Category: America 2014

To be truthful, there were only two mad hotels on our trip. Most of them – barring the one in Whistler which was kind of old, and the one in Kamloops which was just basic because Kamloops doesn’t have anything better – were pretty nice, and all other than the one in Kamloops were five star because we booked a premium tour (and paid through the nose for it.) A few of them were in the Fairmont Hotel chain, which caters for the high end customers. So it was a peek at a lifestyle we’re not familiar with, while not particularly wanting to living like that all the time (I mean, turn down service? Chocolates on the pillow every night? Does any of that really matter?) Continue reading “Mad Hotels”

The flight to San Francisco was via Virgin ‘first class’ – which is to say, what other people call premium economy. Grimy white leather seats and cheap fizz do not make a flight ‘first class’. Nor was I impressed by the pole dance style safety briefing a very pretty and talented female flight attendant had to make for our section. People made such a fuss over this fun and funny Air New Zealand video which I saw several times on planes, but no one complains about this sexist shit Branson puts his staff through? Really? Continue reading “California”

Strictly, this belongs in the Canada post but oh well. Before we caught the train south, we had most of the day in Vancouver, so Doug went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge (which I did so not want to go to), while I went to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens to meet a delightful and very clever twitter friend from Vancouver. The gardens are lovely, though I was too tired from an early start and bad sleep to really enjoy it. Lots of gracious planting and sculptures: Continue reading “Seattle”

The worst thing about the USA apart from its politics, is the way it treats people entering the country as tourists. It’s not actually necessary to regard us all as criminals, you know. But yet it forces people to wait for hours to be photographed, fingerprinted and interrogated, all so we can go and spend good money in the place.

We literally waited three hours to clear immigration at Vancouver’s cruise terminal to get onto the boat (considered American territory and we were eventually going to go to Alaska). That was after a very early start and long ferry ride. We didn’t get onto the cruise boat until after three pm, and had gobble some lunch before an obligatory lifeboat drill at four pm. To say I was pissed off and knackered after all this is an understatement. Grrrr.

However. Once we ate some more and had showers and calmed down, we suddenly realised that (a) the stateroom was bigger than some of the hotel rooms we’d stayed in and (b) we didn’t need to pack or meet a deadline again for a whole week. Yippee! And we could stay in our room for the entire trip if we wanted because room service was free. (We didn’t, but we could. We had some breakfasts in the room though.) Our verandah gave us a perfect view of the scenery and we could have as much or as little to do with other people as we wanted. Bliss 😉

The first day was at sea, letting us explore the ship, food options and entertainment possibilities. Also, relax after the hectic day before. It was ‘formal dress’ night so we blinged up and went to the main ‘posh’ dining room – where we were jammed in like sardines. Oh well. Food was okay, but not worth the hassle (the food in the ‘casual’ parts was just as good without all the nonsense) but we saw orcas outside the window 🙂 Oh and humpbacks from our verandah while eating breakfast the next morning! Continue reading “Alaska”

I really loved Canada. It was so much more in every way than I expected – the scenery, the people, the variety. We enjoyed the tour itinerary, and what we didn’t love, we were fascinated by anyway.

We started in Vancouver, and went to Grouse Mountain as our travel agent recommended. It was okay – the grizzly bears were wonderful. The scenery was obcured by smoke, a problem for much of the first week or so of the trip. Glad I went, wouldn’t bother going back, though I loved Vancouver.

The tour proper started on the second night with a dinner, where we met our awesome travel guide, but also met the fascist group who would be the bane of our existence for two weeks. Hard drinking, small thinking, white trash with money. Ugh. But we also had some great people and I prefer to remember them instead.

Our first excursion was a First Nations guided tour up Indian Arm. Of great historical and spiritual signficance for the Salish people, I have the pretty scenery got dull after a bit because I was so bloody tired. But after a bit of a nap, I woke up and engaged our fantastic guide, Cease Wyss, in convo, which proved to be rewarding in the extreme. Amazing lady – an ethnobiologist, musician and drummer, canoe teacher, and instructor to First Nations actors. She made the trip a real highlight of the tour, and a great start. (Pictures after the cut – click to see full sized version in a new window) Continue reading “Canada”

We took 2600 photos on this trip, and still couldn’t capture the full magnificence of it all. I’ll do my best to convey a little of it for you, but honestly, if I could pay for you all to do this trip yourselves, I would. It’s magical.

I will break up the photos into several several posts –  Canada, Alaska, Seattle, California, Mad Hotels, and Critters. But in brief, we had a magnificent time, stayed in some damn nice hotels, saw amazing things, met wonderful people (and some shitheads, meh), and ate lots and lots of incredible meals. It was as different an experience from the New Zealand debacle as you could imagine. I would heartily recommend APT as a company to tour with as well. So professional.

As a direct result of this trip, we bought a DSLR camera, a Nikon D5300 with telephoto, and we also booked a cruise to Antartica for December 2015. We fell in love with cruising, and Holland America proved itself to be a wonderful, safe and clean cruise line. A friend who will remain nameless was scornful at the idea of only spending three days in Antartica, but since the boat can’t land, and even if it did, I’m not sure what I would *do* in Antartica given the weather and limitations on exploring etc. I’m perfectly content with my choice. We go to Chile and Argentina, as well as the Falkland Islands. It’s a trip I would never do by land. Can’t wait.

 

This post is about the animals we saw on the trip, and is in no particular order. Click on the pictures to see a full sized image in a new window.

Continue reading “Critters”