About a year and a half ago I was chatting with a friend of mine who was describing this amazing cruise she was planning in the Fall of 2023.  It left out of Vancouver and wandered along the Alaskan coast before sailing across the ocean to Japan.  A total of 23 days of sea voyaging and exploring.  As she had booked a whole cabin, not wanting to share a room with someone she did not know, I immediately invited myself along.  It sounded like an amazing adventure.  Luckily she was agreeable and the only thing left to do was track the passing time as September 2023 got closer and closer.

Not wanting to tempt fate and run into any logistical problems I decided to arrive in Vancouver two days earlier than the Sunday departure.  Post-pandemic air travel seems a bit more fraught with peril regarding lost luggage, missed connections, flight cancellations and last-minute rescheduling so I figured two days cushion would be enough to recover from any travel calamity in time to board the ship, with luggage, on time.  Besides, I was interested in exploring Vancouver, a city I had visited briefly before on a previous Alaskan cruise but had not really had enough time to due it justice.

My trip ended up being very smooth and my luggage appeared promptly on the carousal with nary a problem.  The metro from the airport to the City Center was easy to navigate and I easily found my hotel, just slightly north of the Gaslamp district without problem. It was getting on towards the dinner hour by the time I got myself settled, so since the famed Gaslamp district was a few steps away, I headed in that direction.  It was Friday and beautiful, sunny sky, temperature in the mid-70’s, so people were out and about on the streets.  The Vancouver Fringe Festival was taking place at the time so the crowd was very eclectic and colorful as I explored the back streets and alleys.

The Gaslamp district is a mixture of shops, ranging from the standard gaudy tourist fare to high end boutiques, restaurants and small businesses.  It is adjacent to, but not on, the waterfront, being pushed inland by a large freight yard supporting the movement of cargo arriving daily at the port of Vancouver.  Nonetheless the Gaslamp district is a quirky, charming area and I enjoyed exploring it.  After a simple dinner (I picked a Mexican place because I was craving a margarita!), I headed back to my room.  It had been a long travel day and I was also still on east coast time.

My friend arrived later night and the next morning we headed out to explore the Granville Island Market, not only a star tourist attraction but also a place where locals pick up fresh produce and food specialties. It was another nice day so we hiked the three miles from the city center to the market, only getting a little thrown off track when we were trying to get off of the bridge over the channel separating the island from the city.  The way down to the ground, and hence access to the market, was not too clear and there were a few other groups of lost tourists trotting back and forth on the bridge, like us, peering over trying to find our way down.  Luckily a local came along and we had a Pied Piper moment as we all lined up behind him to be led off the bridge.

The market is both a building and the larger district around it. The main part of the market is housed in a large building shaped like a “U”. The open area between the two of the legs of the “U” form a courtyard that faces the channel and it was here that people settled to eat the delicious food they purchased inside.  Inside the market was a foodie paradise!  Certainly there was standard market fare- fresh produce, dairy and cheese vendors, flower vendors, butchers and seafood stalls- but also there were numerous prepared food stalls in almost every ethnicity. Too much to taste- too little time.  We decided to nibble our way through the market in an attempt to try as much as possible, but one can only eat so much.  What we did taste, a pumpkin scone, poke tuna, ceviche, lemon squares, was all good.

Deciding to walk off our gastronomic exploration, we headed into the surrounding area to examine the many craft stores that surround the market itself.  The market opens at 9am and we had arrived just before 10am.  By noon it was getting noticeably more crowded and the small stores were harder to navigate but it was fun to linger in certain stores to check out native artwork and jewelry.  The Fringe Festival had a couple of events on the island which probably had something to do with the horrible traffic snarl that developed as the day went on.  We were thankful to be walking!

Mid-afternoon we wandered back across the bridge, now with the knowledge of how to get back on it, and over to the city center where we ran into a demonstration in full swing at the Vancouver City Hall plaza.  Iranian flags were everywhere and staged in the center of the plaza was a large montage of about a dozen men who had been killed by the current regime; the source of the crowd’s ire and subject of the protest. The police were keeping an eye on things, but the event was peaceful and reminded me of many of the similar events that take place in Washington, DC on a weekly basis through the year.

We had dinner plans with other friends, also embarking on the cruise the following day, and had a pleasant evening at a French bistro.  The embarkation the following day had been postponed from 11am to 6:30pm because of a ship traffic jam at the Vancouver pier.  Three different ships, not counting our ship the Viking Orion, were embarking passengers at the same time.  I am not sure why we were the ones delayed, possibly because the Orion had the fewest passengers, at just over 900.  The other ships, from Holland, Celebrity, and Royal Caribbean each held over 2000 people.  Needless to say there were a LOT of people converging on the pier on Sunday.

With time free on Sunday, after wandering down the to the Pier to check in our luggage and check in for the cruise, we decided to ascend the Vancouver tower and get a look at the city from the sky.  Vancouver is very spread out and it hugs the serpentine coastline on both sides of the water.  From the tower it is easy to see how far the city extends as well as get a beautiful view of the surrounding area. We then wandered down to the port to watch the humongous Holland ship depart, hoping that we would also see our ship, the Orion dock.  We had seen it from the Vancouver Tower, floating serenely in the middle of the channel waiting for its turn at the  Because of the delay in boarding Viking set up a hospitality room at the Fairmont Hotel which is situated across the street to the Port. We headed over there about 90 minutes early to find a huge crowd already sprawled all over the ballroom, out the door to the lobby, with stragglers winding around the corner and down the hallway.  The staff had placed chairs out, a good idea since, looking around, it seemed that I was one of the younger people in the crowd.  I was happy to perch on a ledge in the corner by the front door to wait, but that would not have been a practical solution for many of the waiting passengers.

The natives were getting a bit restless– listening to snippets of conversation I could hear complaints, speculation, resignation and diminishing patience around the delayed embarkation.  As we had checked in early in the day, our boarding group number was two so we listened carefully for the “we are starting to board” call.  Hearing it we jumped up and soon found ourselves being led across the street to the passenger terminal by Viking employee Joseph who barreled through the crowd trailing us in his wake to get us to customs and into the boarding hall. He did an excellent job.

 

 

 

After clearing customs we had just a short wait in the boarding hall as we watched Orion dock, then finally, after a year and a half of anticipation– the adventure began!  Our stateroom is roomy and we settled in and went to explore the ship, our home for the next several weeks.  During the course of the journey I will be featuring a “cocktail of the day”, another type of exploration, as we take advantage of our drink package to try out new cocktails. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First cocktail:  Gin in the Forest, brought to us by our imaginative barkeep: Nitti.