Viking Invades Alaska!

[Pushka]

Bit foggy for our trip up the mountain this morning. Not so cold though. Celebrity Millenium is in port today but she is shy and hiding.

 

[RooFlyer]

Yowsers. Just came waltzing out of the shower into the bedroom and saw this. Yup. Dived back behind the door and dressed.

Absolutely no mention of this activity from management. We are on the 9th floor.
View attachment 166043

I'm sure I stayed there once; is a pretty top- notch boutique place isn't it? ( Not that that's my usual style!)

Sounds like something has gone badly astray with the management.

I hope you haven't let Mr P stray into the Cactus Club .

 

[Pushka]

I'm sure I stayed there once; is a pretty top- notch boutique place isn't it? ( Not that that's my usual style!)

Sounds like something has gone badly astray with the management.

I hope you haven't let Mr P stray into the Cactus Club .

I think it’s changed management or something as there’s little things going astray. No communications. No compendium. We found they had a bar by accident. They are taking $75 a day and I said to MrP what could we possibly spend that on as there’s no obvious services to purchase.

Yes you did say it was a good place way back.

 

[TomVexille]

Mrsdrron has had it every time.

Lucky

More than one contributing factor clearly.

 

[Pushka]

Today was rather foggy as we made our way on a small tour bus into Grouse Mountain and then Capilano Bridge. We first stopped at a salmon hatchery where after two years they are released into the stream to change to salt water and spend the next three years in the ocean. Then as mature they return exactly to where they were hatched where male and female mate, she lays eggs and both die. Happily I guess! Wrong time of the year to see anything today.

Then up to Grouse Mountain. Up a cable car where the temp was around 7 degrees and ice still around. Two bears are there, rescued as orphans. They have only just come out of hibernation and have lost 1/3 of their body weight, or around 300 lbs. They had just been released into this pond today and so they were out to frolick around.





















One was dragging up the branches from the bottom then eating the bugs etc.

 

[Pushka]

Then off to see the Raptors. First up was my favourite, the owl. Very cute and reminds us of the son’s cat whom we call - The Owl.







Then another kind of bird, Buzzard, which is similar to the condor. No photo.

And another bird.



Interestingly all the handlers were women.

MrP took this great one of the bald eagle. One of the birds, I think the owl, clipped him as it flew from post to post.

 

[Pushka]

After we returned down the cable the fog cleared a little and we could see the Harbour.

The glass was pretty fogged and it had just finished raining but they were the best we could do.

 

[Pushka]

Then it was down to Capilano Bridge. It’s a swing bridge and we watched as people cling to the rail but we enjoyed the swing and falls and only had to hang on when people in front just simply stopped and cling on for life. This was a great area, and has been beautifully developed for tourism. It had stopped raining by now and was much warmer than the mountain and we enjoyed this stop.

 

[Pushka]

The trees are ancient, at around 400 - 800 years old. And sometimes they fall and this one fell on the bridge in 2006 from memory. They couldn’t release it as the bridge would have catapulted the person doing the repairs straight into the air.

 

[Pushka]

MrP I think has a great eye for photos. An example.



Compared with mine. Well actually I trashed the photo I took of this scene.

 

[Pushka]

Well I’m ready to go on the cruise. Wrong ship though.

 

[Pushka]

Spent a great night visiting Gastown, a quaint little community just near where we are staying. An excellent meal that was just going to be pizza but we went all out on the local seafood.

My meal was seared Halibut with risotto. MrP had the seafood linguine. And it was an outstanding meal with the most wonderful Spanish Pinot Noir. I know. Red and seafood.

So much wonderful seafood in this dish.



And mine. I like Halibut! Perfect Risotto.





No desert and we took a walk along towards the Gas clock.





We went into a fantastic souvenir shop and purchased tiny red ‘fur’ lined socks for an August arrival, plus a red Canadian bandana for me, a grey one for MrP plus a T shirt for him and some wonderful maple syrup popcorn that even I like. Must get some more.
We returned towards the gastown clock and there was a crowd. Three minutes to 9. Maybe we should wait until 9pm.

Yep.

 

[Pushka]

Today Saturday was forecast as a wet day and that proved correct. We’ve found accuweather here to be extremely accurate almost to the hour and that was the case. We watched as passengers disembarked from 2 cruise ships in the rain, very depressing.



We decided to walk to Granville Island where there is a public market. Google maps said that the ferry was the best option but we thought surely the bridge was better. It wasn’t. The end of the bridge took us way past the market before we could get off it. We could see it down below. It was raining on and off and all rather meh. The market was very crowded and as it had stopped raining we decided to grab something inside the market and eat it outside. Honestly the sausage we grabbed from the street vendor in SF had Michu more taste than the renowned German sausage place we bought it from. I had sauerkraut and couldn’t even taste it. We took a look around and then realised I’d had enough of walking these past few days and needed a break so we grabbed a cab and got back to the Hotel around 3.30pm.

We then decided to go back to Gastown for a meal, being Saturday it was super busy.

Many of the pubs were closed for the NBA final as Toronto Raptors are in the finals playoff. So just as in the Bradman days, people were lined up outside watching. An almighty cheer told us that the Raptors were in the finals.



We didn’t make the correct turn and realised we were in a bad neighbourhood. Luckily it was still very much daylight so we hastily exited far right.

Found the right area and settled on an excellent Indian restaurant where we people watched as we ate.





Anyone know what this is?

 

[love_the_life]

I'm waiting with bated breath for you to be on board!

 

[Pushka]

We have had a snaffu with boarding tomorrow. I’d worked out months ago that there was no allocated Berth for Viking tomorrow as there were too many ships in that day. Viking assured everyone they had it under control.

So it came as no surprise that 2 weeks ago Viking advised everyone of the embarkation issue. Viking will be at tender all day although it will Berth at 3am this morning then return to tender at 6am.

Viking advertises we can board at 11am and suites can access their cabins at 12 am and so on.

Because we have to exit Canada and then ‘enter’ USA as we board the ship, US immigration have told Viking they will not permit us to tender to get on the ship as that means we cross back into Canada to use the tender boat. Sigh.

So, Viking have organised a convention center hall for us to wait from 12noon until at least 4.30pm at which time the whole ship will go through immigration. We are supposed to depart at 5pm but it will be at least 9pm now. 900 passengers will board at the same time having gone through US immigration together, then want a meal, wait to get luggage, have muster drill and only then can we get going.

Not impressed. We will see how this all pans out tomorrow. Sunday, our time.

 

[Pushka]

At least the ship is now close by.



As mentioned upthread you can track the actual location here:

Webcam Viking Cruises - Orion - PANOMAX 360°

Live picture of Viking Cruises - Orion - Panomax - 360° high resolution interactive panorama web cam

viking.panomax.com

 

[Pushka]

And here she is. Banished to the Bay. Perfect day though.

 

[drron]

Pushka we have been told that one of our best Silversea crew is now a General Manager aboard a Viking ship at this time.So if you see an Indian fellow called Sujith as your GM say hello for us.A great fellow with tons of ability working his way through the ranks from a bar waiter.

 

[Pushka]

Pushka we have been told that one of our best Silversea crew is now a General Manager aboard a Viking ship at this time.So if you see an Indian fellow called Sujith as your GM say hello for us.A great fellow with tons of ability working his way through the ranks from a bar waiter.

Will do!

 

[Pushka]

I was going to grab a screenshot of the O days to go to board the cruise in the Viking portal but as soon as the day arrives - poof - it’s gone. So I was going to go through the itinerary and excursions etc with MrP this arvo while we wait but it’s all disappeared.

With the recent sad news about Grumpy Cat we have retired him from travel.

Meet Bruce, Canadian Brown Bear made in China.



Someone else wants to call him boo boo as in Yogi. He is called Bruce.