A beautiful sunny morning as we complete our sailing through the Inside Passage between the enormous Vancouver Island to the west – that stretches for over 250 miles - and the British Columbia (BC) mainland and pass under the Lions Gate Suspension Bridge and swing round past the Stanley Park into Vancouver Harbour – wow what a waterfront! The cruise terminal this morning awaits the Seven Seas Navigator and the Holland America (Another company to strike off my list of possible cruise lines since I have just discovered that they are also owned and operated by Carnival!) Volendam.
Disembarkation is swift and efficient – well we are only disembarking 490 guests – but Canadian immigration laws prevent any of the crew from disembarking to assist. This is to thwart ‘crew jumpers’ seeking asylum. The Balmoral in January 2012 on my Round South America cruise was delayed in New Orleans because of a crew jumper and likewise all shore leave for the rest of the crew was suspended whilst in US waters. By 9.00am I am through Canadian immigration and customs and calling my stretch limousine transfer, courtesy of Rocky Mountaineer, to the Holiday Inn Hotel. A short delay whilst the limo is called and I sit in regal splendour in a limo designed for at least 6 passengers for the 5 minute and 800 metre transfer to the hotel! A bit over the top but an interesting experience for one who has not travelled in such style before.
I had already guessed that I would be unable to check in to my room until the afternoon and so this proved to be although the hotel offered me another room next to the elevator – an offer which I declined in favour of leaving my baggage and exploring Vancouver until late afternoon. Listening to my conversation at Reception was the owner of the small gift shop in the hotel who came up to me and offered to find me something to do for the day. It turned out that she was an agent for the Grayline Hop On Hop Off Bus and many of the other tour operators but she was friendly and helpful and suggested that my first move should be to buy a 2 day pass for the City Tour Bus, take thefull tour and having seen the whole city then decide what I wanted to do. So within minutes I had a ticket and lots of tour pamphlets and duly retired to the Starbucks concession in the hotel where I was greeted with enthusiasm by the Japanese owner and sat at a comfortable table with a Tall Latte and drew breath and got my bearings.
The weather was superb and evidently this was the first day of warm weather for some 3 weeks. It reached 28 C during the day. After a little bit of a wait for the Hop On Hop Off Bus – it was 11.00 am and peak time for taking the bus and the city was packed with tourists – most of whom seemed to be from Germany. As in Halifax Nova Scotia Vancouver has a fleet of ex Routemaster Buses from London with a pink colour scheme. Vancouver has a big Gay population and some of the proceeds from the bus go towards Gay Rights charities. My bus today was not a Routemaster but a single decker with a partial open back deck for viewing and an Afro-Caribbean guide who was great fun and claimed to have a depressed dog who was on Prozac and Valium and visited a doggy shrink twice a month!! More about Vancouver in the next blog.
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