Sapphire Princess Alaskan Cruise: a night in Vancouver

walking in downtown Vancouver

The Marine Building, the most famous building in Vancouver, once the tallest building in the British empire, and one of the great Art Deco buildings in the world, comparable to the Chrysler Building in New York City

the doorway to the Marine Building...gorgeous!

Not sure what's going on with this fella, but he's wearing a skirt and he's got some very interesting hair going on there.

Inside Joe Fortes, our dinner spot

Danny's meal, Halibut, Salmon and Prawns

Arctic Char with potatoes, roasted carrot, summer yellow zucchini squash and brocollini...It was yummy

Dad's Fried Halibut and Chips

a cupcake shop just happened to be next to our dinner spot...instant dessert!

Danny and I got one cupcake to split later

me and my prize!

cool sports car

The Pan Pacific Hotel behind the Canada Place pier

Giant Blue raindrop

My parents...50 years of marriage...an accomplishment worth celebrating

Danny and Amy...28 years of marriage and counting

Piers for docking planes

We saw a lot of plane activity coming into and out of the harbour. We thought the gas station out in the water was interesting

 

 

 

 

 

The Canada Place Pier

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary earlier this year and wanted to remember this year in a special way. They mentioned an Alaskan cruise and asked if Danny and I would like to tag along. I am also celebrating my 50th birthday at the end of this year and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to combine the two celebrations! I did a lot of research and decided on the Sapphire Princess. There were no special reasons other than good cruise reports. We also decided to cruise from Vancouver to Anchorage (disembarking at Whittier) and then fly home from Anchorage.

We started our travels in New Orleans, LA and flew to Los Angeles. The flight was uneventful and arrived a little early into LAX. We knew that we had a little over two hours until our next flight so we stopped for a light breakfast. We had arrived in terminal 5 and didn't see our next gate posted. This wasn't too surprising given the time between flights. After breakfast, I checked my flight app...flight aware pro...and saw that our gate was in terminal 2. No problem we thought, we would just move between terminals. This turned out to be a real problem! We had no idea that to go to terminal 2 we would have to exit the airport in baggage claim and catch a bus that would circle the airport to terminal 2, stopping at every terminal inbetween. Once we re-entered the airport, we had to go through security again!! Not only did we have to go through it again, we had to wait in a very long line and only be allowed up to security a few people at a time. We just knew we would miss our flight to Vancouver, but once we were at security it went very smoothly and quickly. We were at our gate with about 20 minutes before boarding.

Our flight to Vancouver was also uneventful and arrived at the gate a little early as well. We took the Canada Line Skyway from the airport to our hotel, the Pan Pacific. The Canada Line is an above ground skyway that costs 9.00 per person to ride and our luggage rolled right on. We purchased tickets but not once did we have to put tickets into any kind of machine or hand them to a person! That was really strange and I wondered how many people ride without ever purchasing a ticket.

We exited the Skyway at the Waterfront stop, which was the end of the line. Our hotel was only a couple of blocks and we walked it easily pulling our suitcases. We traveled with one 25" suitcase and a backpack apiece. It was difficult to pack for all of the clothing requirements for our cruise, but we each managed to do it and stay within our weight limits, but barely!

We have booked the "cruise package" at our hotel which treats us to breakfast in the morning, a very late check out, our baggage delivered directly to the cruise boat, and the cruise terminal is directly downstairs. In addition to that, we had a surprise waiting for us which I will go into more detail in my hotel review.

We ate supper at Joe Fortes, Seafood and Chop House at the recommendation of our hotel. It was about a 6 block walk, but really seemed further than that. Our dinner was delicious! We walked back to the hotel and the Canada Place Pier and walked the perimeter of the pier. The temperature is cool and breezy, a welcome change from a Louisiana summer. Tomorrow we board our ship and we are all really excited!