Cruise to Hawaii - Vancouver and Embarkation Day!

We made it to Vancouver with no hiccups and, despite being warned that it would be hard to find a taxi large enough to fit the four of us and all our luggage, we found a taxi van right away and headed to our hotel by the harbour.

We stayed at the Pinnacle Hotel Vancouver Harbourfront, which was walking distance to the port.

We arrived before check in time so we lounged around the lobby area waiting for our room to be ready because we were exhausted.

Once we had checked in, we took a walk around the area and found a nice place to grab a bite to eat - a brew pub of course - right along the water front.

 The views were spectacular!

 

Since we had been up since way before dawn on the east coast, we all crashed at 7:30PM Pacific time and slept until 6:30AM the next morning.

But, finally, it was embarkation day!  The kids were ready to go bright and early.

After breakfast, we hefted our backpacks once again, each grabbed a 50 pound rolling suitcase, and starting walking through the streets of Vancouver.

 Don't you just love Scott's backpack with the Minnie Mouse luggage tag?

10 minutes later, we saw her - the Disney Wonder!

We were a wee bit early so we sat on some benches along the pier, did some people watching, and took some pictures.

 

Finally it was time to check in.

Once we had our key cards and registered Will for the kids program, there was only one thing left to do before we boarded: get a picture with Mickey, of course!

A quick family pic before we board!

Here's how the rest of embarkation went:

(and yes, I was the videographer, so you might need some motion sickness meds.  Not sure why anyone ever let's me run the video camera!)

Christmas in September: The Wait Is Over!

It was a little less than 9 months ago when we surprised the kids on Christmas morning with a cruise to Hawaii.  

And then we told them they would have to wait until September to go.  

Cue sad trombone.

But now it was finally time!  Time to:

• Figure out how to pack 4 people for 14 days and keep to one checked bag each.
• Get up at 3:30AM to get to the airport by 4:30AM in order to catch a 6:30AM flight to Toronto and then onto Vancouver.
• Have the kids experience their first ever airplane rides!

Here's how we were feeling around the 5:30AM mark on September 6, 2015:

So basically, we were feeling fine and looking good!

The kids experienced a whole lot of firsts on this day:

- first time checking baggage.

- first time getting a boarding pass.

- first time going through airport security.

- first time wandering around an airport looking for an

outlet for their device charger.  All the fun stuff of airline travel!

Both were very excited to experience their first airplane rides. Although a little nervous, they did very well and thankfully we had very smooth flights.

Will was glued to his window and took his first pictures of a sunrise from a plane:

 

 

Eliza Grace, meanwhile, had no problem sleeping through most of that first flight:

We landed in Toronto and thank goodness we had a two hour layover because we needed nearly every minute of it.

My,what an ordeal in Canada. First, we deplaned directly onto the tarmac.  I think the last time I did that was 1994.  

Then it was into the terminal, walk what felt like half a mile to baggage claim, wait for luggage, grab luggage, haul it down the hall to customs, figure out the newfangled machines where they scanned our passports and we declared that we had not somehow picked up prohibited items from the time we deplaned, got our luggage and made it to customs.  Once through that phase we then had a human confirm what we did at the machine, then a short walk to another area where we took our 50lb checked bags and put them on another conveyor and prayed they would eventually make it to the right plane.

By the time we made it down to the Tim Horton's (which we will never do again) we had about an hour until we boarded and it took about 30 minutes to get our food.  Needless-to-say, we wolfed down our breakfast biscuits and booked it to the right terminal and gate with about 10 minutes to spare.

The upside was that we never felt like we were sitting around waiting to board.  And the kids were getting a well rounded experience in air travel!

Up next (six hours later), Vancouver!