Vancouver Arrival

Debarkation and customs- easy Peasy- then the wait for a taxi- took awhile, but no problem. We went to the Holiday Inn Downtown on Howe St. We asked if we could store our bags til check-in, and the nice man at the counter had a room (an upgrade!) for us to go to immediately. Color me happy!

After some regrouping in the room, we had brunch at The Templeton Restaurant. A long wait- but worth it. Salmon Benefict-- yeah!

We got 48-hour Hop-on-Hop-Off (HoHo) passes, and used it for most of our transportation in Vancouver.

We went to the Harbor ('scuse me- Harbour) Tour and saw some lovely Vancouver sights, including our NCL Jewel, which was still inport, taking on new passengers for THEIR wonderful week. (Turns out the cruise ships have very narrow windows for arrival and departure. They can only go at High Tide because the water is really shallow- we're talking mud-flat shallow at low tide.) We saw Viking Orion again.. anchored out- again. There is an Exxon gas station in the middle of the harbor for boats to refuel.

Dinner was at Speakeasy Bar & Grill. It sounded so promising... We got nachos- a huge plate of chips & cheese. Wayne & Julianna ordered French dip sandwiches. No servers in sight for a long time. W's sandwich arrived. A very long time- then a server stopped by the table and asked how we were doing. I asked about J's sandwich. She'd get right on it, she said. Another long wait. Then our original server stopped by. "How's everything?" I asked again about J's sandwich. A moderate wait, then it materialized, and apparently tasted ok.

Then back to the room.Read more