until the girls had long given up holidaying with mum and dad.

The summer before DD1 was about to (hopefully) leave for university seemed as good a time as any to think more seriously about this trip, and I started to do some research. Our list of places / things we wanted to see / do was impossibly long for a two week trip, so we had to decide on which area we wanted to concentrate. Vancouver came out as the winner, which meant that the eastern side of the country would have to wait, and I settled down to finding out as much as I could about the west. Then I contacted some tour operators for quotes for our proposed schedule.

The expense was the first shock . I didn’t think our Florida trips were exactly cheap, but the quotes I was getting for Canada were way off the scale. Thinking back to the way we arrange our Florida trips, I decided to price things individually and look at the D-I-Y options. Things started to look better, and by the time I’d found a good AirMiles deal on part miles/part cash for BA direct flights (I knew I’d been hanging on to those miles for the past 20 years for a good reason!), we had ourselves a more realistic price, and ‘one day’ was set for 25th July 2003.

I posted on the DIS Canadian boards to ask whether there were any WalMart stores in Canada (yes, we were really hoping to soak up the Canadian culture! ), and Sharon, a DISer living in Victoria, replied. There followed many exchanges between us, with me asking all kinds of questions from “What do you think of this hotel?” to “Can you recommend a whale-watching operator?”, and with her replying very politely and patiently to each and every one of them. I felt that I had stumbled upon hidden treasure – it was like having my own personal tourist information centre – and I just hoped she didn’t mind (I assumed she would have stopped replying if she minded too much). I’m pleased to say that our e-mail friendship has developed beyond the trip planning questions, and I’m sure we’ll keep in touch now we’re back home.

I also gleaned a lot of really useful hints and tips from Shirley, here on the UK boards, who had been to Canada with her family last summer. At a UK DIS meet in the spring, Shirley’s DH had handed me a huge pile of maps and brochures which gave us a good idea of the places we wanted to visit on our trip, and really helped with planning the outline for our time there. I was so lucky to have such willing helpers!

Between us all, we came up with our itinerary of four main destinations - Vancouver, Whistler, somewhere on Vancouver Island and Victoria - which I hoped would give us a taste of different areas of British Columbia without spending too much time driving from place to place.

There followed months of internet surfing and much nail-biting as I tried to decide which hotels, car-hire, excursions, activities, ferries, etc., etc. I should book, but by the start of the summer I had everything essential in place and there was just the packing to do…….

 

[KayleeUK]

Hilary - great trip reports

Love to here the background for your trip...on to the next......

 

[Minniespal]

Wonderful trip reports ~ Thanx for sharing!!!

 

[Mrs Dazzle]

Expensive - yes, I can really believe that Hilary. My friend has just come back from Calgary (her sister and family are over there). She only took the two boys, DH stayed behind to water the tomatoes . The flight only prices were shocking, mostly I think because Air Canada seems to have the monopoly on the route therefore charges what it likes (for not particularly good service, from what they've told me ).

But your trip sounds fantastic already. Off to read some more now

 

[Hilary]

I was staggered at the price of the flights before I'd even started checking out accommodation!

I'm not sure that we would have gone ahead with the trip if I hadn't been able to get the AirMiles deal. I still don't know how I managed it but, even though I didn't have enough miles for one flight (even after saving up miles for 20 years!LOL), we used their part miles/part cash price and ended up effectively having two free flights . So it's always worth asking!

Having returned, I've calculated that the whole trip for the four of us (all classed as adults, apart from a couple of hotels) cost under £3,500 for two weeks including flights, car hire, hotels, Heathrow parking and hotel and the ferry crossing to and from Vancouver Island. I was quite pleased with myself!