REVIEW - OUR 34 DAY CRUISE ON VEENDAM - TRANSCANAL AND AMAZON, Part 1.

[Aussie Gal]

This is a copy of the journal I sent to my friends. It will be in a number of parts. Hope you do not find it too long.

 

We arrived in this lovely city of Vancouver on Thursday (Friday Aussie time) after 24 hours from leaving home. Our flight on Qantas was good though long. I had the best fillet steak ever on that flight. The meals were delicious. When we arrived at the airport the normal check in went very smoothly. After we had gone through our gate lounge and just before boarding the plane the real inspection started. Our handbags and carry on luggage were thoroughly checked including every page of my 5 books that I was carrying, my purse with money was inspected, my jewellery, my organizer and all the papers I was carrying were inspected with a fine tooth comb. We then had a thorough body search and our shoes were inspected by hand. Finally we were allowed to board the plane.

Amazingly we were only 15 minutes late in taking off and we arrived on time in Los Angeles. We had a long queue to go through before we finally reached immigration but once through that our luggage was waiting for us. We wheeled it to terminal 3 and checked in at Alaskan Airlines. We only had an hour to wait before we took off. The inspections in the U.S were much easier than in Australia. All we had to do was to remove our shoes.

Our flight up to Vancouver was just on 2 and a half hours and we arrived at lovely Vancouver airport around 2.15pm. Again we were in a huge line for immigration which took about 3/4 of an hour. We were relieved to see all our luggage and caught a taxi to our hotel, The Wedgewood, which is in a wonderful part of town, just a few doors from Robson Street which is the main shopping area and close to the Supreme and County Courts and the Art Gallery. It is a lovely Boutique Hotel of only 86 rooms and very comfortable.

We have been so lucky with the weather. It is sunny and today it is going to be 19C, yesterday it was 18C and tomorrow is going to be 21C. We did a City Tour yesterday which gave us a good idea of Vancouver and today we are off to Grouse Mountain.

The city is very clean, just like home though there aren't any historic buildings to speak of. We were told that they have built 3 public libraries unlike our lovely one which is the original. We loved Stanley Park and we went up to the lookout at the Harbour Building which gave us a good view of Vancouver. We could even see the volcano in Washington as the weather was so clear.

There are lots of restaurants nearby. The first night we had an Italian meal which was great and last night we ate in at the Bacchus Restaurant here at the hotel which is supposed to be the best hotel restaurant in Vancouver. Tonight we have booked a French restaurant.

We are looking forward to boarding the ship tomorrow. Yesterday we saw that the Statendam was in at Canada Place. We are going to have a lovely day for departure.

 

We left Vancouver on Sunday afternoon at 5pm. It was the most glorious day there and was just perfect for a sail away. We had spent Saturday doing a tour of Grouse Mountain and the Capilano Hatchery and Swing Bridge. It was a great tour and we did see a couple of Grizzly Bears whilst up on the mountain.

On Sunday morning we left the hotel at 10.30am and caught a taxi to Canada Place. There were five ships in that morning but we were on board around 11.30am which was very good going as there were crowds of people. Amongst these crowds we happened to bump into Nita, a friend we met on the Tahitian Princess way back in 2004. We stood in the queue with her and her friend for about an hour so we were able to catch up on all the news. They were going off on a Princess ship to San Francisco. Small world isn't it!

We only went a short distance over night before landing in Seattle, again to lovely sunny weather. We did a great morning tour that I had organized before leaving home, there were only 8 of us on board the bus and we had a fun guide. We saw all the sights of Seattle including Pyke's market etc. At 1.30pm we met up with friends whom we had met whilst in Cusco and Machu Picchu earlier in the year. Joan and Carl took us to a great place for lunch on the Waterfront where we had as much to eat of mussels, prawns, and clams as well as corn and potatoes. We sat at in the sunshine and it was great to catch up on all their news. They took us back to the ship at 4pm in time for our lifeboat drill at 4.15pm.

The past two days have been very restful. We have had fog all the way to L.A. and the sea has been like a millpond. You would not know that you have been moving at all. We will all get a shock if we strike some rough weather in the next few days. The food on board has been excellent and our cabin is very comfortable.

We have also met a lot of interesting people though a lot disembarked today as 450 got off the ship and apparently 500 are coming on board.

It is an early sail today so we have to be back on board at 2pm. We shared a taxi over here to Long Beach but will not have time to see the Queen Mary unfortunately. The weather here in L.A. is sunny but very smoggy.

[AAAAmerican]

Well done!:cool:

 

Three Thumbs UP

 

^!^!^!

[kryos]

Thank you so much! Keep it coming. I'm loving it.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[RuthC]

I'm glad you were able to report that check-in and boarding in Vancouver went smoothly. I recall that you were concerned how it would go, what with all the ship at Canada Place that day.

What great good fortune that you ran in to old cruising friends! Small world sometimes.

[Aussie Gal]

Ruth,

 

Check in did go smoothly and we were on board around 11.45am. It was so much fun to bump into our friend from a couple of years back. I email her regularly but hadn't mentioned that we would be leaving from Canada Place on that Sunday so got a surprise when I saw her in the line.

 

Jennie

[Aussie Gal]

In case anyone is reading this out there, Part 2 and 4 are on the next page.

 

Jennie

[Old As Dirt Mom]

Jennie:

 

I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to take the liberty of placing the rest of your five-part series right here, so they're all together:

 

Veendam - Transcanal and Amazon, Part 2

 

Veendam - Transcanal and Amazon, Part 3

 

Veendam - Transcanal and Amazon, Part 4

 

Veendam - Transcanal and Amazon, final

 

Karin

with apologies for interfering:o