After the tight schedule the day before, things were a lot more relaxed that day. We got up around 07:30 and got ready. Then we headed over to get breakfast. Graham had coffee and cranberry juice. He had Cheerios, a strawberry and rhubarb yoghurt, bacon, a boiled egg, toast, an orange, a banana and mini custard pastry. I had coffee and orange juice. I also had Cheerios, breakfast potatoes, bacon, pancakes with powdered sugar and cinnamon, toast with peanut butter, and a mini custard pastry. When we had our breakfast, we headed back to the room to get ready for the day ahead. Then we went to the Skytrain station.
Again, a train pulled in just as we got to the platform. The train was very busy that morning, but we had a nice smooth run to Waterfront station. We got to Canada Place about an hour before I had to check in for my flight. We decided to head up to the walkway alongside Canada Place to see what was about. The reason why I had scheduled my flight for that time was that our ship was due to arrive in Vancouver at 11:00 that morning. However, Graham spotted her coming round the corner shortly after we arrived at Canada Place. We watched her sail in and then I headed towards the sea plane terminal to check in for my flight. Graham walked with me about halfway and then he went to find somewhere where he could sit and watch the world go by.
When I arrived at the sea plane terminal, I spotted a separate check in for tours. The previous two years, there was just one check in area for scheduled and tour flights. Check in was quick. I was handed my boarding pass and advised to sit down in the waiting area until my boarding pass colour was called. The boarding process had also changed. On our previous flights, we headed straight to one of the gates. This time I was advised to go to wait by a flag just outside the main entrance once my boarding pass was called to wait for the group to be assembled. I went to sit down.
Shortly after I had sat down, my phone rang. It was a local number, which confused me a little. It turned out to be the German restaurant in North Vancouver returning my call. They confirmed out reservation. I was glad that this was sorted.
Eventually, my boarding pass was called. I headed out to the meeting point. Some people were already there, and some other people followed me out of the terminal. We were however still one party short. They joined us shortly afterwards and we were escorted down to the plane. They checked how many people where in each group. I had hoped that I may get the co-pilot seat, but I was out of luck. I did however get two seats to myself. They have a double seat belt system on float planes. The belt that was linked to the floatation device was no problem, but I could not get the normal seat belt to close. I was surprised about this as I had no issue with this the previous two years and I actually had lost some weight since then. I alerted to pilot and he gave me an extension belt. My world was back in order.
Eventually, everybody was settled and our bags had been stored in the rear hold. We were ready for take-off. After a brief safety briefing, we floated out and started to accelerate. Then the plane slowed down. I wondered if there was a mechanical issue with the plane. However, the pilot explained that a boat had got in the way and he needed to abort take off. We circled around and made a second attempt. This time around everything worked like clockwork. Soon, we were airborne. We flew over the Lionsgate Bridge and headed out towards the mountains. We then turned around and took a loop over the downtown area before heading back to Canada Place. I got some photos of our ship as we approached. Then we landed. We got off the plane and waited for our bags to be unloaded. I took some quick photos of the plane and then I went to find Graham.
Our original plan had been to head straight over to North Vancouver and spend the afternoon with a short hike at Lynn Canyon Park. We had planned to hike a section of the Baden Powell Trail from Thirty Foot Pool back to the suspension bridge. Fortunately, I had looked at this the previous day to work out how we could get there. In the process, I noticed that the stretch of the Baden Powell Trail that we had planning to hike was closed. There is a loop trail that goes to Thirty Foot Pool, but that involves over 600 stairs. That was not going to work. Instead, we decided to check out Stanley Park. We had been there once in 2013, but never managed to get back. We figured that this would be a nice alternative.
Once I had met up with Graham again, we headed to get a bus that was heading to Stanley Park. The terminus of the bus was actually Stanley Park. When we got to the stop the journey planner had indicated, Graham did not feel that this was the best stop to get off and we stayed on the bus a little longer. We got off near the clubhouse of the rowing club. Graham had told me the day before that they offer carriage rides in Stanley Park. That sounded good to me. We headed to where the carriage rides were departing from. Carriage ride did not quite describe it. They were horsedrawn trolleys. When we got to the ticket office, one trolley was about to leave. We decided to go for this. They were offering one our narrated tours of Stanley Park. Soon after we headed off, we stopped at where the totem poles were. We had visited the totem poles in 2013, and I remembered this to be a much bigger deal than it actually was. I did not want to rush this, and 10 minutes did not seem enough. We stayed on the trolley. Once everybody was back, we continued our tour. We learned a lot about Stanley Park and got a great overview of the different areas.
Once we were back on the starting point, we followed the coastal path to the totem poles. The view along this path were stunning. The totem poles however were not much to write home about. They were pretty enough, but they were all concentrated in one area and there were not as many of them as I had seemed to remember. We took to the woods to head back to the entrance. We then walked through a different park and ended up at the bus stop that I had planned to get off at that morning.
I had noticed that there was a bus from that bus stop to North Vancouver. The bus we needed was very late and then it got there, it was packed. I figured that the next bus probably would not be any better and this was still a fair while away. Instead, we crossed the road and headed back downtown. There were a lot of different busses heading in that direction. We still had just over two hours until our reservation. It did not take us long to get back downtown as we were going against traffic. We did not get off opposite to where we had got on in the morning, but stayed on for two stops beyond this. We could actually have stayed on for one more stop. However, it worked out great. I wanted to get some ear cleaners and Graham wanted to get some cough sweets. There was a drugstore right across the way from where we had got off the bus. We sorted out our shopping and then we headed to short distance to the SeaBus. As we were walking from the main part of Waterfront station to the SeaBus, we got a real up-close view of Ovation of the Seas.
A SeaBus was just pulling in as we got there and soon, we were on our way to North Vancouver. When we got there, I went inside a convenience store. I was planning to some laundry at the hotel that evening, but the machines were coin operated, and I did not have enough change. I bought an almond Snickers. We then cut through the market. Graham wanted to use the bathroom. I decided to get a drink to get some more change. I came across a shop that specialised in muffins and bubble teas. I got oolong lychee lemonade. This hit the spot. Once I had finished my drink, we headed to the restaurant. They were still closed when we got there, but there were some benches nearby. We sat down and I decided to check what was happening on Facebook. I noticed that there was a crazy amount of activity on the Facebook group for the southbound cruise. Somebody had posted that the cruise was no longer going from Seward, but was leaving from Whittier instead. People were in a panic. I checked my emails and had two emails from Royal Caribbean confirming the port change for both of our cruises. We were not bothered. We had some loose plans for Seward, but had not booked anything. As we were coming back south on the same ship, it did not really matter to us. I was slightly bemused though as there seemed to be some last-minute changes on most of the Alaska cruises we had taken.
As soon as we noticed that the lights in the restaurant had been switched on, we headed over. We were seated. We actually ended up at the same table that we had last year. We had a bottle of Gewürztraminer. Graham had one of the daily specials, which was a schnitzel filled with Camembert, red wine and berry sauce, Spätzle and red cabbage. I had beef rouladen with Spätzle and red cabbage. We both had some room for dessert. Graham had apple strudel with vanilla ice cream, and I had Black Forest cake with vanilla sauce. Everything was amazing.
We headed back to the SeaBus and again, one was pulling in just as we got there. Once we got back to Waterfront station, we were able to take a shortcut to the Skytrain. We had just missed one, but the next one was only two minutes behind. It did not take long until we were back in the hotel.
I rounded up our laundry and headed to the laundry room. I loaded the washing machine and headed back to the room. When I got back, Graham was fast asleep. I set an alarm just to be on the safe side and then settled down with my book. Once the alarm was about to go off, I headed back to the laundry room. I spread the load over two dryers and then headed back to the room. This time round, it was a good job that I had set an alarm as I actually fell asleep. Thankfully when I got back to the laundry room, everything was dry. I folded everything and then headed back to the room. I had the gin and tonic that I did not have on the plane and then got ready for bed. I was soon asleep again.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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