August 31, 2023 -- Pan Pacific Hotel

Our Vancouver accommodations are at the Pan Pacific Hotel. Wow! This place has far exceeded our expectations. It’s also the Convention Center, so the expectation was a huge building, lots of people and fairly plain in design.

It is large, but not overly crowded (even though some type of convention is happening), and is nicely appointed. We got here about 1:00 local time. Check in isn’t until 3:00, but they immediately took our luggage, got us into our room and had the luggage sent up. After our 3:00 a.m. start, dragging that stuff around was getting old so this was appreciated. Also, all the stereotypes about Canadians being friendly – well, they’re true! Everyone has seemed genuinely nice and glad to help out.

A perk the credit card got us was a room upgrade – turns out to be a higher floor (and quieter), fantastic harbor view (as opposed to a parking lot), the seaplanes and a good view of all the activity on the plaza below.  Proof again that if you work it right and pay attention, the higher fee on that credit card can pay off in unanticipated ways.

The other perk that was unexpected – because of the credit card EB used to reserve the room and check in, we had a $125.00 credit to use in the bar / restaurant / shops.  Ka-Ching!!  Happy hour just became “free”.

We had decided to stay up and push through in order to reset our internal clocks to west coast time, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a little nap happening after we got settled in the room.  Later, we met our buddies in the bar, which was very comfortable and had a great view out on the harbor, for drinks.  Our waitress was very friendly and outgoing, but got caught in the generational divide – one of our party regularly drinks a “Rose Kennedy” – Vodka, club soda and a splash of cranberry.  She not only hadn’t heard of the drink (although the bartender knew of it and how to make it), but she didn’t know who Rose Kennedy was, either.  

We picked this hotel because it was deemed, “Convenient to the cruise port”.  That means a short cab ride, right?

Nope. In this case it means “ON THE CRUISEPORT”.  Take the elevator to the basement level and voila – you have a direct route to board the ship (we later learned that up to 5 ships can be docked here).  Oh, and a perk of that – call the front desk an hour before we want to head to the ship, and they will get the luggage from our room and deliver it to the ship.  

Anyone who’s ever taken a cruise knows that it is easy to overpack.  Our early trips had enough luggage that we looked like that scene in “Titanic” where the stevedores are using cranes to get steamer trucks and automobiles into the hold.  Now we’ve got it down to just one bag each, along with a backpack of essentials (i.e., enough electronics to pilot the Starship Enterprise to the edge of the galaxy, medication for everything from Ebola to an upset tummy and a scattering of other, “I might need that” things).  

It's still heavy, though, and despite all the ramps and elevators and conveniences to make moving from one place to another, the big ones (luggage) can dislocate a shoulder if grabbed wrong.  Having other people move that stuff whenever possible is well worth the tip.

There’s also an airport on the water.  I mean “in” the water.  It’s not LaGuardia, but there is a steady stream of little sea planes going in and out that is easily viewable from our 20th story window.  It’s kind of interesting to watch them take off; they seem to skip along the water, bouncing a few times before they are finally airborne.

After drinks we went off to dinner – Rogue Kitchen and Wet Bar – which was walking distance and very nice.  By then it was 9:00 local time, or 12:00 North Carolina time, and we were all noticeably slowing down and decided to head off to bed.