Hawaii 09 - Debarkation

May 8th, 2009 - Vancouver, B.C.

On debarkation day in Vancouver, Ian and I were out of the cabin by 7:45 and off to the priority debarkation lounge in the Olympic Restaurant. Our luggage tag color was called at 8:45, and we off the ship and through Customs and Immigration within 15 minutes. However, that is where the process ground to a halt. Due to the presence of another ship in port, and the malfunction of a crane used to unload luggage, we waited a full hour for our bags. To make matters worse, most of the people who waited with us were all "VIP"s with priority debarkation as well. So the cruiseline's most important customers waited the longest for their luggage. Maybe not Celebrity's fault, but not a good situation, with many older passengers waiting in a cold warehouse with no place to sit and no communication with the debarkation agents. We even saw a wheelchair which had been checked as luggage delivered at least a half hour late. Certainly something to be cautious about in the future.

Once all our bags had been retrieved we went through an empty taxi line to a waiting cab (noticably different than our last experience in Vancouver) and were off to the Best Western Downtown on Drake Street. Even though we were several hours early for check-in, we were given a room immediately and dropped off our bags for our first day in Vancouver.

After lunch in the White Spot restaurant we started down the street to the Granville Island ferry, $5 for a roundtrip ticket. Granville Island is a great place to spend an afternoon or evening, with buskers, shops, restaurants and a huge public market. We walked and shopped for a couple of hours (Ian came away with a woven hammock chair for his apartment from a great little shop called the HangOut) and then found our way to the Granville Island Brewery for a round of 6 oz. 'tasters' of their most popular brews. We both agreed on a favourite and I bought a 6-pack to take back to the hotel room. A return trip on the colorful water taxi brought us back to the foot of Hornby Street, and we trekked back to the Best Western to drop off our treasures and rest for a bit. After trip to the Pacific Mall (a walk of several blocks on a nice evening) for a little more shopping and some supper, we arrived back at the room to enjoy our Granville Island beer and a Blue Jays game.

Tomorrow : Whistler, B.C.