Hello Disney Wonder and Alaska!

It was going to be hard enough to sleep in with excitement levels on overload. Leaving the curtains partially opened overnight did not help with sunrise occurring at 4:30am. At 5am a certain child shouted out, "I'm ready to go on a Disney cruise!". Thank you love...Unfortunately, or fortunately, the ship we could see out of our room was not the Disney Wonder but the Norwegian Sun. Thus, a little more sleep was enforced.

With such an early start, after breakfast and packing we still had nearly 3 hours to kill before heading out to the port! The children scored some precious cartoon time before we walked the short distance downhill to Canada Place. Immigration and customs were busy but the line flowed. We were a little disappointed that despite being there right on our allocated time of 11am (the earliest available) there were already a ton of people there before us! We received a boarding number of 5. The cast member helping us at check in didn't have the usual Disney magic and she was unable to help us with access for us across both staterooms but room cards were soon fixed by the supervisor. The children ran to be registered into the kids club. The kids clubs bands had been updated to magic bands since our last cruise and had GPS on it or so we were told, so they were able to tell exactly where the children were!

Hello beautiful ship. Its been a while since Panama Canal in Jan 2010!

Finally getting onboard

The upgraded kids clubs bands

After a short wait at the terminal, we were soon able to board and heard the familiar "Disney Wonder welcome the Albany family!". The cruise had begun! Mr "I love buffet" was all too happy to take Nana and Grandpa up to the pool deck for lunch while Malcolm made a beeline for the laundry room. The children were ecstatic to be able to swim post lunch and thoroughly enjoyed themselves gorging on soft serve. Unbeknownst to the rest of the family, there was drama galore with laundry. The self service laundry room was not supposed to be opened until 6pm so machines didn't work. One cast member activated it with a master card but then left and advised Malcolm that guest services would help shortly. To cut a long story short, all ended up well and we got 2 loads of laundry done for no charge...Grandpa in the meantime had his own dramas with a lost passport! It had been swept up by Malcolm accidentally at check in.

Enjoying the pool in the warm weather while waiting for our staterooms to be ready

Once all dramas were sorted and behind us, we headed up to the spa raffle where I won the prize of $100 credit! Woot woot!!! The next lovely surprise came in the form of our cabin having received the "frozen" treatment courtesy of Karen, our travel agent from Small World Vacations. I guess we were worth melting for :)

How's this for a win!!

Aw...

The sparklies hanging down from the ceiling

Sail away party. 

If you're going to get a beer, do it properly...

The first of many, many desserts

Definitely going to enjoy bedtime tonight

We were fortunate to get a prime table at Triton's right by the window. After good food and good entertainment, everyone was all too happy to retire in readiness for a full day of activity at sea!

Granville Island

Granville Island was first on our destination list today. With a dragon boat racing festival on at False Creek, we abandoned our planned Aquabus expedition and opted for the boring but safe bus. Granville Island is a peninsula south of the city filled with shops and markets. We arrived at the end with the children's area. Stalled temporarily by Malcolm's need for a soy flat white fix, we finally got to check out the area. The Kids Market was a large building housing a variety of shops for children as well as in indoor playground. We had a second incident of near shoplifting! Grrr....It was otherwise relaxing meandering through the rest of the shops through the island

Pros at catching Vancouver public transport

We're here!

A peaceful pit stop

...so Daddy can get his fix of soy flat white!

A large water park

The kids market

Designed for little people

Filled with shops for little people

Blessed with more beautiful weather to enjoy this beautiful city

Our original choice of transportation

Food always seems to play a big part in our travels. We had read up on some "must try"s and so eagerly headed for the food markets. As always, the foods to try were all either high in fat or high in sugar thus were very tasty and didn't disappoint! We bought a few more goodies and sat down in the sunshine to enjoy the live jazz courtesy of the international jazz festival that was also on.

Time for food!

This was a recommendation

Their famed avocado, brie and spinach on croissant

The next recommendation

Delicious

Time for something a little healthier

As it was Father's day here today, Malcolm and his father went to the local bar to watch golf and soccer while the rest of the family chilled out at the hotel. Dinner was a light fare at the Club lounge.
We headed back to Gastown for dessert at Mosquito, a specialty dessert restaurant. Whilst the atmosphere was funky and the dessert beautifully presented, the desserts themselves were a little disappointing in that it was a little hit and miss. The desserts were served Tapas style. Whilst some were excellent, there was a couple that were lacking. It didn't stop the family demolishing the offerings on the table! We ambled past the famed Steam Clock, waited for it to chime and then headed back home to complete our last full day in this beautiful city.

Back to the funky Gastown

Mosquito, a dessert bar/restaurant

They only serve desserts!

Pistachio ice-cream, dark chocolate mousse, and caramelised banana with lemon curd

Almond cream soup with pear sorbet, champagne jelly

Frozen coconut snowball

Pop-corn ice cream sundae - peanut brownie with salted caramel

Olive oil and lemon madeleines

Rum and citrus soaked brioche with fresh mint ice-cream and lime granita

The steam clock

Salmon 16 Ways

It was a good morning. The children all slept right through until 730am (other than Elliot sleep walking, running around the room yelling out "where's the plane? Where's the plane?"). We thought we'd make use of the blue skies to visit both Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain. As any good Asian would appreciate, there was a free shuttle bus to our first destination! Fortunately the bus stop to Capilano was a short walk from our hotel and easy to find. By the time the bus left the last pick up point, the bus was full. The ride was quick. We went over the Lion's Gate Bridge and before we knew it we had arrived.

Our 2 destinations for the day

Is free. Is good!

As the name implies, Capilano is a suspension bridge which goes over a deep ravine amidst the rainforest. If you are afraid of heights, this might not an attraction for you as the bridge sways...noticeably! If you do manage to get across, then there are a serious of attractions to see and do including the treetop adventures, a series of suspended walkways which takes you from tree to tree. Visualise an Ewok village without the houses and the Ewoks. Jonah managed to convince himself that he could speak Ewok but that is a separate story altogether...

Totem poles totem poles everywhere

Said bridge

Views from the bridge

Tree top adventures

The Cliff top walk, a narrow walk by the cliff face anchored to the cliff by only 16 points!

 

Literally just outside the entrance to the Capilano Suspension Bridge is the bus stop for bus 236 which takes you up to the base of Grouse Mountain. Unfortunately this bus did cost. However, Vancouver public transport is affordable compared to Sydney. Buying a set of faresaver tickets not only saved us money but also saved us from having the correct amount as the buses do not give you back change. From the base of the mountain, the Skyride takes you up in 4 minutes to the top where once again, multiple attractions can be experienced. The last time Malcolm and I came here was to ski and that was nearly 20 years ago!

Our first mission was to feed ourselves lunch. We took the opportunity to try some poutine, essentially fries topped with cheese curd and gravy. It was a winner! It sustained us until the next food pit stop of Beavertails, deep fried dough pastry shaped like a beavertail and topped with your choice of goodies. We went for maple syrup and it didn't last for more than a minute...The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and enjoying various shows before heading back down the mountain to take the free shuttle bus downtown. We had some shopping to do. The camera was put away for this serious activity. After multiple purchases and a near "go to jail" miss by young Jonah for shoplifting, we started to look for food. Vancouver is reknowned to be a foodie city and we were excited to try some good sashimi at good price. Unfortunately we were misled and couldn't find the restaurant we were after. Malcolm insisted it was the fault of Tripadvisor...Everyone was exhausted and so we popped into the nearest Japanese restaurant on the way back to the hotel. As the prices were so low, we mistakenly assumed they were entree sized and Malcolm ordered salmon of every kind imaginable. We were mistaken! The portions were HUGE. We rolled home. The salmon that we bought earlier will have to wait for another day.

Bus 236, our bus

The Skyride, a fast and smooth cable car ride to go up Grouse Mountain

Ready to go!

 Once at the top, the air was noticeably cooler. Poutine fried cheese curd and gravy

Beautiful timber carvings throughout

The Lumberjack show, silly but a whole lot of fun. Love the Canadian humour!

Poutine

Maple syrup Beavertail

The cause of a fight between the children...

One of the 2 orphaned Grizzlies at the Mountain

The bird show

Daenerys...the owl

More lumberjack show

The sign near seats that stumped me. Until I realised it was for the buses and not the passengers

Japanese for dinner