Alaska Cruise – Part 2 – Travel

Travel

On our first travel day, we flew United Airlines directly from Dulles to Seattle, leaving at 5:15 pm EDT and landing in Seattle at 7:46 PDT . We had originally been on a connecting flight through San Francisco, with some extra layover time which would have allowed us to make a quick trip into the city. This plan got canceled when United moved the flight times around so that we would barely make our connection. A long call to United got us rebooked onto a direct flight after speaking with a supervisor. We paid extra to upgrade to Economy Plus, because no leg room on a 5-6 hour flight wouldn’t have been a good start to my vacation. The flight was very uneventful, but placed us in Seattle well past our east coast bedtime.

Seattle

Upon arriving at Seattle, we gathered our bags up and headed to get our rental car. Although Budget provides affordable cars, they don’t always have the fastest rental counter. We must have spent 30 minutes at the rental counter waiting our turn. We eventually got our car and headed to the Holiday Inn Express we had booked right near the airport. The hotel, while nothing to write home about, offered a clean and quiet room for the night.

The next day, we headed into downtown Seattle to meet up with family. We had a little bit of difficulty, mainly because of my inability to read signs. I ended up driving back out of the city on some sort of expressway. We had to turn around and head back in. Eventually, we found some parking and looked around until family arrived.

We got a quick tour of the downtown area from them and then headed off for a quick breakfast together. We would have loved to spend more time downtown, but wanted to get across the border and into Richmond, British Columbia before it got too late. We had scheduled more time later in the trip to explore Seattle, so we weren’t going to miss out.

We left Seattle around 11:30 am and headed up towards the border. We had crossed over the border before on a similar trip over a decade previously. We love the Pacific Northwest, so everybody enjoyed the beautiful scenery. After a two hour drive, we arrived at the Peace Arch Border Crossing. We don’t have any pictures of crossing the border, those guards really don’t want their pictures taken (no joke, there are signs about not taking pictures). Either way, the Canadian border guards asked us a few questions, looked over our passports, and sent us on our way.

After crossing the border, we headed straight for our hotel in Richmond, British Columbia. It was another Holiday Inn Express. The Richmond area in British Columbia is a little bit odd. It’s a mix of rural and suburban, mainly on a block by block basis. You will be driving down a road and a subdivision will appear, right next to a blueberry farm. We really loved it though! The Holiday Inn Express was right next to what seemed to be an entertainment complex. We didn’t head over there though.

We dropped our bags off and headed out for a late lunch. I think we looked up a place on Yelp and drove over there. Our main plan for the day was to get to our hotel the night before the cruise. We had managed that, but Nancy had one more surprise for us. She had found and researched the Summer Night Market. I’m always up for an adventure, especially if someone else plans it. Off we went.

The Summer Night Market was great. It was a bunch of booths in the parking lot of a warehouse district in the outskirts of Vancouver. Each of the booths was selling food or merchandise, most with an Asian flair. We tried out food from many of the booths, whatever struck us as interesting. Nancy spent most of her time taking pictures. It was a good way to start off our vacation. After eating our fill of snacks, we headed back to the room to get ready for the next day.