Off To Canada (Again)

Holidays in Canada

Tag Archives: flights


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Some Canadian memories

I am often asked why we have been to Canada so many times and why we continue to visit. So here’s the short (ish) reason.

In September 1988 Amanda and I boarded a Wardair flight to Vancouver. This was only the third time I’d flown at this point and certainly the furthest. The flights were an early wedding present from Amanda’s mum. We were getting married the following year but had the chance to have an ‘early honeymoon’ in Canada and it turned out to be a very wise decision but that’s another story. We were going to spend the next 5 weeks staying with Amanda’s cousin and her husband in Vancouver and were really looking forward to this incredible opportunity and adventure.

Personally I was incredibly excited about flying with Wardair. This mythical company offered higher quality service at pretty much economy prices, one of the reasons it went out of operation the following year maybe? Fillet steak served on proper china with metal cutlery and wine in real glasses. After only flying on a package holiday charter to Tunisia perviously this felt like we were flying first class believe me.

On arriving at Vancouver airport, after a brief stop in Edmonton, we disembarked feeling like we hadn’t slept in 2 days….. it was more like 26 hours at this point. Honestly I don’t remember much about the journey to Surrey from the airport but I do remember arriving at the house and I remember our hosts. A more welcoming and lovely couple I don’t think I’ve ever met. They opened up their home to us, shared their friends with us and introduced us to the most amazing country. This is something we’ve never forgotten and why we have returned 9 times. We’ve visited Vancouver, Victoria, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and Toronto. We’ve taken a 13 hour ferry journey north up the BC coast and caught a train right across the country. I’ve been in a helicopter over Niagara Falls and driven roads so quiet that we didn’t see another car for over 3 hours. We’ve seen bald eagles, coyote, a BIG Grizzly bear, black bears, mountain sheep and elk, we’ve seen humpback whales and dolphins and orca and grey whales and sea otters. We’ve watched hockey in Vancouver, Toronto (Go Leafs Go), Montreal and Ottawa, Basketball and baseball in Toronto. We’ve stayed in lakeside lodges and five star hotels and historic chateau – like hotels and cheap motels. We’ve sweated in spring in Toronto and summer in Vancouver and frozen in Alberta in November. We’ve driven on highways and unpaved roads and frozen roads and through rain so hard you could barely SEE the road.

We are enchanted by Canada and hope that we will be able to continue to visit for many years to come. I still have ideas of trips I want to do and places I want to see. I want to visit the Northwest Territories and Yukon, I want to drive across country, coast to coast, I want to see more of Nova Scotia and visit, Newfoundland and New Brunswick, as well as explore Quebec and Ontario more, and we would still love to see polar bears in Churchill.

Canada and us still have unfinished business.


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Hey. We’re off to Canada again

This year (2019) marks the 31st anniversary of our first trip to Canada. We spent 5 amazing weeks in BC staying with Amanda’s cousin in Surrey. While we were there we travelled around in a Volkswagen Westfalia and visited friends in Kamloops, went to Banff and Jasper, stayed in Whistler and popped over to Victoria. This was the start of a long standing love affair with Canada.

This year is also our 30th wedding anniversay and so where else would we go to celebrate it?

At the beginning of November, we fly to Vancouver for 2 weeks. We’ll spend our actual anniversary in Whistler before driving down to Tsawassen to get the ferry to Victoria and chill out at a spa resort in Brentwood Bay. Finally we’ll get the ferry back and have 5 whole days to spend in Vancouver itself before flying back home.

It’s been 6 years since we last visited Vancouver and even then it was a short visit at the end of a long road trip so we’re looking forward to exploring. In fact, although we’ve visited all three places before, we plan on exploring a lot more in general …. ok apart from Whistler….that’s just going to completely chill out luxury. As it’s a special occasion we’ve pushed the boat out a little for this trip and that starts with the flights.

Originally I booked with British Airways (we always fly BA because of the amazing service we’ve always had flying with a wheelchair) back in December 2018, choosing Premium Economy. We find the extra space, having only two seats instead of the usual three, makes a huge difference for Amanda. Then…well….I got an email from BA with a special offer to upgrade to business class and I took it. So our flights went from being not cheap to definitely not cheap. On the flip side we get to use the lounge at Heathrow so I’ll be filling my pockets with food while I’m there and getting drunk on champagne….. they do have champagne right?

Last time we were in Canada, flying back from Calgary, we were given a free upgrade to business class. Airlines know what they’re doing when they give you a free upgrade. It’s like drug dealers giving you a free hit. Once you’ve tasted the good life and a reclining bed on a long flight it’s hard to go back, so when the email came through with the offer (suggestion?) that I should upgrade, of course I did. Damn them.

Next time I’ll go through the hotels we’re staying in.

Brentwood Bay


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Yep, we’re off to Canada again…..not just yet though

Insomnia doesn’t strike me very often (thankfully) but at least when it does I do something useful….sort of….like write a blog post about something that’s almost 2 years away.

2017 is a big year for one member of this family…. and it’s not me or Elmo. Amanda will hit the big 50 and to celebrate I said we could go anywhere in the world for a big holiday. It’s no surprise that we’re going back to our favourite place and we’re hopeful that we can go for 3 weeks rather than 2. Things are bit up in the air at the moment as ideally we’d love our best friends to come with us. We’ve yet to discuss the practicalities of such a trip, such as the amount of time, the amount of money, whether they could stand being with us for 3 whole weeks anyway, but we’ll sort something out. It’d just be nice to share the places we love with the people we love.

So, in the interest of this not being just me writing, I wish, I wish, here is what I propose…..

  • We fly to Vancouver and collect the hire cars
  • Catch the ferry to Vancouver Island and stay in Brentwood Bay for 2 nights
  • Drive over to the West Coast and stay in the Tofino area for a few nights
  • Drive to Port Hardy in the North
  • Catch the ferry to Bella Coola
  • Go Grizzly watching
  • Drive to Williams Lake…..

I know, I know….this sounds a lot like our last trip doesn’t it? Well clever clogs, it’s so not…read on…..

  • Drive to Jasper and stay for a couple of nights
  • Drive to Lake Louise and stay for a couple of nights
  • Drive to Kamloops and stay for a night
  • Drive to Whistler and stay for a few nights
  • Finally onto to Vancouver for a few nights before flying home

How does that sound? Pretty nifty eh? Now this will probably change (a lot or slightly, who knows?) before the main event. After all it’s quite some distance away yet but things have to be planned so we can save up the money to go.

If (and we hope this is the case) they are coming with us and can only do 2 weeks then we can do a cut down version, but otherwise this is my ideal trip. I’ll do all the arranging and booking, all they have to do is agree and pay me some money along the way as things like flights, ferries and the like get paid in advance.

We’ve had some amazing holidays and this one could be the best of the lot.


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Not long to go now

Quite a bit has happened since the last time I posted on here.

  • Thankfully my wife had her new driving licence delivered (now I don’t have to do ALL the driving). Not that I was worried you understand, this was my idea after all but I’m a sharing kind of person and it would be unfair to hog all that driving to myself. Yup, that’s how I’m spinning that one.
  • We booked a car to take us to the airport and collect us when we get back. I explained on the order form that we needed a car big enough to put a collapsed wheelchair and our luggage in the boot, so let’s see what turns up.  We’re using a small company that we’ve used before and the driver was very prompt and helpful, so we have our fingers crossed.
  • I ordered some currency and got that delivered to the house. I never know whether to take currency, travellers cheques, credit cards, pre pay cards or a mix. In the past we’ve gone with minimal currency and just credit/debit cards, drawing out cash as we need it but the charges in recent years seem to have gone up quite a bit (or is that my imagination?). Couple that with the fact that we won’t be spending much time in cities or larger towns this time and we thought that it would be best to take more cash than normal and back it up with our credit/debit cards. I have to say I love the Canadian ‘plastic’ money but I’m not sure how well it would go down in the UK. People seem a tad tetchy when anything resembling change to our currency is mentioned.

The final countdown has begun and we’re starting to think about putting aside clothes (and other things) we want to take. Mainly so I don’t wear items and then want them washed last minute really. We have a visitor for a few days and after that we’ll start putting things on the spare bed just to make sure I don’t forget anything.

 

Next time I post it’ll either be just before we leave or when we arrive on the Pacific coast of Canada.


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4 months to go

It’s now March and the little counter on my page says that in 4 months time we’ll be off on our trip, so perhaps it’s time to wrap up the preview and update on what’s been happening.

After a one night stopover at Williams Lake we have a nice 5 hour drive to Whistler and I’m happy to say that we get another taste of the easy life for our last two stops. We’re staying at the Four Seasons in Whistler on Blackcomb way and we have two nights to relax. We first went to Whistler/Blackcomb in 1988 and some  of it was still under construction as I remember, so I’m sure it’ll be finished by now right? I have plans for the peak-2-peak cable car but apparently one in every five or so cars has a glass bottom and Amanda would freak if we had one of those so I’ll either be going by myself or we’ll make sure we do not have the special car. Apart from that we have no plans except enjoy the scenery and relax.

Thursday morning we’re off again for the Sea-to-Sky highway down to Vancouver on the last part of our trip. The last stop of any holiday has the possibility of being a bit of a downer so to compensate I booked us into a hotel that we tried to stay at previously but was fully booked a year in advance due to a wedding. It’s the Granville Island Hotel and I’m hoping for a bit of luxury and tlc before we have to drop the car off and fly home. The location is amazing being on Granville Island (obviously), with restaurants and the public market to check out (again) and I’m sure we’ll venture downtown at some point to try and fill any remaining space in our luggage with stuff from Roots.

Saturday morning….the day we’ll be looking forward to the least. We’ll take the car back and jump on the plane back to the UK. I’m not even thinking about it yet, it depresses me that much.

My new passport arrived yesterday so I can now fill in the advance passenger info for the flight. The new passports have a chip in them which holds the same info as the information page inside, or if you prefer and you’re that way inclined, the ‘man’ can now track me wherever I go so long as I carry my passport and I’ll be signalling back to base everytime I walk past an RFID reader. Frankly if anyone was that bored that they wanted to follow me then they’re welcome. I give them a day before they decide I’m not worth bothering with.

We still have to buy a new wheelchair, measure and weigh it and let British Airways know the details. This should now move to the top of the ‘to-do’ list I think as it’s fairly important.

I bought a new lens for my camera ready for the trip. It’s a 50mm f1.8 which equates to about a 75mm lens in old money. I gave it a quick try and it seems really nice and along with the 16mm f2.8 (plus wide adapter), the 18-55mm zoom and the 55-210mm zoom I think I’m covered for the trip. I might get a spare SD card just in case.

That’s it. The trip. If anything else happens or I get more info I’ll update. Other than that, see you in August.


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Flights and stuff

Do you remember me saying that we’ll fly Air Canada again? You do? Oh. Well we’re flying with British Airways instead. Who said only women can change their minds? The real reason is to do with the fact that we’ll I’ll be driving as soon as we get there and so we thought it might be quite nice to travel in premium economy. That way we get a bit more room to stretch out and maybe get a bit of sleep. It also means that we’ll have nobody sharing the row near the window with us and so we won’t have to keep getting up and down all the time. Air Canada sadly don’t do premium economy, just economy and business class (way out of our price bracket) so we looked to British Airways instead. We get an increase in baggage allowance (2 x 23kg bags each instead of 1 each) and bigger seats with more leg room. Of course I realised that you can’t really go there with an increase in baggage allowance and come back with a smaller allowance so we’re going premium economy both ways. My only gripe is that once you pay a premium to get these ‘extras’ you are then asked to pay more to reserve your seat if you want a particular row. I seem to remember being able to do this free of charge with Air Canada when flying economy so it’s a bit rubbish having to pay £32 per seat per flight to do the same don’t you think? We complain about Ryanair hiding costs and ridiculing them when they say ‘you don’t have to pay if you don’t want, We’re not forcing you’ and then see BA doing the same thing. Anyway, the flights are sorted. We’re really going.

I then had a splurge on booking hotels, starting with the first place we’re staying, which is the Brentwood Bay Resort and Spa.

The view from our balcony

We stayed there previously when we did our West Coast trip in 2008 and Amanda in particular loved it. It’s in a great location right on the waterfront and has excellent food (and very good beer I seem to remember). I know that Amanda will be enjoying the spa as she loved it the last time we stayed. On that earlier trip it was our last but one stop but on this it will be our first stop. A chance to get over any jet lag and get ready for the big drive ahead. Of course we have to get there first and that should be interesting in itself.

Apart from a little bit of driving in Menorca quite a few years back, I’ve never driven on the wrong side of the road. Not even unintentionally. I’m not nervous yet, it’s quite a long way off, but I think I will be by the time I have to do it. Before you say anything, I know it’s probably easier than I think and I’m worrying over nothing but there you go. Fear of the unknown. After landing in Vancouver we have to collect the car and drive straight to the ferry terminal, get on the ferry and drive to the hotel once we get to the island. It’s not far actually, only about an hour and a quarter total driving with the ferry ride in between so it’ll be fine…won’t it?

Right by the side of the hotel is another (tiny) ferry which bills itself as Vancouver Island’s most beautiful shortcut. I haven’t decided whether we’ll take it yet but it cuts about 20 mins off the driving time to Ucluelet and it does look very pretty indeed.

Vancouver Island’s most beautiful shortcut.

The quicker way, no doubt

After that delightful rest we have a big drive to the west coast to look forward to. I checked on Google Maps and it reckons about 5 hours 16 mins but as we’re travelling on roads we’ve not seen before and going through places I KNOW I’ll want to stop and take photos of, I think it’s a full day. I admit, I’m looking forward to this. I’ll tell you more about it next time.