Trying to Decide What We’re Going to do in Vancouver

(August 26th 2010)

So we know we’ll be in Vancouver for 3 days and we’re trying to decide what to do while we’re there. As luck would have it the Vancouver Canucks are playing at home against the New Jersey Devils on our last night so I’ll try and get tickets for that. The problem is that all ticket sales go through Ticketmaster and they require a Canadian postcode. We live in the UK in case you hadn’t noticed. I sent an email to the hotel and asked them if I could use their address to send the tickets to which the very nice concierge agreed. The tickets go on sale early september so I’ll keep an eye out.

As we’ve been to Vancouver before it takes a bit of thought to decide what we’re going to do to make the most of our stay. The last time we were there we actually saw little of the city as Amanda couldn’t walk far. This time with a little forward planning, I have arranged a wheelchair to be available so that’ll make things a lot easier. It mean’s that we can check out museums, galleries and even a nice walk round Stanley Park not to mention the length of Robson Street and all the shops.

Amanda, meanwhile, has been looking at whale watching trips which still operate at the time of year we’re going. Some of the boats looked a little small to me to be stuck in for 5-7 hours which some of the trips seem to go for, but some of the others look ok. I’ll just have to take some Quells (other sea sickness meds ARE available) and suck it up. I’m sure it’ll be fun.

Grouse Mountain is also going to be a destination I think. We’ve been to Vancouver a total of 3 times and never been to the top of Grouse Mountain. Amanda hates cable cars so I can get my own back for the whale watching 🙂

I should think those activities should do us nicely.

Have to think of what to do in Jasper next

Went Mad and Booked Everything

(April 6th 2010)

Thought about it long enough (a few days) and so took the plunge and flexed my Amex.
• Flights booked
• Train booked
• Hotels booked

I should point out at this stage that this is entirely my idea. Amanda is just going along with whatever I’ve booked (up to a point anyway). If it goes horribly wrong, well then she should have spoken up earlier. If it’s an amazing holiday then I’m happy to take the credit.

We (I) decided to go with Air Canada as they fly direct. Could have gone with BA but being as we’re going Canadian I thought we should do it 100%. We fly on Saturday 30th Oct so will be in Vancouver for Halloween. There’s a candy apple shop near the hotel which does amazing Halloween stuff with which we shall gorge ourselves silly. By the way, for regular readers, we’re staying at the same hotel we did on our Way Out West trip in Sept 2008. In fact we’re also staying in the same hotel in Toronto that we stayed at a few years back too. In that particular case it’s because a) it was lovely and b) it’s near Gretskys restaurant and we NEED more of that meatloaf.

I digress. We arrive in Vancouver, stay for three nights then jump on the train to Jasper. That takes 18 hrs and we sleep on the train. Three nights in Jasper, then back on the train for almost three days to Toronto. Then a lovely relaxing four nights in Toronto and we fly back home on the 13th Nov.

Sound good?