Alaskan Vacation Pt 1 - Vancouver & Embarkation

Yesterday my mom turned 50 (the big 5-0!) and rather than have a party, she wanted to take a family vacation.  For anyone who doesn’t personally know me or her: she’s a big traveler.  Ever since I was younger, her jobs have involved global or regional sales so she travels all over the world.  Consequentially, it’s hard to plan vacations to places that mom hasn’t been.  Even after years of travel, there was one place that really stood out to her that she hadn’t been: Alaska!

Ryan and I had a 7am flight from Orlando to Vancouver on Tuesday 7/30.  We made arrangements for Willow to stay with some family members and asked a few friends to check in on the cat and then we were ready to go!  We left our house around 4:30am, yikes!  We had a layover in Denver where my brother and sister also got on the plane with us from there to Vancouver.  Believe it or not, this was my first time to Canada!  Once we got to Vancouver, we took a cab downtown to the Sutton Place Hotel.

My mom and stepdad had flown into Vancouver on Saturday to spend a few days alone together so they were at the hotel waiting for us.  We spent the evening wandering around the shops and markets near downtown, took little ferries around and just hung out together.  It was pretty fun.

We ended our night with a tasty dinner at “Taste of Canada” and some delicious, award-winning gelato, yum!  Wednesday morning, we headed to Capilano Suspension Bridge.  It was a pretty neat park but smaller than I expected – it has one big suspension bridge and a few other viewing points.  They also had some neat falcons and birds with people holding them and providing information.

After the suspension bridge park, we gathered up all of our luggage and headed to the ship.  Can you say “over-packed”? LOL.

We ended up taking two cabs from the hotel to the port where we went through security and embarked upon the Coral Princess from Princess Cruise Lines.  Mom & Joe were in one balcony room and my brother and sister (Will & Amanda) and Ryan and I were in one interior room together.  But when we got to the room, they had a surprise for us – they had upgraded us to a balcony as well!  We were so excited to have a balcony and be able to see out!  Here’s a few pics of us checking out the ship.  It’s smaller than some of the big Caribbean ships because it has to be a smaller ship to get through the straights, fjords and narrow areas.  I’ve never been on a Princess cruise before, only Royal Caribbean and Carnival and the ship sure is nice.

Thursday 8/1 we had our first day at sea with no ports to stop at.  We slept in, went to a vegetable carving demonstration and wandered the ship.  A little while after lunch we headed to the hot tub to watch Dirty Dancing on the big outside screen while we warmed in the hot tub.  I love that movie and it was fun to sit in the hot tub watch a movie and have some drinks.  It was pretty gray and chilly on the ship that day so we certainly weren’t missing anything.  Ryan and I met mom and Joe at the gym for a short workout before formal dinner.  After formal dinner, Ryan and Amanda and I went to watch karaoke while mom, Joe & Will went to the comedy show.  It was a fun day at sea but we were certainly ready for our upcoming ports.

In case you missed it, here are the rest of the Alaskan vacation blog posts:
Part 1: Vancouver & Embarkation
Part 2: Ketchikan & Juneau
Part 3: Skagway & Scenic Cruising
Part 4: Denali National Park
Finale: Fairbanks & Going Home