A good rest up at the Rosedale on Robson overnight then off to catch the Hop On Hop Off (HOHO) bus. Challenge here was that, unbeknown to us, the route had changed this summer and what was stop number one (50 metres from the Rosedale) was now stop number 24 and the route had been split into two routes (inner city and Stanley park). The scheduled start time for the HOHO was 9 am and the circuit goes for about 2 -3 hours so we thought this would be a good time filler as we needed to be at Canada Place at the Vancouver Port to check in to Holland America's ms Nieuw Amsterdam ship for the cruise. However after a 30 min wait at the HOHO bus stop with no sign of the bus we headed back to the Rosedale to google what was going on. It soon became clear that we would run out of time to try and catch the bus, especially with it running two separate loops. Since I had pre-purchased a HOHO voucher back in Australia I feared we had done our money but after ringing the company they indicated that as long as the voucher hadn't been exchanged for tickets we could use them on our return to Vancouver after the cruise (insert sigh of relief here). By now it was fast approaching 10:30 am so we decided to chill out for the morning at the Rosedale and rest up in preparation for the cruise.
Around 12 pm we jumped into the taxi for a $10 ride to Canada Place to check in to the ship. We arrived at 12:10 pm and it was about 2 pm before we cleared through check in and US customs and opened the door to our lodgings for the next week :-) The room (8040) was spacious and the bed very comfortable, nothing like the last cruise we went on which was very cramped.
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| View from Balcony |
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| View towards balcony |
Our luggage was already in the room, well most of it as one of our suitcases was missing, the cabin staff looked into it for us but couldn't find it so I went down to Admin to check through some of the suitcases I noticed being held there. While I was looking around Penny received a call in the room from Admin to say they had the suitcase and to come and claim it. Penny went down to Admin where they told her security had wanted to inspect the contents further and that was why it was not delivered directly to the room. However the suitcase still couldn't be seen anywhere, Penny headed back to the room with an assurance that it was definitely on board. It was looking like I was going to have fun dressed in the same clothes I walked on board with for the rest of the week as it was my suitcase that was missing. It was an hour or so after boarding that I returned back to the room to find the suitcase sitting on the floor and it wasn't a minute or two later that Penny returned. Turns out that the cabin staff (Dony or Wahan) had picked up the suitcase for us and dropped it up to the room. Looks like my camera tripod had warranted further investigation by security who had held the bag and opened for inspection. With that sorted we headed for lunch on board and then unpacked and flopped onto the bed to read the day's activity sheet. I didn't seen long before it was dinner time at the restaurant and then an early night after a big day. The ship departed at 4:45 pm and it was smooth sailing as we headed up the inside passage to Juneau, a day and a half away.
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| The Ship (obviously not my photo) |
Cheers
Gary and Penny
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