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Published: September 30th 2017
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Geo: 49.2605, -123.114
September 20, 2011
Our wake-up call came at 4:30 today. Ouch. We stumbled out of bed, showered, and once again repacked the suitcases for another short journey. Today we were scheduled to take the Amtrak Cascades train from Seattle, Washington to Vancouver, British Columbia – about a four hour journey. We were in the lobby of our hotel by six, checked-out and asking for a cab. Lucky for us, other hotel guests had ordered a special car to take them to the airport and had not been responding to repeated calls from the front desk. The driver was there and the hotel concierge talked to him and we got a ride to the train station in a very nice vehicle for $10, no wait. Nice.
When we first arrived at the station it was nearly empty. I counted exactly ten people. We checked-in and printed our tickets from an electronic kiosk, left our bags with the porter, and were waiting for seat assignments by 6:30. Ten minutes later we had our seat assignments. The place was packed before 7:00. We finally boarded and I was ecstatic that I had the sense to pay an extra $26 for business class seats – lots of leg room, super comfy seats, & free wi-fi. We were in heaven.
Normally, we would have been on the water side of the train but due to the problems, we were not. We still had beautiful views from both sides of the train for the entire trip. I was attempting to update this blog and was easily distracted by the beautiful views. It looked like what I imagine Alaska must also resemble. Beautiful. I love the trees in the Pacific Northwest.
We left Seattle late, arrived in Vancouver and had to do some maneuvering on the tracks, and finally exited the train just after 12:30 pm – nearly an hour later than scheduled. We decided to skip our plans to walk around Vancouver for a couple of hours (which I am glad we did) and took a taxi from the train to the ship. We arrived and the port was a madhouse of people arriving. The Disney Wonder was leaving today also and there were kids everywhere – all seemingly under six years old. I'm sure it is a lovely ship and a lot of fun for kids but you would have to hold me at gunpoint to
get on a ship with that many kids. It looked like a hot mess. We waited ~ for nearly 3 hours ~ to get on the boat.
We were pretty happy to finally get on the ship. I don't remember what we did besides go straight to our room. Our suitcases were already there waiting for us. We had a late lunch at the deli – turkey roll for me, Reuben for him. I brought back a cupcake to eat on the balcony but decided I didn't like it. Carnival's cupcakes are horrible. Hubby & I came inside for just a second and a sea gull decided maybe he wanted my cupcake. It was all he could do to not swoop down and steal my cupcake. He wouldn't take his eyes off the cupcake. So, since we weren't going out and he wasn't budging from the intense stare of the cupcake, I went outside and put the cupcake on the ledge for him. Not even ten seconds later, he came in, swooped down and picked-up the entire cupcake at once, and flew away. It was hilarious.
We checked-out the views from our balcony and watched the float planes coming and going.
We didn't do much else today. We were beat from our day yesterday and the long wait to board the boat today. I unpacked and organized the room – and realized not only did I bring wayyyyyyyy too many clothes for us – but I brought more clothes for hubby than me!! HOW did that happen?? I know I planned to buy a sweatshirt and some t-shirts on vacation but how is it that he ended-up with even more jeans than me?? Hmmmm
I'm not for sure where time went but we finally went to dinner at our assigned time – 8:15pm – and I simply wore jeans and put my hair in a ponytail. Luckily, one of our tablemates decided to do the same. Everyone was exhausted from the mess earlier in the day. After a long day… we were asleep in our super comfy beds rather early, our home for the next twelve nights.
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