Laura1123
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2016
We just returned from our visit to Vancouver and our week long cruise to Alaska aboard the Disney Wonder and I wanted to share my experience with others, since reading trip reports during my planning process was very helpful. Traveling together was myself, DH, DS9, DS6 and my parents. DS9 has autism and sensory processing disorder, so I will comment occasionally on accommodations we made for him. Please feel free to ask any questions along the way. I can be wordy at times as well, so you have been forewarned!
Here is a link to my pre-trip report:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/bon-voyage-to-alaska-pre-trip-report.3600842/
so you can read what we had planned for the trip. We pretty much did as planned. I will make note where changes were as the days occur.
Friday, May 26, 2017
Our trip started with a few days in Vancouver prior to the ship setting sail. Even though we live in Oklahoma, we decided to book a straight flight out of Dallas (DFW) to Vancouver via Air Canada. DFW is a 3 hour drive from home, but DH and I would much rather deal with a car ride than a connecting flight with the kids. Choosing this option also seemed to help lower our total travel time compared to leaving out of OKC and connecting through various airports.
Early on in our travel planning we did ponder whether to go in and/or out of Seattle and spend time there. In the end, we made the right choice by flying straight to Vancouver and touring for a few days prior to sailing and coming home right after. Adding the Seattle leg might have saved a bit on airfare, but adding in additional travel time and headache would not have been worth it. Also, we barely scratched the surface of what Vancouver had to offer with our few days there. That just means we will have to go back someday.
This was the first time we flew Air Canada, and while both flights were on time, neither my DH nor I were impressed and will probably not fly them again. We were in a small express jet for both flights (roughly 4.5 hours). Both flights had issues with the bathrooms/running water and the cabin staff was not friendly. We paid plenty for these flights 6 months in advance and I did watch the fares and they continued to rise. Surprisingly, booking each leg as a one-way was cheaper than buying them as round-trip tickets.
Our flight from DFW left at 7:30am. We drove down the night prior and stayed in a Country Inn and Suites that offered a stay/park/fly deal. We stayed the night prior then took their airport shuttle at 5am, and left our car parked at the hotel.
No issues at DFW and our flight left just a few minutes late. About an hour and a half before we landed I opening the airplane window shade to see this.
Beautiful!
Soon we were on the ground and began the long walk through E concourse towards customs (FYI – we did not see bathrooms after we got off the plane until we got to customs, approx. 10 min walk. Those traveling with children understand this dilemma).
Customs took about 30 minutes to get through due to crowds. We took this time to turn our phones back on and connect into Verizon’s TravelPass progam which allowed us each access to our phones/data plan for 24 hours at a time for $5 each. We also connected to the free wifi at the airport. After we cleared customs, we headed to get our three suitcases that were still on the baggage carousel. We grabbed them and headed toward the exit.
My parents had flown in the night before and were nice enough to email the exact directions from baggage claim to the SkyTrain as we planned to take this to our condo rental. This made it easy to navigate our way out of baggage, pass the bus companies and out the exit door to cross the street to the escalator to the SkyTrain. We should have found the elevator, as DS9 accidentally tipped one of the suitcases onto its side about half-way up the escalator and when I yelled “let it go” (in my head meaning to let it stay down till we get to the top), he literally let it go and it came sliding down the escalator into DS6 and I. Thankfully it hit me first and I was able to stop it. Needless to say, DS9 was not in charge of holding things on escalators the rest of the trip.
We bought our four 2-zone vouchers at the top of the escalator and figured how to swipe the cards to get access to the platform. **FYI – Keep those tickets handy, as you will need them when exiting your station at your destination.** A train came within a few minutes and we grabbed a front row seat. My kids loved the ride in and it was clean, and very easy to understand where we were going. The first half of the ride is above ground so were able to enjoy the view for a few minutes before we plunged underground.
We rode the SkyTrain for 10 stops and got off at City Center. Our walk to the condo was about 7 blocks. Not far, but wheeling are our baggage made it feel far. From the time we landed at YVR to the time we made it to the condo, it was just about 2 hours.
My parents had stayed in the condo the night before and were back from their morning walk by the time we arrived (about 11:30am). We became briefly acquainted with the condo and then dropped our bags and headed to the Red Robin on Robson Street for burgers for lunch.
We rented the condo through Vacation Rental By Owner, property ID#3619590. This was a 2 BR, 2 BA condo with a pull-out sofa in the living room. I booked the property late June 2016. Vancouver lodging is expensive and most of the hotels have 2 double beds instead of 2 queen beds for a family of 4. Even if my parents wouldn’t have gone along on the trip, I would have rented a condo of some sort to have access to a kitchen and a separate space for the kids. John, the condo owner, was a wonderful host to us as well, making sure we had everything we needed daily.
The condo we rented was wonderful. It had been renovated just the year prior, so everything was new. Each couple had a bedroom. We had a 4 person dining table for eating and card playing in the afternoons, plus there were 3 bar stools at the kitchen counter. The best part was a washer and dryer so we could do laundry each day. It was very nice to board the Wonder 4 days into our trip with a suitcase full of clean clothes.
The location of the condo was great as well (Coal Harbor). We were a block off Robson Street, 10-15 min to the waterfront, and 15-20 min to Gastown. We walked everywhere and the weather was lovely! A bit warm in the afternoons, but we would get out early for outings, have a nice lunch out and then return for some relaxation/down time in the condo before going out a bit in the evening.
After our lunch at Red Robin, we walked to a park a few blocks away for the kids to be able to run around a bit.
We then hit the grocery store (Urban Fare) on the way back to the condo to stock up on supplies for breakfast the next morning and some other snacks.
We played a few games while the boys had some downtime and DH snoozed for a bit and then headed out for a walk down by the waterfront.
We walked along the seawall, looking at all the fabulous boats/yachts, people watching, seeing seaplanes take off and land and even seeing a cruise ship leave the port. Since the weather was so lovely, lots of people were out and about walking and riding bikes.
After reaching the edge of Stanley Park and finding this cool tree the boys could climb in, we headed back to towards the condo for happy hour.
A bit later we headed out to Robson Street to pick up some food for a light supper. We hit the hay early as we had a big day planned for Saturday.
More to come...
Here is a link to my pre-trip report:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/bon-voyage-to-alaska-pre-trip-report.3600842/
so you can read what we had planned for the trip. We pretty much did as planned. I will make note where changes were as the days occur.
Friday, May 26, 2017
Our trip started with a few days in Vancouver prior to the ship setting sail. Even though we live in Oklahoma, we decided to book a straight flight out of Dallas (DFW) to Vancouver via Air Canada. DFW is a 3 hour drive from home, but DH and I would much rather deal with a car ride than a connecting flight with the kids. Choosing this option also seemed to help lower our total travel time compared to leaving out of OKC and connecting through various airports.
Early on in our travel planning we did ponder whether to go in and/or out of Seattle and spend time there. In the end, we made the right choice by flying straight to Vancouver and touring for a few days prior to sailing and coming home right after. Adding the Seattle leg might have saved a bit on airfare, but adding in additional travel time and headache would not have been worth it. Also, we barely scratched the surface of what Vancouver had to offer with our few days there. That just means we will have to go back someday.
This was the first time we flew Air Canada, and while both flights were on time, neither my DH nor I were impressed and will probably not fly them again. We were in a small express jet for both flights (roughly 4.5 hours). Both flights had issues with the bathrooms/running water and the cabin staff was not friendly. We paid plenty for these flights 6 months in advance and I did watch the fares and they continued to rise. Surprisingly, booking each leg as a one-way was cheaper than buying them as round-trip tickets.
Our flight from DFW left at 7:30am. We drove down the night prior and stayed in a Country Inn and Suites that offered a stay/park/fly deal. We stayed the night prior then took their airport shuttle at 5am, and left our car parked at the hotel.
No issues at DFW and our flight left just a few minutes late. About an hour and a half before we landed I opening the airplane window shade to see this.
Beautiful!
Soon we were on the ground and began the long walk through E concourse towards customs (FYI – we did not see bathrooms after we got off the plane until we got to customs, approx. 10 min walk. Those traveling with children understand this dilemma).
Customs took about 30 minutes to get through due to crowds. We took this time to turn our phones back on and connect into Verizon’s TravelPass progam which allowed us each access to our phones/data plan for 24 hours at a time for $5 each. We also connected to the free wifi at the airport. After we cleared customs, we headed to get our three suitcases that were still on the baggage carousel. We grabbed them and headed toward the exit.
My parents had flown in the night before and were nice enough to email the exact directions from baggage claim to the SkyTrain as we planned to take this to our condo rental. This made it easy to navigate our way out of baggage, pass the bus companies and out the exit door to cross the street to the escalator to the SkyTrain. We should have found the elevator, as DS9 accidentally tipped one of the suitcases onto its side about half-way up the escalator and when I yelled “let it go” (in my head meaning to let it stay down till we get to the top), he literally let it go and it came sliding down the escalator into DS6 and I. Thankfully it hit me first and I was able to stop it. Needless to say, DS9 was not in charge of holding things on escalators the rest of the trip.
We bought our four 2-zone vouchers at the top of the escalator and figured how to swipe the cards to get access to the platform. **FYI – Keep those tickets handy, as you will need them when exiting your station at your destination.** A train came within a few minutes and we grabbed a front row seat. My kids loved the ride in and it was clean, and very easy to understand where we were going. The first half of the ride is above ground so were able to enjoy the view for a few minutes before we plunged underground.
We rode the SkyTrain for 10 stops and got off at City Center. Our walk to the condo was about 7 blocks. Not far, but wheeling are our baggage made it feel far. From the time we landed at YVR to the time we made it to the condo, it was just about 2 hours.
My parents had stayed in the condo the night before and were back from their morning walk by the time we arrived (about 11:30am). We became briefly acquainted with the condo and then dropped our bags and headed to the Red Robin on Robson Street for burgers for lunch.
We rented the condo through Vacation Rental By Owner, property ID#3619590. This was a 2 BR, 2 BA condo with a pull-out sofa in the living room. I booked the property late June 2016. Vancouver lodging is expensive and most of the hotels have 2 double beds instead of 2 queen beds for a family of 4. Even if my parents wouldn’t have gone along on the trip, I would have rented a condo of some sort to have access to a kitchen and a separate space for the kids. John, the condo owner, was a wonderful host to us as well, making sure we had everything we needed daily.
The condo we rented was wonderful. It had been renovated just the year prior, so everything was new. Each couple had a bedroom. We had a 4 person dining table for eating and card playing in the afternoons, plus there were 3 bar stools at the kitchen counter. The best part was a washer and dryer so we could do laundry each day. It was very nice to board the Wonder 4 days into our trip with a suitcase full of clean clothes.
The location of the condo was great as well (Coal Harbor). We were a block off Robson Street, 10-15 min to the waterfront, and 15-20 min to Gastown. We walked everywhere and the weather was lovely! A bit warm in the afternoons, but we would get out early for outings, have a nice lunch out and then return for some relaxation/down time in the condo before going out a bit in the evening.
After our lunch at Red Robin, we walked to a park a few blocks away for the kids to be able to run around a bit.
We then hit the grocery store (Urban Fare) on the way back to the condo to stock up on supplies for breakfast the next morning and some other snacks.
We played a few games while the boys had some downtime and DH snoozed for a bit and then headed out for a walk down by the waterfront.
We walked along the seawall, looking at all the fabulous boats/yachts, people watching, seeing seaplanes take off and land and even seeing a cruise ship leave the port. Since the weather was so lovely, lots of people were out and about walking and riding bikes.
After reaching the edge of Stanley Park and finding this cool tree the boys could climb in, we headed back to towards the condo for happy hour.
A bit later we headed out to Robson Street to pick up some food for a light supper. We hit the hay early as we had a big day planned for Saturday.
More to come...
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