Holiday to the Pacific West Coast in Aug 2006: Day 22 – Las Vegas to Vancouver

By Nige on Mon 18 Sep 2006 at 22:00
Type: Post
Story: Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Aug 2006
Tags: Las Vegas | Vancouver

The alarm was set for 4:30am so that we would be out by 5am and at the airport by 5:30am.  In the event, neither Vick nor I could sleep properly after about 3am, so we ended up rising at 4am and leaving the hotel by 4:45am.  Funnily enough the roads were deserted!

We said goodbye to the Mustang which had not complained at any point.  Next time I would get something else – Mustangs are far too common!  We saw them everywhere – everyone had the same idea as us!

The Air Canada flight was leaving from Terminal 2, which is obviously the terminal where they throw all the airlines they are not really interested in.  Most international flights leave from Terminal 1.  T2 was naff – no lounge, no shops, so we waited patiently for just over an hour and a half outside a gate.

In the end the Air Canada flight was very comfortable – the seats were really nice, but I didn’t manage to see the whole of the Inside Man before they turned the entertainment system off.  We arrived at Vancouver at around 10am but then were delayed by a faulty bridge which wouldn’t move.  We watched the engineer trying in vain to get the thing to budge, but in the end they had to move the aircraft to another gate.

After a taxi to the Pan Pacific at Canada Place (easily one of the best hotels we have ever been to – gorgeous beds and bathrooms, terrific views), I tried my charms on the hotel staff to get an upgrade but failed miserably.  Anyway we got a nice room overlooking the harbour, where we can see the sea planes to Victoria taking off and landing.  It reminded us about when we were last here 5 years ago.

We hired bikes from SeaWall, an adventure company located near the hotel and cycled off around Stanley Park.  Vick got a bit annoyed since the chain  tore into her jeans and then we couldn’t find any shops open to get a bite to eat.  We back tracked a little to pick up some sandwiches, and eventually arrived back after a couple of hours of exercise – it was nice to be out.  The weather has turned since we were here 3 weeks ago, it’s now sunny and showers but still lovely to be back here.

In the evening we went out to our favourite Italian restaurant in Gastown(the Al Porto Ristorante on Water St., just before the steam clock), which looks the same, but changed hands a few years back.  Well it’s even better now, and Scotty who looked after us was a real character – we told him he would get a mention.  The food is wonderful and we had a local British Columbian Shiraz which was excellent.

We were completely stuffed and sat in bed watching “Deal/No Deal” while waiting for our food to settle in our stomachs!

Bit sad now- last night away, apart from a night on a jumbo jet, which hardly counts!

Follow the whole story here: Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Aug 2006