Wednesday,
29 Aug 2018 – Our
alarm woke us at 6:00 AM. Of course, the
Horizon Court was packed with people eating, but we finally found a place to
sit. We tried to eat enough to last us
all day!
We were out of our cabin by 8:00 AM. That was the required time to vacate, but it has
taken us several cruises to succeed in meeting that deadline! Almost at the last minute, Jesse noticed that
one item of clothing had not been returned with our laundry last night;
however, Hedy ran up to us with that item, just as we were leaving our cabin. After that, we sat in a lounge until our
scheduled 9:20 AM disembarkation time.
Once in the cruise terminal, it was easy to
find our suitcases in the proper section, and we pulled our luggage for a short
distance out to the line awaiting taxis.
Amazingly, there were no security or passport checks upon entering
Canada.
The drive to the EXchange Hotel was less than
5 minutes. The driver requested that we
pay him $10.00 CAD in cash in preference to our charge card. Sadly, we didn’t have any Canadian currency,
and after a few minutes of negotiation, we paid him $20.00 US and he gave us
$12:00 CAD in change. We later figured
out that we had paid him the equivalent of $13.00 US, which was definitely too
much for the 5 minute ride!
Although we had reservations, we were told
that check-in time was 4:00 PM. To pass
the time, we sat in a lounge with our laptops, and at 2:30 PM we received our
room keys. Later, Val and Ed
called. They had been allowed to check
in to their hotel upon arrival, and had spent most of their day touring an
underground mall located beneath their hotel.
We had discussed our respective hotels before
leaving the ship. Their hotel was
located near the port and ours was downtown; therefore, we were prepared to
take a long walk or a taxi ride to their hotel.
However, it turned out that their hotel was only 2 or 3 blocks, or a 4
minute walk, away! We decided that we
would walk to their hotel. Since our
hotel only recently opened and the restaurant was still under construction, we
had intended to eat at their hotel, but it was extremely expensive. So we ended up walking back to the Scoozis Mediterranean
restaurant located next to our hotel.
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| Scoozis Eatery, Vancouver, Canada |
The restaurant was family operated by Turkish
immigrants, and one of the young female family members was our waitress. Jesse asked her if she watched the Dr. Oz
show, since he is also from Turkey; she responded that she didn’t watch
TV! We all ordered salad and lasagna,
which was tonight’s specialty. After
finishing our meal, we said our goodbyes to Val and Ed because they had early
morning flights home.
Thursday,
30 Aug 2018 – Beginning
at about 6:15 AM, we were awakened by loud noises that sounded like alarms
going off, seemingly right outside our hotel window. It turned out to be construction
equipment. Being on the seventh floor
didn’t help reduce the sound. At about
8:00 we went down the hall to the breakfast buffet near the elevator, not far
from our room. We had been told by the
hotel staff that a breakfast buffet would be set up on each floor. We found bananas, apples, kiwi fruit, yogurt
topped with granola, orange and cranberry juice, and 2% milk. Also included were some tempting sweet
rolls. We took some items to eat right
away and some to eat later.
We stayed in our room passing time on our
laptops until about 6:00 PM, when we walked up the street to the mall that Val
and Ed had mentioned. There we found a
food court and purchased dinner from the Flaming Wok Chinese restaurant. Derek and Gina arrived before too long, at least
sooner than we expected. They had driven
from Seattle after work, and also had reservations at the hotel. Since they wanted to go out, we walked down
the street to the Lions Pub, where we enjoyed drinks. Jesse and I had hard cider.
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| Vancouver Maritime Museum |
Friday,
31 Aug 2018
– Again, we picked up breakfast from the breakfast buffet. Although we had told Derek and Gina that we
would meet them downstairs by 9:00 AM, that turned out not to be quite enough
time, so we were 15 minutes late.
From the hotel, we walked to the pier area,
and purchased day passes for False Creek Ferries, then took a boat along the
coast. Our first stop was the Vancouver
Maritime Museum. We toured only the
outside of the museum. Several small
vintage ships were docked at the pier and the “Ben Franklin” Oceanographic
Research Submersible was on display.
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| Edible Canada Bistro |
 |
| Across from Terra Breads Cafe |
Our next stop was at a more populated area,
with numerous shops. There were very
interesting displays at the Vancouver Biennale Open Air Museum, with
beautifully hand painted concrete mixer towers. Then we stopped at the Edible Canada Bistro
for lunch before boarding another ferry for a short ride back to the mainland. From there we walked to the train station,
stopping briefly at Terra Breads Café for an afternoon snack. We took the train back to the city and then
walked a short distance to a chocolate shop where we drank chocolate. It was
something like a melted dark chocolate bar, and a chocolate-lover’s dream! Then we walked a little more before taking a taxi
back to our hotel.
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| Zabu Chicken Korean Restaurant |
After resting for two hours, we started a
walk to find a restaurant for dinner. We
had decided on Korean, but we soon tired from walking and took a taxi to the “Korean
restaurant” area of Vancouver. After
surveying several menus, we stopped at Zabu Chicken Korean restaurant for
dinner. Although the food was unusual,
it was very good. By 7:30 PM we were
back in our hotel room, where we enjoyed drinks before retiring for the night.
Saturday,
1 Sep 2018
– Our alarm awoke us at 7:30 AM. After
eating the hotel breakfast, we packed up and went downstairs to the lobby at
9:30 AM. Sally joined Gina at their car
in front of the hotel while, Derek stayed with Jesse as he signed out at the
front desk. After loading the luggage, we
drove toward the U.S. border, stopping at a Wendy’s once for drinks and
bathroom breaks.
Near the U.S. border, we stopped – as did the
cars in 6 or more lanes. For the next
1.5 hours, we would drive a short distance, and then turn off the ignition –
and repeat this process several times. At
the border, the agent checked our passports and asked us a few questions, such
as where we had been, why we were in Canada, and how we knew each other. Seattle is a little more than 100 miles from
the border, so we stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch along the way.
We would be staying at Derek & Gina’s house
over the rest of Labor Day weekend, and then visiting more family in Washington
and Idaho before flying home.
