And THAT'S A Wrap!
Much like nearly everything else on this adventure the morning was virtually seamless. We sailed into Vancouver in the early morning hours and docked just before 7am, right on schedule. I can't remember for sure, but I believe in the past, even on this itinerary where we spend the night in Vancouver, I'm remembering that we had color-coded luggage tags and got off at an assigned time slot. But because we had booked the hotel through our wonderful travel agent Nancy Nelson on our own, we opted to be in the "we'll do it ourselves" category, meaning we could disembark any time prior to 9:30. We had some coffee, finished the last of our packing and by 8:30am we were ready to exit with the final groups on board. We knew we had to allow "some time" to pick up the confiscated steamer and figured there would be some waiting in line. Neither of those took any time at all. The elevator came quickly, we wound around the exit path quickly, flashed our key cards and right off the ship Kim presented her paperwork and signed for the steamer. Literally every twenty feet was someone pointing the way and we followed the line all the way out to the street. The GPS directions to the hotel indicated we simply followed "Canada Way" outside the terminal, around the bend and make one turn to arrive at our hotel, the Pinnacle Hotel Harborfront in about ten minutes. Went exactly as it was laid out and we were at the front desk around 9am. Our rooms were not ready and we were told it could be as late as 3pm but checkout for the current guests was at noon. We asked about a close-by coffee place and walked about three minutes to a local spot, ordered iced and frozen coffee then logged onto their Wi-Fi. As we sat there I completed our check-in for our 8:45am flights and then we headed back to the hotel lobby. We waited about two hours and went into the hotel restaurant at 11:30am for an early lunch, AND cashed in two $15 vouchers off our meal - and it was even lower because of the US dollar-to-Canadian dollar conversion. We didn't think the room would be ready but I asked any way.....AND it was. We picked up our luggage rather than wait the half hour to forty-five minutes for it to be delivered and headed up to the fifth floor. As we opened the door we were greeted by a huge, wall-to-wall window with a balcony that overlooks the harbor. We quickly opened the doors to let the 60-ish temp fresh air fill the room. We spent the afternoon relaxing, gearing-up for the long day of travel tomorrow (we were told that for an 8:45 flight we should be at the airport at 5:45am, which means leaving the hotel a little after 5am!). We opted to bypass our "usual spot" in Gastown - about a fifteen minute walk - to have dinner on the waterfront this time, and we arrived shortly before our 5:45pm reservations. This will be our new "must go to" dinner spot - the views were amazing as we had waterfront dining....had an outstanding meal, with good wine - all the while enjoying the fresh air off the water.
And so wraps our seventh Alaskan adventure. Have to admit we - especially Kim - had fears about what the glaciers and massive chunks of ice would look like, but we were not only NOT disappointed but surprised at how stunning it all was. We will forever remember this Alaskan trip for the spectacular "Glacier Trifecta"......
For those of you who regularly follow our adventures, we are about a month and a half away from a five day getaway to Napa Valley which will be a reunion of couples (MP & Tom, Pam & Bob) who we met in 2019 on the Viking Portugal trip. Then in September we will be rejoining Viking Rivers to explore Southeast Asia on the "Magnificent Mekong" itinerary. We will meet our good friends Valerie & John whom we met on our Egypt trip for that adventure. My youngest son Brad and I will have a long weekend at the end of October/early November to go to San Diego for the Breeders' Cup World Championships. And Kim and I will top off the year's adventures by joining the Murrays for a Christmas Markets trip with Viking Rivers along the Elbe River in Germany. We'll see you on the next trip - thanks for joining us!
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