The UnDisney family's unintended grand(ish) slam trek to Alaska - July 27-Aug 3, 2015

[Conorama]

Greetings!

Having just finished (or so it seems) my belated last TR, I have committed to getting this one done before school starts here in the North, on September 1st. Here we go!

First - who are we?

We are a family of 3: Me, DH, and Conor, now 7, who hail from medium-sized-city Ontario, Canada. We love to travel, but we do not love Disney.

(Here we pause for dramatic effect.)

We (still) have not been to any Disney worlds or lands or related parks or resorts. We (still) have not seen Frozen - in fact, we are firmly anti-Frozen (ducking!). Conor (still) does not watch Disney movies willingly (his choice) with a few rare exceptions. There is a pretty hard & fast loathing for all Disney princesses firmly entrenched in the boy.

However, we were talked into DCL 2.5 years ago by a good friend, who knows us well, and thought that we could avoid the Disney that we don't like, but still have a great trip - so we embarked on the Fantasy back in 2013.

We enjoyed it (http://www.disboards.com/threads/dc...b-fantasy-jan-26-feb-3-2013-all-done.3063246/), but we didn't book again on board. We thought we were done.

(Can't seem to make clever names for my links tonight - apologies!)

Through fate, or evil machinations, we ended up on a 4-night Dream cruise in May 2015, with the friend who is now known as the Disney Dealer. Then, we were sucked into a Canadian residents discount when we were unable to find another vacation to suit us for our "escape Canadian winter for one week, PLEASE" 2015 vacation, so we hit up the Magic in January 2015. You can read about those here in a 2-for-1 TR:
http://disboards.com/threads/eating-our-words-–-the-undisney-family-back-on-dcl-–-4-night-dream-–-may-2014-with-bonus-tr.3363851/

And, back in May 2014, we were on-board when the Alaskan trips were released, so DH booked us in on the Wonder. We weren't sure if we were going to go, but figured we could cope with the (totally refundable) deposit, and then we would see how things went.

When we booked the Magic, I realized that if we did hit up Alaska on the Wonder, we would have, completely unintentionally, completed a Grand Slam ... in 4 cruises. I had a few moments of wondering where my sanity had gone... but well, here we are, sanity, I believe, intact.

And thus, I shall report on our trip - which was SPECTACULAR, mostly due to Alaska, and (I will give credit where due) somewhat to Disney.

Here we go - with Conor, in front of the Alaska sign.



It will remain to be seen whether we booked again on board....

 

[perditax]

Stalking!

 

[Conorama]

Planning

As always, to repay the DisBoard peeps who post helpful details about planning- I include a summary of our planning issues, decisions, and regrets (there was one....)

Choosing a room:

We are Category 4A people mostly. We like the room, as we do spend time in our cabin (needing a place to escape Big Mouse when he is being annoying), so the extra square footage is appreciated. When DH bonded with the book-on-board guy on the Dream, they picked out cabin 8018 - it's a 4B, but it was under the Cove Café, so the hope was it would be quiet (seeing as Deck 9 is where the activity all happens). I researched a bit, and it got decent reviews, so we stuck with it. Then, when we did the Magic, (after booking the Wonder, but before actually needing to pay the balance), we experienced 8022, which was basically the same, and we liked it.

The main criteria for us are: quiet, with veranda, and no connecting door to another cabin (we are paranoid about noise).

It's also forward, but that was more of an effect of it being under the adult area, rather than something we sought out.


Flights:

There is a small airport in medium-sized-city where we live, but it's often a pain to use it (expensive, and luggage gets left behind, a lot, due to the sizes of the planes), and we're then stuck with Air Canada as our only option. We explored a few options when we were trying to decide about whether to take the trip or not, and in the end, we came up with...

To Vancouver: We would take Air Canada from Ottawa, to Winnipeg, to Vancouver, which we could do on points. We booked this carefully, on the Saturday before embarkation day (which was a Monday) so that we could time-shift a bit in Vancouver, see some relatives, possibly some of Vancouver, and allow missing bags (I'm cursed) to catch up with us. We carefully picked this route since we wanted to break up a long flight for Conor, who gets air sick, and this worked well. (Or so we thought....)

From Vancouver: We had enough points for the return trip, but the flights were TERRIBLE. West Jet had much better flights, at decent prices (we booked these in July for the following July). So, we would leave Vancouver at about noon on Monday, and arrive in Ottawa at about 9:00 p.m. Ontario time, 6 p.m. Vancouver time.

I report diligently on these plans, neither of which actually came to pass... but you'll have to wait for that!

Hotels:

We didn't need a hotel in Ottawa on the way up, but we did book our usual right-next-to-the-airport hotel for our return trip, as we would not likely be in any shape to drive the 2 hours back home.

In Vancouver, we initially booked the Delta Suites - we have stayed there before, and it's fine (and there is some appeal with the separate bedroom). I looked at other, trendier options, but as Conor now says ... OMG (he means Gosh) - the prices!!!!! I gave up.

I was then in Vancouver in April for a conference on my own, and realized that the Fairmount Hotel Vancouver was still close to port, and far less expensive than the Pan Pacific, or the other Fairmonts downtown. I kept checking their website, and lo and behold, they got within $10 of what we were supposed to pay at the Delta ... so we ditched the Delta (love me my old-school Fairmont hotels...) So, on about July 15th, I snagged us a lovely room for 2 nights. Huzzah!

Excursions:

Initially, we booked 3 DCL excursions, mostly for insurance, not really planning on doing them, since we had discovered on the Magic, the, ahem, Magic, of NOT having to put up with those ridiculous paddles of power and venturing out on our own. I honestly can't recall what we had booked in Skagway or Juneau (one had something to do with panning for gold, and one had something to do with salmon, but it didn't involve fishing) because we cancelled them quickly once I found other options. So....

Skagway: We booked with Chilkoot Tours, and set ourselves up for the White Pass Summit Rail & Bus deal-e-o. It came highly recommended in many TRs and outside blogs and gave us time to explore Skagway on our own after.

Juneau: We booked a rental car with Juneau Car Rentals - with a plan to beat the buses to Mendenhall Glacier, and then to find us some cool Alaskan beaches. (We're not delusional - we're used to visiting Newfoundland, with a very similar climate, and we like rocky and sandy beaches in all climates).

Ketchikan: From recommendations, we stayed with DCL for the Potlatch Park/Lumberjack show - with special kids activity.

FE:

Initially, I had not planned on FE-ing. However, I knew Conor would expect it, from the last cruises, so when a tiny little FE group opened up, I joined. There were 6 cabins total (including ours). There were no obsessive rules (see first FE experience....) PERFECTO. With some clever detective work (snooping), I determined we were the only Canadians in the group, so we planned a completely non-crafty "Canadian Care Package" which included bottles of real maple syrup (not that crap they offer you with your waffles on the ship), maple candies, Smarties, objects with Canadian flags lovingly picked out by Conor (key chains, pencils, magnetized note-pads), a flash-light, Disney bandaids, some other things I forget now, and then age-appropriate stuff for kiddos. And, we're done!


Random bits of planning:

• We contemplated booking a car service in Vancouver, but decided to just live with taxis.
• We did not plan anything in Vancouver, as we didn't know how we would feel, but we did research a bit about things to do.
• We just parked at the Ottawa airport, in case anyone finds that bit of info helpful - Park'n'Fly is just a pain we didn't think we needed after a long flight.
• We arranged our usual cat-sitters, and recruited my dad to water the plants. Happily, we didn't need to arrange snow-clearing this time...

And, that's all I can recall right now. The next post .... preparations!

 

[Conorama]

Stalking!

Excellent!

 

[perditax]

It seems like you must have been on the same sailing as this travel writer, who was very very very unhappy, it seems:

http://www.examiner.com/article/disney-cruise-to-alaska-first-impressions

The article is set up weirdly; the conclusion is here:

http://www.examiner.com/article/disney-cruise-to-alaska-lasting-impressions

I'd be interested to know your thoughts on her sense of outrage.

 

[Conorama]

It seems like you must have been on the same sailing as this travel writer, who was very very very unhappy, it seems:

http://www.examiner.com/article/disney-cruise-to-alaska-first-impressions

The article is set up weirdly; the conclusion is here:

http://www.examiner.com/article/disney-cruise-to-alaska-lasting-impressions

I'd be interested to know your thoughts on her sense of outrage.

Wow - no, not outraged at all! It is oddly laid out - I didn't find all of it. Not sure I want to!

 

[perditax]

Wow - no, not outraged at all! It is oddly laid out - I didn't find all of it. Not sure I want to!

It caused a little stir on the main DCL forum here, but from what I saw she was getting it much worse via FB comments. (I don't have much of an opinion as I've never sailed on DCL yet, but it was difficult not to side-eye some of her conclusions.)

 

[Conorama]

Preparations & fun with airlines

Other than booking things back in the summer (flights & hotels) and April (PTA & excursions, most of which we cancelled), we did, um, nothing in preparation for the cruise until June. Once I had figured out that the FE could be done well, but reasonably easily, I just cruised. (Well, I was working like no one's business, to be honest, but we'll go with cruising).

Once we hit Canada Day, though, I dusted off my spreadsheets, and got going.

Packing planning

I have to admit I was amused by all the packing for Alaska threads. I read them, to make sure there was nothing critical I was missing, but really, it amounted to packing just like we usually do when we head off to our second home- Newfoundland.

Here's what greeted us a few years ago when we landed ... that is in degrees, Celsius - so that is how many degrees above freezing it was... in JUNE.




So, we haul out the layers. Easy peasy. We all have them, so we weren't worried. Note the approach in Newfoundland back in June 2012.Yes, that's June. No, he wasn't hot. It was about 7 degrees Celsius.



We didn't pack a lot of the things on various lists, but we did pack the following things that turned out to be helpful, so I will mention them here:

• Insulated mugs/thermos-type things for each of us (just one each)- keeps one's hot chocolate/coffee/mulled wine nice and warm.
• Umbrellas - we had rain gear too, but sometimes, it was easiest to just use an umbrella.
• Back packs for all - much more useful in Alaska than the beach-type bags we often use (with a backpack) in warmer climes.
• Extra bag (fold-up duffle bag), because we had better luggage allowances on our return flights than on the way there. Yippee!

Otherwise, we just had one or two warm layers for all of us (think Hoodies, or fleeces), rain gear, one puffy jacket for Conor (in the Alaska photo), hats, gloves. We had long underwear but didn't need it. We all had hiking boots. Then, we had a mix of long & short-sleeve tops, light-weight pants and some jeans, and a few shorts for our days in Vancouver.

Oh, and we packed some reasonably nice clothes, but I decided to trust the reports that formal night was a bit less formal on the cruise.

All in all, when we were fully packed, we had 3 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, 1 camera bag, and my lap-top back-pack (as carry-on) and we were always well within the weight allowances on our flights. VICTORY WAS MINE.

And, yes, for anyone who has read my previous TRs, I did the luggage shuffle, where I made sure that we all had at least 3 outfits in each checked bag, and extras in carry-on. This was highly motivated by Air Canada's evil machinations, which I will describe next.

Why do the airlines hate us so? And why is Air Canada so unpleasant?

When you book flights months in advance, you need to know that there is a decent chance the flight will change. I get this. I accept this. I don't complain. I don't like it - but I don't complain. Except when Air Canada staff are rude about their issues.

However, I'm not sure why both of our legs of our journey were changed, for the worse. Did I offend the travel gods? I offer up small sacrifices regularly.... oh well.

First, West Jet contacted us - and by contacted, I mean they emailed me, and then they phoned to check that we were OK with the changes ... which amounted to leaving at 3:30 p.m. (vs. noon), and stopping in Calgary vs. Winnipeg. This meant we would get in at (gulp) midnight Ontario time, 9:00 p.m. Vancouver time. They were, however, very pleasant and we said we'd manage.

Well, what can you say? There were no better options. Fortunately, I had booked off the Tuesday, so no need to rush back to work, and we checked that our hotel could take us at 1:00 a.m., which is when we were likely to get there, after picking up our bags, etc.

Air Canada was a different story. (Insert evil glares here.) On the Sunday night before we were to leave, DH checked our flight status on the Air Canada website, to see that we were still leaving at the same time (4:30 p.m. or so) .. but that we would be flying to Montreal, then doing a super-fast turnaround, to get on a flight to Vancouver.

Now.... for those of you who are not familiar with Canadian geography... this involves us driving 2 hours East of where we live, to then take a plane FURTHER East - like an hour East. This drives me nuts as it's going the WRONG way. (Yes, I know we get in at the same time ... but it feels so very wrong...) It also defeated our purposeful plans of having a stopover at the midway point to help puke-boy out, and the quick turnaround had us very worried about our luggage travelling with us to Vancouver.

(At this point, I got extra obsessive about planning lots of clothes in lots of places for all family members ... playing the odds that something would get to Vancouver with us, and we would not be walking around in 2 day old clothes...)

Oh, and we didn't have assigned seats anymore. Great. We pay whatever is needed to pick our seats. DH is 6'6'' and we don't want to subject puke-boy to other passengers if we can avoid it.

So, I called Air Canada. They say they emailed me. I don't doubt they did ... but I didn't see the emails. Checked my trash and all. Nope. Checked my spam. Nope. Now- I might have deleted it by accident (theoretically possible). However, all I ask in life is for a pleasant human being to help me on the other end. She was completely unsympathetic - from her perspective, we were getting in at the same time, so what did it matter? I finally convinced her to make sure we had seats together, but it wasn't pleasant.

When we called WestJet about the same thing (sorting out seats) - they were super-pleasant and efficient. They had the wrong info on their website, but the right info on their app - and they laughed and said they would let the right people know.

Anyhow- we got over our temper tantrums, and then turned our attention to....

What to do in Vancouver for an awkward chunk of time after the cruise?

Thanks to the boards, I knew that the Fairmont Vancouver Airport hotel had day rooms. We looked it up, and for about $120 we could have the use of a room and the hotel for 4 hours. Not cheap, but we decided it was worth it for sanity purposes, as we have already done the "let's sit around in an airport for hours on end, with our luggage that we are not allowed to check in, and everyone can get progressively more cranky". (MCO....!) Since we would be getting in quite late by our standards, we thought it was $120 worth spending.

I considered doing something in Vancouver, but again, we'd have to find some place for our luggage, and by then, I figured we'd have enough of other humans, so solitude was sounding very, very appealing.

We booked it.

Final countdown

Otherwise, we were ready. DH checked that our insurance would cover the rental car - check! He called the various hotels and made sure there would be a bed for Conor - check! He let them all know about late check-in times - check! We located our passports, and other paperwork we like to have (things proving we are Conor's parents). We looked into roaming plans for our phones and figure out a few options.

I did my usual scramble at work to get out at a reasonable time on Friday, complicated by needing to get to Conor's performance at theatre camp, mid-afternoon (he was playing Chris Hadfield in a play written by 6 to 8 year olds...)

And then ... it was departure (for us) day!

 

[Conorama]

It caused a little stir on the main DCL forum here, but from what I saw she was getting it much worse via FB comments. (I don't have much of an opinion as I've never sailed on DCL yet, but it was difficult not to side-eye some of her conclusions.)

I just had a bit more time and found this quote: "Would I return to Alaska? Probably not, while it is beautiful, there really isn't much to do and the shore tours become repetitive very quickly."



I'm thinking she visited a different Alaska than we did. You can judge for yourself as you read, but Alaska was AMAZING, and we would go back in a heartbeat, with a list of 20 different things to do, and that is just in the parts we visited. And I didn't find the passengers any different, or particularly rude on this trip. There were differences, which I'll discuss, but all in all, the kids were fine, (and I am easily annoyed by rude, entitled kids), some adults were irritating, but, well, one just moved away from them, or rolled your eyes ... just like you do everywhere else, including, I'm guessing, Disney World/Land/etc - and, well, the subway, the airport, and downtown just about anywhere. The nice folks far outweighed the not-so-nice.

Then again, maybe my kid was one of the ones who upset her (though at 7 he didn't wander on the ship himself) or I sneezed on her or something. Oddly enough, DH has a cold, and we didn't think to blame it on other cruise passengers, since, well, the air planes we rode one were much more likely to be germ-factories.

OK. Enough of that. Back to our trip.

 

[Conorama]

Departure Day - In which I truly wonder what we all did to annoy the travel gods

Departure day dawned and we all woke up bright and early (well, Conor and I did, and we let DH sleep in a bit, because he's less grumpy that way). I worked my way through The Final List, which includes all the things I need to do the morning that we leave (unplug things that can be unplugged, don't forget your comb, remember to put all the bags IN the car ... see trip number 1 for that excitement).

As usual, I had to turf Conor outside because he was being supremely annoying in his efforts to help. The kid means well, but he's all over the place and then doesn't want to hear that no, he can't pack 20 more stuffies. Happily, outside is the antidote to grumpy for him, so that worked. Coffee is the equivalent of outside for DH (and me) so that's the road we followed, until we were all ready to get in the car.

I had to make a final stop at the mall to pick up my new glasses so that I could actually SEE Alaska (hello middle-age - how are you doing?) and Conor and I snagged an exciting Star Wars magazine for him to peruse on our trip, and we all hit the road, happy, as you can see. I dress him bright colours (he loves them) when we travel so I can spot him easily.





Snag number 1

The drive was uneventful (read: Gravol worked, and there was no carsickness in the back seat). We stopped for lunch at our usual Starbucks in small-town-Ontario, and then arrived at Ottawa airport in plenty of time. Phew.

We had checked in electronically the night before, but we knew we wanted to gate-check our booster seat (as we've done many times before), so we ensured all our documents and luggage tags were in order, took pictures of these (lesson learned by friend whose luggage was lost...) and ambled up to check in. The checker-inner people were more pleasant than my friend on the phone, but expressed extreme shock that we would want to check our booster seat.

But, we explained, we've always done this before. We don't want to risk not having a booster seat at the other end, when faced with a 20-30 minute car ride on the other end. We have a very tight turnover in Montreal (thanks to Air Canada, but you know, we didn't mention that) so we are worried our bags will not make it (voices of experience here). And I had checked the website the night before to triple check the new carry-on luggage rules, (and we weighed and measured all of our carry-on bags) and there was NOTHING about not being able to gate-check a car seat or booster seat. After being told, condescendingly, that they have entire rooms full of car seats to give away at Vancouver airport (which was not the experience friends of ours had not-so-long-ago), we politely stood our ground, and were granted a gate-check tag.

Let us examine Exhibit A, shall we?




What is that on the bottom left corner? Is that not a car seat? Ok, it's an infant seat, but still.... I rest my case.

Hmph.

For the record, after ranting on Facebook about this, I learned that some friends have had the chance to get a brand-new seat (given to them) at some airports if their airline didn't have the seat arrive with the child. However, other friends were never told of the land of the new seats, and had to scramble/scrounge/refuse to use unsafe or unclean seats. So- you take your chances, I guess?

Snag number 2 - which makes snag number 1 seem like nothing.

Not much exciting happened (after my blood pressure came down) after that at Ottawa and in the due course of time, AFTER making sure Conor visited the bathroom, again, we boarded our flight - we weren't all sitting together but Conor and I were in a 2-seat section, so he was able to get his beloved aisle seat (weirdo) and he fell asleep for a bit, due to the Gravol. DH fell asleep due to being old. I did not fall asleep, due to being superior. And coffee. And hot, sweaty boy lying on my lap.

(Oh, and they gate checked that booster-seat without blinking an eye. And other seats. HONESTLY.)

Rested up (or hopped up on coffee) we girded our loins to have to jog from one end of the Montreal airport to the other to make our connection. Why, why, why do tight connections usually involve doing a 2K run in an airport?

Conor was a trouper, and kept up with us, with his backpack on his back, towing his carry-on. He's getting downright useful anymore on trips. We had no time to grab any food, but figured we could eat on the plane.

And then, we waited. And waited. And they finally let us board. Zone early-something-or-other (Air Canada boards by zone these days.) So Conor and I settled in to our 2-seat area again, (Dude was practically giddy that he got the aisle seat again), and I got things organized for a LONG flight. The plan was to eat as soon as possible when we were in the air, have him mimic his bedtime routine as much as possible, and have him sleep - because sleep-deprived boy = pukey boy.

Great plan, eh? Unfortunately, we missed our take-off window, so we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. At the gate. And we waited.

FINALLY, over an hour after we were supposed to leave (which felt like longer- this sounds whiney, but I'm just being honest!), we started our taxi to the runway and ...

Conor announces to me he needs to pee. Of course he does. Poor guy- had dutifully done all we asked, which included hydrating well in Ottawa, and while he did hit the washroom before our first flight, that was now over 2 hours ago, and we had had no time to think about it in Montreal.

Super-bladder prevailed though, and we were conveniently located near a washroom, ("why do they call them rest rooms in the USA, mom?") so the very nanosecond that seatbelt sign was turned off, DH (who was a row behind us and over a section) dashed the boy into the stall... just before I was ready to sacrifice one of our lovely insulated mugs to the cause. Hey- you get creative in the parenting department when desperate. And you thank the powers that be that you have a boy, sometimes.

So then, feeling refreshed, we waited on our food. And waited. And waited. It was a big plane. We were at the back (remember that we had not been able to pick our seats). And the slow servers were on our side of the plane. Finally, at about 9:30, when Conor was practically falling asleep, and I had exhausted anything that looked vaguely like a snack in my bag, we got some rather terrible, but nicely filling airplane food - in that we ordered the only thing that was actually left on the cart, just about.

After another quick visit to the lavatory, changing (discretely!) into PJs, teeth brushing, intense UN-level negotiations explaining that he would sleep better in window seat, but that I promised to keep the window shade closed....) and some bedtime story reading, we got this:



And I'll stop here for tonight - but you can rest assured that we arrived at Vancouver airport, sanity intact (barely), with a boy who woke up from his 2.5 hour nap, very energized at midnight (his time), ready to take on the world.

(I promise, I do get to the actual trip part of things. However, I feel obliged to report on the real part of travel, and sitting around, forever, at the gate, is as much part of things as all the great stuff - right?)

 

[Zarina]

Yay! Love your sarcastic trip reports! Alaska was our first Disney cruise and we totally rebooked on board ! I wonder if you have Disney Euro Cruise in your future? Can't wait to read more about your adventures.

 

[Conorama]

Yay! Love your sarcastic trip reports! Alaska was our first Disney cruise and we totally rebooked on board ! I wonder if you have Disney Euro Cruise in your future? Can't wait to read more about your adventures.

Thanks! I cannot reveal on-board booking answers until the end. It's my only hint of a plot in this thing.

 

[Conorama]

A lovely hotel- once we finally get there.

When I left you, we were gracefully gliding into Vancouver airport. Conor awoke, fresh as the proverbial daisy, and was generally helpful and pleasant as we did the usual airport things, and gleefully (and with relief) reunited with ALL of our luggage. SCORE!

The taxis are just outside the baggage claim area, so we lined up and a tiny, wee, taxi came up. (It was dark and late and I have no idea what kind of car it was ... nor would I, in all honesty, had I been totally awake in broad daylight - it had 4 wheels....) We were wondering if it could manage us and our luggage, but were assured yes.

We then started our imitation of sardines, as the driver put one of the suitcases in the front seat, and so all 3 of us squished in the back, only to watch our driver talk on his cell phone (as in, he had it in his hand up to his ear ... which is illegal in Ontario anyway - not sure about BC) and drive rather aggressively. Oh goodie- we survive a super-long flight, with senses of humour intact, to be greeted with this?

By happy coincidence, there were some quite spectacular fireworks to see just as we entered the downtown - we found out afterwards they were not, in fact, set off for us (imagine!) but were rather China's entry into a fireworks competition. I have never seen the DCL fireworks (too late for me - I'm always in bed) but these were amazing. This helped us stay in a good mood until we got to our hotel.

It's a very lovely old-style hotel (Fairmount Hotel Vancouver), just recently renovated - I know this for sure, because it was still under renovation when I was in Vancouver in April for a conference, and it was fully enmeshed in renos then.

I'm focusing on it a bit, because it's one of my new favorites. It's about a 10 minute walk to port and very walkable to anything else you might want to see downtown. Conor helped me with photos of our lovely room.




It was huge - hard to capture in photos (especially the not-so-great ones I took). His rollaway cot was in front of one of the 2 huge closets - which was fine by us, as we didn't need 2 for our 2 nights there.






I didn't take photo of the bathroom, but it had the old-time, huge, bathtub. Very exciting for the 6'6'' crowd.

And, as a bonus, there is a lovely dog who hangs out with his owner (a concierge) in the lobby often. The dog has its own bed but sometimes just wants to hang out on the cold floor. Conor is getting over a real dog phobia due to some unfortunate incidents, so this type of laid-back, super-sweet dog is just perfect for him. Here, he's spying on the dog .... because, well, he's a spy.





The real bonus for me is that when I stayed kitty-corner across the street a few months before, I learned that the Hilton's lobby is the proud owner of a Starbucks that opens at 5:30 a.m. (The Hilton was very nice too, if you're looking at Vancouver hotels - it is just not as lovely and old as the Hotel Vancouver for us). When travelling West, it's good to know that there is a source of good coffee and some food at 5:30 a.m. because you just KNOW that the boy will be up at that time. (Been there, done that, did not buy the t-shirt to reflect the mad search for food at 0-dawn-o'clock with a then 2-year-old....)

All in all, we checked in, where they greeted Conor by name (they asked for his name when we reserved the rollaway cot - because "we like to greet our young guests by name"). A lovely porter helped us get our bags upstairs, and we were able to get to bed fairly quickly, though DH prudently stepped out to a 24-hour drug store to pick up some juice and granola bars in case wake-up time was BEFORE 5:30 a.m. This is not our first rodeo, you see.

Happily, despite his 2.5 hour nap, Conor (and his mother) were able to fall asleep quickly and slept well, leading us to be ready for ... the next post - a Day in Vancouver.

 

[TestingH2O]

(I promise, I do get to the actual trip part of things. However, I feel obliged to report on the real part of travel, and sitting around, forever, at the gate, is as much part of things as all the great stuff - right?)

We had that trip experience too. I yearn for the day of doing it with a 7 year old though not a 3 year old.

 

[perditax]

(This reminds me of when I got chastised on Cruise Critic for including a few phrases like "FLL: Ugh" in my TR. Sorry, but the Fort Lauderdale airport IS ugh.)

 

[bcwife76]

Yay, your latest trip report!! Have loved all yours in the past, so happy to have found your Alaska report!
Cab drivers in Vancouver are truly HORRIBLE and yes, driving while holding a cell phone is ILLEGAL in all of BC. ****** cab driver.

Sorry your trip started with a few snags but you arrived, can't wait to read more

 

[Conorama]

We had that trip experience too. I yearn for the day of doing it with a 7 year old though not a 3 year old.

Oh dear. Yes, I agree 100% - MUCH better with a 7 year old. There is light at the end of that tunnel! Conor is a good traveler, and he was able to play some new games on my phone so long as we were sitting still... at 3, it would have been UGLY. It was ugly for some kiddos- I felt very bad for them and their families - who were all doing their best.

(This reminds me of when I got chastised on Cruise Critic for including a few phrases like "FLL: Ugh" in my TR. Sorry, but the Fort Lauderdale airport IS ugh.)

Ha! I haven't had the pleasure.

Yay, your latest trip report!! Have loved all yours in the past, so happy to have found your Alaska report!
Cab drivers in Vancouver are truly HORRIBLE and yes, driving while holding a cell phone is ILLEGAL in all of BC. ****** cab driver.

Sorry your trip started with a few snags but you arrived, can't wait to read more

Vancouver was great. The cab drivers got worse.

Thanks to all for reading!

 

[Conorama]

Vancouver - or how to cope with a 3-hour time change


I woke up at 5:30 a.m., Vancouver time (so 8:30 a.m. Ontario time) and checked in on Conor, who in a fit of being a super-child, was sitting quietly on his bed, playing with Sock Dog. We tiptoed around in our room in the dark with my phone's flashlight mode, very quietly getting dressed enough to walk across the street (in the rain) to seek sustenance (coffee for me, breakfast for the boy). By "very quiet", I mean I regularly banged into things, tried not to curse, accidentally shut a door loudly (I did not slam it), and Conor used the world's loudest stage whisper. DH pretended to still be asleep.

The lovely Hilton Starbucks people were there, awake, and perky. We spent a pleasant hour chatting and eating a light breakfast ... unless the time when I realized that Conor had not hit up the bathroom before we left our hotel room- I am ever astute, so this became very apparent to me when he started dancing on his bar stool. Happily, I remembered where the nice hotel washrooms were so a crisis was averted and we lounged in the lobby a bit more.

Armed with new coffee, we made our way back to the Hotel Vancouver to get changed (me), wake up DH, and then meet my aunt & uncle for brunch at the hotel at 8:30. (Yes, we just had breakfast .... your point?)

Well-victualed, we determined the following:

A) We were in Vancouver.
B) It was raining. A lot. For the first time in days, apparently.
C) We needed to be out and about to work on this time-shifting business so that we weren't on the wrong schedule on the ship.


Thus.... Aquarium, here we come!

We nabbed our umbrellas, rain gear, and a taxi ... and again, felt slightly like we were risking life and limb through our mode of transportation. What is UP with Vancouver taxi drivers???

After suffering greatly (read: Conor did not like standing in line in the rain to get our tickets), we finally arrived, soaked, at the Aquarium (just fitting, really), and located the lockers, where we dumped our damp gear.


We explored the Aquarium, had fun, and ate a so-so lunch .... see for yourselves (other than the so-so lunch).

We found Nemo (and friends, family, and assorted stragglers.)





Conor diagnosed sick sea-life.



Helen jumped.



As we left in the early afternoon, it was clearing up, weather-wise - and Conor found this lovely public piano outside of the Aquarium. They're all over the place in Vancouver. Having proudly completed a year of lessons, he decided to play.

(Edit- since THAT photo hosting site got all difficult, we've determined a bonus that I now go through the trouble of uploading short videos... so... you get Conor playing.)

That is his "I am concentrating" face if you're wondering. He's not angry... honest!

This music was calm and pleasant, which mostly set us up well to cope with The Most Terrifying taxi driver EVER. The speed limit in Stanley Park is 30 km/hr. He went 70 km/hr. I am NOT exaggerating.

Thoroughly adrenalized, we took a brief rest in our hotel room (No Napping Allowed) and we headed off to explore Vancouver by foot, deciding that we were NOT taking another taxi anytime soon (OK, well, we were .... in the morning, but we figured we'd skip the rest of the day).

Our wanderings included:

• Old Navy for me to get a cheap-o swim suit, since mine was missing in action at home.
• A movie (or TV show?) set where there was snow, in Vancouver, in July.
• Port - including admiring place names in Canada.
• Shops at port for new Lego for Conor with his saved allowance.
• Float plane watching.

Conor had many whiny moments, because, well, he was tired, but he wasn't bad. Such is life with time-changes - I report it as I see it! (His parents, of course, were not whining. Nope. They weren't grumpy, or tired, or cranky. Much, anyway. OK, they were. But then there was coffee.)

Snow. Well, some of it was felt, but what is on the ground was actual snow.



We finally wended our way to Giovane, in the Fairmont Pacific Rim, for supper. I'd been here with my uncle back in April and it was quiet, unassuming, yummy, and low-key, which is what we needed.

And, finally, we wandered back to the hotel, for a quiet evening of rearranging our clothes in our luggage, Conor getting some well-deserved screen-time, and for DH to hit up a fancy-dancy store to get nice wine and other beverages to bring on board.

One of my favourite treats in Fairmont hotels is to order hot chocolate. It is THE BEST. It comes in this lovely little pot, with amazing cream (it's dessert in case that isn't perfectly clear) and I love it. I shared a bit with Conor (nice mother am I) once it cooled down, to help cure the major brain-freeze he got with his ice cream.

Fighting back tears and being brave after his big-time brain freeze (if I may say so, I love this photo - a rare good one from my phone). This all resolved with warm hot chocolate, and a cuddle - I am not truly a mean mom.




And then, after the "bath, books, bed" routine that we still follow, we all went to sleep.... to prepare for: Day 1!

 

[Conorama]

Day 1 - Trying out a new port for size, and (ahem) hitting that Grand Slam (embarrassing) - part 1

We made it to 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning- which to me, meant we had a successful time-transition.

Our morning was spent in unexciting ways although I did make a run to my bank with Conor to tend to life-stuff (me) and get the wiggles out (him).

We did elect to live dangerously and take a taxi to port. While in theory we could walk with our luggage, it still seemed a bit much to try to manage this - you can see the water here, so you'll see how far we would have had to go - 10 minutes can be VERY long sometimes.

(Walk to the water - then turn right about 1.5 blocks)





We were bored and ready to go at 10:15 or so, so decided to take our chances at port. Our PAT was 11:00, so we knew we would be early, but we thought we'd live dangerously.

By now I had caught on to the fact that the cab drivers would often start to drive before a) everyone was buckled in, and b) everyone was actually IN the car. (I am sadly not exaggerating.) So, we planned it that I would dive in the back seat with Conor immediately to get him in and buckled and do my seat belt up quickly, while DH would prominently stand outside and help with the luggage a bit slowly so that we'd be ready. He would then leap into the taxi and buckle up quickly.

We successfully completed this complex choreography, only to find that this particular driver was nice and safe.

Canada Place

I had tried to read up on Canada Place's processes, but I found the information confusing, so I'll spend a bit of time being clear here (mostly).

Our taxi pulled up inside Canada Place and porter-type folks came out to get our luggage onto a cart (the non-carry-on kind). Helpful people pointed us in the right direction for DCL.

We followed instructions and moved along, until we got to a big room where we were able to check in with DCL. This was basically the same process as at Port Canavral- checking ID, documents, taking a new photo (group this time), and giving us our (gagillionth, it seemed) silver lanyards and KTTW cards.

They do have registration for the kids club, but they weren't quite open yet, and they told us that security would be open in about 5 minutes - so we waited a bit in the designated area - maybe 10 minutes?

We then followed directions to security (things are much more spread out than in Port Canavral - maybe 2-3 minute walks between some areas? - relevant for those with mobility challenges - not super-long walks, but worth noting.)

I'm pretty sure our next stop was security. This was straightforward and all our bags got through with no issues, as did we. (No line ups here yet)

Then, we wandered over to US customs - very little line up at this point and that was pleasant and painless.

It was only a short walk from there to the waiting pen - a big room with chairs, some DCL signage, and not much else. This is where we paid for being early ... we arrived here at about 10:40 or so, I think, and I don't think we were called to board (we were number 5) until just before noon. The whole process had been super-efficient for us, and thus we had some waiting to do.

Now, fear not, Captain Mickey did come out sometime after 11:00, and Goofy followed him at about 11:30, I think. Conor was initially not interested in Mickey, but then remembered he did want his autograph again, so we got in the short line, and after posing a bit, Conor did his usual thing where he engaged the nice lady in much talking while Mickey signed.




Astute readers will note that the autograph book is upside down.

The Tyranny of the T-shirts (ducking here!)

Whilst waiting, noticed a lot of t-shirted families - and the number of people in the families was often huge - like 10+ - almost 20 in one group. Seemed like more than we'd noted on cruises out of PC, but we weren't sure. We later became very sure that there were a lot more - I'm guessing because this was the first cruise we'd taken when school was out, so there were a lot of "we will all cruise together with multiple representatives from multiple generations".

Now... I think this is great - I'm all for families traveling together. I can see how a cruise would be a good family vacation. I have absolutely nothing against matching t-shirts. However, there were 2 or 3 groups that were unfortunately loud and somewhat, well, annoying at times. I'll talk about this later, but for 2 groups in particular, they were unaware they were dubbed "The Tyranny of the T-shirts" by DH. I will once again state that the vast majority of folks with matching t-shirts and the vast majority of folks traveling in large groups were perfectly pleasant and nice. However, 2 of the groups that we were sometimes with seemed, well, just a bit oblivious to how their actions might affect others.

(This does not mean I agree with she who had the worst experience ever on our cruise.... this was no more annoying than what I have encountered at, say, a visit to the zoo - there are always folks who don't seem aware of how they are affecting the experience of others - or that's how I choose to interpret it!)

In port, though, they were all fine, but stay tuned for some T-shirted adventures.

Boarding

Finally- we were called, and we suffered through the family portrait (we decided that was easier than skipping) and finally were able to board the Wonder just before noon. Does one qualify for a Grand Slam just as soon as you get ON the ship? Or was that only when we got off a week later?

Deep questions.

One final note before I sign off for now - Conor was back to NOT wanting them to announce our name. We convinced him that we had no choice, so he skulked in, looking like he was about to walk the plank. Ah, drama, thy name is 7-year-old boy.

(Of note, we still do not have moments of huge emotion when we board ... unless you count "Phew- we made it! Wow that's loud! Let's get out of here...." as an emotion.)

The boy perked up, though, once we got past that, and we found a quietish, area to get organized. Our plan was:

A) Go to Port Adventures to get a ticket to see Olaf (Yes, Olaf. The boy loves Olaf, but hates Frozen. He doesn't ask for much this way, so fine, we'll get a ticket, and be glad it's a ticketed event now, and not something that requires lining up for ever in the lobby.)
B) Get some lunch
C) Send DH to make sure that we had a 4-top table
D) Get the boy registered at the kids' club/lab.
E) Obtain good coffee (we had kept our last frequent caffeinator card)
F) Mellow out
G) Get to state room to dump stuff

How will this all go? Tune in for the next thrilling installment, where I realize why I NEVER want to line up with Disney ever again and where I start to really despise a certain (innocent) snowman.

 

[Mrs Green]

he fell asleep for a bit, due to the Gravol. DH fell asleep due to being old. I did not fall asleep, due to being superior. And coffee.
)

hahaha this is exactly the humor and honesty I have enjoyed in your other trip reports! I will happily be following along on your Alaska adventure!