Scott C. Bond

We woke up around 5AM, still not adjusted to the timezone, but not far off. Outside, it was about 54 degrees and you couldn’t see 50 feet from the ship an any direction. The fog horn was blaring every few minutes, and, on occasion, we could hear a response. The water was as flat as glass, but there was still a sway to the ship.

Alison and I spent far too long connecting to wifi and the associated apps they told us to make use of – argh – but we finally managed it. I signed up for the ATT Wireless Cruise Package, but no sign of that on my iPhone – argh. [ATT gets a reprieve – it showed up later in the day]

We opted for breakfast up on the Lido deck, which was nice and relaxing. Today is a sea day – one of only a couple on this voyage. After breakfast, we started a couple loads of wash and knocked off a 3 mile walk. We moved the wash to the drier, went down for a cup of coffee and took showers.

11:00 – Dr Alec Murphy, professor at the University of Oregon, presented “Land and Life Along the Northwest Coast” – interesting speaker, and we will hear more from him over the next few days.

“Team Trivia”. We called our team Dock Rockers, but only scored 8 out of 15 points – boo – the winner got 13.

Informal lunch up on Lido, which was still cool and somewhat foggy.

Good day for a nap, and we took advantage of that!

3:30 Tea up on Deck 12. Our cabin is on 8 – and per our “policy”, we take the stairs, not the elevator, and amass quite the number of steps that way. And, after, we went up to Deck 13 to tour the gym and spa – not use! Then we returned to Deck 7 and made several more rounds at a more leisurely pace.

In reality, it wasn’t long before it was time to get dressed for dinner at Prego – our only black tie dinner. IT WAS, in a word, Super-Fantastic! Great company. Great wait staff. Great Sommelier. And fantastic food. In fact, we put ourselves on the wait list for a second reservation later in the cruise.

From dinner, on Deck 7, we walked down to the Galaxy Lounge on Deck 6 for the “My Life – The Music of Billy Joel”, starring James Fox, from Wales, with support of the Crystal Orchestra, singers and dancers. What a show! Incredible!

We made the trip up to Deck 8 to our cabin, thoroughly satisfied by the evening. 🙂 For whatever reason, we were reminded to turn our clocks back an hour tonight. I don’t know why, but I’m not arguing.

14,174 Steps

Ah, today we say hello again to Serenity! Can’t wait. We started off with breakfast at Hawksworth. We had the same waiter – same great sense of humor, and Alison got her tea made the way she likes it. I got my granola, berries and yogurt!

We decided to burn some energy, and went for a walk. Naturally, we ended up down at the Cruise Terminal, and there she was!

The clouds persist, as you can see in the picture, but the weather was fine. We walked back to the hotel, packed, showered, dressed, and moved our bags down to the lobby. We checked out and decided, at the last minute, to take a cab down to the ship – good thing. We had heard that Crystal often isolates itself for a nicer experience for its clients, so we were diverted to a different level, and immediately received personalized attention, which was nice.

Security and Customs were rather smooth, and not too crowded; and check-in was on board – a first for us. We had to check out of our hotel by noon, and knew that Marion and Barry wouldn’t arrive until almost 3, so we boarded and had a champaign lunch in the main dining room – not quite the same without Marion and Barry, though. Alison utilized her organizational skills and we managed reservations for Silk Road, the Japanese Restaurant for tonight at 6PM, and we also tried getting wait listed for earlier dinners on a couple other nights. We grabbed our iPad and Kindle, and went up to Deck 12 to hang out until 3.

Marion and Barry got in around 2:30 and met us up on 12. Alison saw them first. She popped up and ran to them — and then straight to Barry for a hug. LOL – Marion was surprised, but all part of the fun. More champagne and hugs all around!

Back to the cabin, we unpacked, showered and dressed for dinner.

Silk Road is one of those specialty restaurants we’ve enjoyed in the past. We started with Saporo Beer and a sampler of sushi and sashimi, which we all enjoyed, and followed that with other specialty dishes and dessert. When all was said and done, we were very happy – and tired! There wasn’t much going on, so we retired for a good night’s sleep.

14,219 Steps.

This is our one full day in Vancouver. To say that we woke up early is an understatement, but not unexpected. We had breakfast at the same hotel restaurant we had dinner in last night. 2 eggs, any style, bacon, a big bowl of mixed berries and coffee.

We ventured outside after breakfast. It was cool and spitting, so we didn’t venture far.

Note to self for the next visit – DO NOT BELIEVE The Weather Channel here in Vancouver. It changes from minute to minute. Alison and I changed and went down to the lobby awaiting a pickup by Landsea Tours for our 4-hour City Highlights Tour of Vancouver. Our driver was Richard, a ski instructor from England, who has been in Vancouver for 3 years. The name of the bus was “Rupert”.

Stanley Park is huge, and beautiful. If we were to do this again, I’d recommend renting bicycles and ride from the hotel, along the waterfront to the park – and basically spend the entire day in the park. Next stop, Granville Island Public Market, where we had Mexican for lunch and bought some gorgeous cherries for the cruise. We passed through Chinatown, Gaston, which was the original spot for Vancouver, English Bay, Canada Place. The Vancouver Lookout is like the Seattle Space Needle, with a 360-degree observation deck and a rotating restaurant on top. It was nice, for sure, but the city is growing vertically, which is obsucuring the view. 🙁 From there, it was just a few blocks to the Cruise Line terminal, where just about all the tour guests hopped off to get on their ship. Alison and I elected to get off there and walk the 4-1/2 blocks back up to the hotel – a straight shot up the hill.

We took it easy for a while and went down to the 4th floor for a swim in the salt-water pool. Alison borrowed the only pair of swimming goggles, and quickly tugged on my arm – “Look!” There were geometric shapes with flourescent shapes on the bottom of the pool – framing windows to something below. And, whoa, we saw a car pass beneath the pool. The pool, as it turns out, was above the portico entrance to the hotel.

Dinner was at a locally recommended Italian restaurant named Cin Cin. A second floor restaurant with a balcony, we had seats right on the balconies edge, with a clear view of the street below. The weather could not have been better, the waiter was great, the food was great, and we were smiling all the way back to the hotel – about a six block walk.

We got back to the hotel, read and relaxed a bit, and it wasn’t long before we were out cold for the night.

12,761 steps.

Stanley Park Totems

 

Alison woke up at 1AM, and I woke up at 2:45AM — the alarm was set for 3! We took the elevator down to the 2nd floor, which opens out onto the Airport concours. It was still a bit of a hike to get over to Terminal D for check-in with United, but all went well.

This was our first time, together, using the TSA-PRE – and it worked like a charm. We were sitting at our gate a full hour and a half early, … but, that’s OK.

First leg, PHL to Chicago – departing at 5:50AM. Good flight.

We had more than adequate time to get from our arrival gate to Terminal C – another hefty walk.

Second leg, another 4 hours to Vancouver, was also relatively smooth.

We caught a taxi from the airport to the hotel, which was about a 35 minute drive. Our foreign-born driver came to Vancouver to visit his brother, who came here to the University of BC — 40 years ago. He was a very nice guy, and we had a good conversation along the way.

The Rosewood Hotel Georgia, originally the Hotel Georgia, built in 1927 and renovated around 2011, is gorgeous. It’s a beautiful boutique hotel with about 120 rooms. http://www.rosewoodhotels.com/en/hotel-georgia-vancouver

We got to the hotel and checked in around 12:30, but the room – 804 – wasn’t going to be ready until almost 3. We met with the concierge, Matthew, and discussed city tour options for Saturday, and to make dinner reservations at a local Italian restaurant for Saturday night.

We then set off on a walk in the direction of Stanley Park, down by the waterfront, which is really quite beautiful. The cruise ship terminal is a mere 4.5 blocks down the street from the hotel. We scoped out where we needed to go, and met a couple of very nice employees. On Sunday, there will be THREE ships being processed; i.e., it will be a madhouse. At least we know where to go and what to look for.

We walked casually around the marina area, looking at the private yachts and, probably more so, doing some people watching. What a global culture here in Vancouver.

When we returned to the hotel, the receptionist greeted us very openly; running to us with our keycards. The luggage had already made its way to the room, so we didn’t have to worry about that. We climbed into the elevator, only to be stumped on how to use it! Finally figuring it out, we had to hold the proximity keycard on the reader while making the floor selection – and we moved.

The room is gorgeous! We relaxed, watched some news (what a downer, with the Turkish “coup” taking place, right on top of the French truck terrorist…… What’s happening to the world?!

We each took much-needed showers and dressed for dinner at the Hawksworth Restaurant, right here in the hotel – reservations at 6. On the way, we stopped by the 4th floor, which housed the fitness center, the pool the spa, and another restaurant. Simply, nice.

We were greeted at the Hawksworth Restaurant, where Alison made dinner reservations weeks ago, and were immediately ushered to our table. Our waiter is from Marseille, FR, and has been here for about 3 years. Interesting character, and really knows how to schmooze the customer – in a nice way. We ordered glasses of Pinot Noir from the Okanagan, which is where Marion and Barry live.

Alison had the wild salmon, which was cooked very nicely, but a little “fishy” for my taste. I had the lamb, which had to be described as incredible – and I shared it with her. We ordered two desserts; one a dark chocolate concoction, and the other a mango and other fruit and coconut concoction that I thought was wonderful. After our coffee, we strode into the cool night air and walked a few blocks to let dinner settle.

We got back to the room around 8PM (11PM at home), and Alison is in bed – after being awake for almost 24 hours!

Frankly, I’m not far behind.

Steps 15,511

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This is a Thursday, and Alison wanted me home from work, ASAP, so we can get our next adventure started. Well…., I didn’t leave the office until 5:30 – but I felt good about how I left things with the team.

Lauren and Charlie got home from a day-trip to Cape May, just before I got home. We had some dinner, finished packing the bags and loading them into the Pilot, and drove down to the Airport Marriott. This makes the 3rd time, I believe, that we’ve stayed overnight at the Airport Marriott due to early morning flights. We certainly don’t get to enjoy the hotel stay, but it does wonders for relieving the stress on getting up and out of the house on-time to make a 5:50 AM flight!

I checked us in using the Marriott App – telling them that we’d be there around 8PM – and we were. It really did simplify the check-in process, so we’ll do that one again.

The alarm was set for 3AM. We ate our chocolate pudding cups for dessert, and put blueberries and yogurt on ice for our early morning breakfast; got ready for bed, and we were asleep shortly after 9PM.

Thank you, Lauren and Charlie!

Steps 6,144

http://cafeserver1.crystal-serenity.com/Client/Booked for months……ready to go!

An Alaskan cruise has been on the Bucket List for a long time. We’ve been saving it as one of the less physically demanding activities that we’ve wanted to accomplish when we “get older”. Somehow, it bubbled up in 2016, and I’m glad it did.

In hindsight, we were extremely fortunate to have gotten to Turkey, which is in the midst of a military coup, as I write this blog; Greece has suffered the past few years; etc, etc, etc.

It’s time for something different! – so, we are scheduled to be in Vancouver, British Columbia from July 15th, and board on of our favorite ships, the Chystal Serenity on July 17th for a 10-day round trip Alaskan cruise.

To learn more about the cruise, please read about it HERE.