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A 13-day adventure by Pauline and Andrew Read more
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  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska
    1

    Planning our trip

    August 30, 2018 in England ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    1st February 2017. Location: The Tasman Sea, midway between Milford Sound, New Zealand and Hobart Tasmania, onboard Celebrity Solstice. A day at sea. Time to look at future opportunities to cruise, and (why not?) on this beautiful ship. It's our first sea cruise and we're enjoying it!

    In the 2018 northern summer season, Celebrity ships sail in northern Europe, but the Solstice runs between the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, making its last journey north in early September. Then it crosses the Pacific to start again around Australia and New Zealand. So, with a promise of a good deal, and only 100 USD deposit, we booked the last trip to Alaska.

    Fast forward to December 2017. Flights for 2018 have been on sale for a while, and British Airways have announced a sale. Time to think about how we get to Seattle to catch the ship, and what we might do before and after.

    Airlines: BA - simple and we could go out and back from different places (but from Heathrow, so shuttle required); Icelandair via Keflavik (not actually cheaper, but giving a chance to also see Iceland - before or afterwards) - too complicated, and we decided we'll do a short visit another time; Thomas Cook to and from Seattle from mid 2018 - cheapest, but using the RAF's air tanker fleet, so sharing a movie on a pull down screen (hmm); Air Transat - a bit complicated, doing one leg via Toronto, and similarly priced; Aer Lingus via Dublin?

    Where to go before and afterwards? Sailing from Seattle, so Vancouver, being just 100 miles away, seems an obvious choice; Seattle itself? - we last went in 1996, with the boys, saw the sights, went up the Space Needle, it's a nice city; Chicago first, then on empire Builder train to Seattle, over 3 days (not sure about bunk beds, though); a chance to catch a repositioning Celebrity ship from Vancouver, via the Aleutians to Tokyo, but who wants 2 weeks at sea in the autumn North Pacific, and disembarking at Yokohama at 4 am? Visiting the Olympic National Park? The clincher was the Pauline wants to leave the trip with the last memory being disembarkation from Celebrity Solstice and straight home.

    So, then? BA to Heathrow; then Vancouver; 3 days there; the train (or bus) to Seattle; then direct back from Seattle to London and then on to Manchester.

    We booked the flights, then Andrew realised he was a day out! Luckily, it was online, so you get a free change within 24 hours. Used Trivago to book in Vancouver, and that was it, until...

    ...in February, BA said that they were cancelling our return shuttle, and so we needed to wait 5 hours for the next one. The to-ing and fro-ing is a story in itself, but suffice to say, that we are driving to Heathrow - our choice, as we'll be home when we'd still be waiting for our connection.

    All's now paid for, the final link is that we're on a bus from Vancouver to Seattle (faster than the train!), checked in to all but the flights, just about to start packing.    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska

    Tomorrow, the sun will rise in the west

    September 2, 2018 in England ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    The book: "Skyfaring: A journey with a pilot." The author: Mark Vanhoenacker (a BA 747 pilot). Page 263:

    "Leaving London for Vancouver on an autumn afternoon, we start by roughly heading north, and the sun is already setting to the west; to our left. In the middle of the flight, it might be ahead of us, on the nose. Then, near the end of the flight, when we approach Vancouver heading nearly south, the sunset is on our right, having moved around the horizon as ordinarily as the hand of a clock or the shadow of a sundial".

    Investigate further, find route and sunrise / sunset calculators (yes, really), and you find that, tomorrow, not only does the sun move around, but it also almost sets, rises again, then starts to set. What a great view they'll get from the flight deck!    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska

    Pre-Travelling

    September 2, 2018 in England ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Checked in, but the flight goes from Heathrow T3, not T5, so we need to factor in a little more time to park the car, then get from terminal to terminal. On the return, we arrive at T5, so we'll not change car parks, as we're in the Meet and Greet, and all we'll want to do is get home. Four hours should do it, and if we set off after the Monday morning rush, we should be there with plenty of wriggle room.

    Our flight (BA85) is at 17:20. At 8:20 pm, today's is en-route, having left 34 minutes late, but expected to arrive 16 minutes early. FlightRadar24 tells us that the very same Airbus A380 has flown this route 6 days on the trot. We wonder if there'll be a 7th.    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska
    Day 1

    Pauline's definitely a patient traveller

    September 3, 2018 in Canada ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    So, we got to Heathrow in good time - just as well, as we only saw this morning that the flight went from T3, not T5.

    Anyway, it was a different Airbus (so, not 7 days in a row for the other - it went to Singapore instead - ours had come in from Hong Kong this morning) and the flight was beautifully smooth, up over Glasgow, Skye, Iceland, Greenland and then Canada, in sunshine all the way.

    What a pity that Pauline had someone in front who seemed hyperactive - maybe it was the 10 cups of coffee he had - and one behind whose legs were long, so he stretched them out next to her seat and took his shoes off - you can imagine.

    Very, very efficient immigration, and a quick journey to our “Vancouver Original” hotel. It’s 9 pm here, or 5 am there. Let’s see how we get on with sleeping.    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska
    Day 2

    Vancouver HoHo and Stanley Park

    September 4, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    We're in The Victorian Hotel - built in 1898, just 90 years after Vancouver was established. It has "stayed true to her roots, accentuating features of her past..." so, it's quaint, we've got a sunlight (but it doesn't open), and a stand alone a/c unit. The bed's very comfortable.

    There's a book to be written about Vancouver, a dense, glass fronted, high rise city. Or, at least, a Wikipedia page, which is here and does better justice than we could do in this blog:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver

    As usual, we took up the HoHo Hop-On, Hop Off to see the downtown part of the city and its famous Stanley Park. There are two routes - City and Park, and we got a combined ticket for both, as we're handy for Canada Place, which seems to be the tourist hub.

    So, read the wiki for the details. Our highlight was Stanley Park, where we got off to see a Totem Pole display, ate a Japanese hot dog, then walked the Sea Wall, all around to Lions Gate Bridge - and we saw our first sea life!

    Lots of lovely beaches and water traffic, we then had a selection of beers at a local brew house, before heading back for a nap.

    Tomorrow, we're going whale watching, and visiting Victoria    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska
    Day 3

    Whales seen in the Salish Sea

    September 5, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Up at the crack of dawn, and ready, checked in, for our Prince of Whales cruise across the Salish Sea, through and past the Southern Gulf Islands to Victoria, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island. And we’d hoped to get a view of whales.

    Well, we did! First, quite near to Victoria (in front of the grand houses), then, later, on the way back, we diverted along the coast of Valdes Island and wow!

    There was even another watching boat next to us, and he had a hydrophone in the water, so we heard the whales sounding to each other.    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska
    Day 3

    Victoria and Butchart Gardens

    September 5, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Apart from the whale watching, our day took in Victoria (British Columbia's capital) and then a 30 minute bus ride to Butchart Gardens.

    Victoria by Wikipedia:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_Briti…

    Victoria was very nice (small) and worth spending a lot more time there. Oh yes, we'll be back next Thursday evening on the Celebrity Solstice, making our last stop before the end of the cruise. We've just realised how it might work that we only have from 5pm to 11pm in port - it's quite possible to walk around, but the best is that the Butchart Gardens are open until 9pm and they've got lighting!

    The Gardens, built mostly in a disused limestone quarry (well, the sunken gardens are), are fabulous and definitely worth a visit.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butchart_Gardens    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska
    Day 4

    Grouse Mountain - bears, lumberjacks

    September 6, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    So, we’ve seen the whole Pacific Northwest wildlife tourist treats, and we haven’t even got to Alaska yet!

    Grouse Mountain is a winter ski resort, only about 5 miles from Vancouver. The enterprising owners have made it a year round destination, with a fabulous brown bear habitat as its centrepiece.

    We took the chair left to the very top, at just over 4000 ft - looking down, we could only assume the run from there was a Black one....

    Oh, yes, on the way, we went over the Lion’s Gate bridge. Built around the same time as the Golden Gate Bridge (it looks similar, but it’s green), it was financed by Guinness (yes, that one), and it’s just 3 lanes, with a tidal flow on the middle lane. Not AS impressive as San Francisco’s, but iconic in its own way.    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska
    Day 4

    Vancouver - some reflections

    September 6, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    We sat on the cruise ship pier, admiring the Silverseas ship which was about to sail. An old timer struck up a conversation with us: Dennis Black is Vancouver born and bred and spends his time admiring the outdoors, and his indulgence is “cruising”.

    So, we’ve got some insights to help us with the next week, and an urgent task to bring forward our travel in the morning to Seattle - he said enough about possible delays at the border to give us the wobbles. So, a phone call later, and we’re setting off on the 0530 bus - in Seattle by 0900.

    We’d been wondering about the pile of yellow minerals across the harbour - “sulphur” he said - extracted from “sour” gas and oil (this making them sweet - and off to make fertiliser.

    Here’s a take from a letter to the Yukon Times, about the yellow pile, from 2013:

    https://www.yukon-news.com/letters-opinions/per…

    Maybe tells a story...    Read more

  • TravelerPacific Northwest and Alaska
    Day 5

    Simon & Garfunkel moment

    September 7, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    “I’m (we’re) sitting in a railway station, got my (our) ticket(s) for my (our) destination....”

    0500, Pacific Central railway station, Vancouver. The early starters are gathering for their adventure across the US.

    The train (leaves at 0630) has border checks done before they get on, whereas we have to get off the bus at the “line”, remove our bags, go through the usual questions and passport stamping before reboarding.

    Yet it will take us 1 hour less than the train. Any thoughts, our followers    Read more

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