Wednesday – Embarkation

Breakfast in the Fairmont Gold Club – good once again. Then it was time to get the suitcases ready to move to the ship. Fortunately, Fairmont has a complimentary service where their bellhops (do they still call them that?) come to the room and take your bags. They transport them to the Cruise Terminal baggage deposit area, so the next time we see them will be in our cabin on the ship. Oh, here’s a picture of our bathroom mirror at the Fairmont with a TV built into it with its own remote control. First time I ever saw that.

Embarkation on the Orion starts at 11:00 am. But its a bit more complicated than that. We cleared Canadian customs when landing at Vancouver Airport. Now at the cruise terminal we have to clear US customs because our next stop will be in Alaska. We went over to the terminal at 10:00 to start the process. We had short wait as the customs process doesn’t open until 10:30. The terminal is huge and there are three ships embarking today, so we wanted to beat the rush. We did, but there was still a lot of walking to get through US customs. Once complete boarding the Orion was a breeze. We were among the first twenty or so to board.

The cabins are not ready for occupancy until 1:00 pm. They are still being prepared after the previous travelers disembarked on the ship’s arrival at 7:00 am. So we had a couple of beers and some pizza in the Aquavit Bar at the World Cafe. At 1:00 pm exactly we went to our cabin for the onerous task of unpacking and the pleasant task of taking naps. Here’s a picture of the view from where we ate lunch. That’s the Vaandam docked in Vancouver. The “sails” to the left are part of Canada Place, Vancouver’s cruise terminal.

From our cabin balcony we watched Holland America’s Vaandam sail at 4:00 pm. Then we watched Princess Cruise’s Grand sail at 4:15 pm. There’s also a picture of a seaplane taking off. There is a seaplane airport that was visible from our hotel room, and there are constant takeoffs and landings. (Aside: we were on the that very Grand Princess back in the 1990’s on the second leg of three back-to-back cruises with our friends Tony and Kathleen. The sail from Oslo to Southampton was through a Force 10 Gale. Those were the roughest seas we ever encountered. It didn’t keep us out of the bars and restaurants, but we were amongst the few who were not hunkered down in their cabins.)

At 5:30(ish) we walked to the Living Room Bar for cocktails just as we set sail French rosé for Elaine; Grey Goose gimlets for me. There was a pleasant duo (young ladies) playing the piano and a bass violin. At 7:00 we adjourned to the Restaurant, the ship’s main dining room for a nice meal. I had a Caesar Salad followed by delicious sea bass. Blueberry layer cake for dessert. Elaine had duck confit for a starter and some vegetarian dish (yuch!) for her main (she loved it, of course!) and ice cream for dessert. Good meal. Forgot pictures of the mains. Then it was off to the Explorer Lounge at the bow of the ship for after-dinner Amaretto’s. Then bed.

Sorry, no ship pictures. But it’s identical to the ship we were on in Norway in May. I’ll take some snaps tomorrow and as we continue to sail up to Alaska and on to Japan.

Stay tuned.