Holiday Retro - Day 1
I've finally sorted through the 4,700 photos we took during the holiday and now I can finally start posting a few select shots and putting a bit of a summary together.
Day 1: Travelling from Sydney to Vancouver.
The morning started as you would expect with last minute packing and the final shove of things into suitcases. We got a lift to the airport and had a little bit of a fairwell snack with the family before heading off.
The girls we're both excited about the flight, especially at the prospect of the inseat entertainment :-) and settled down quickly, but any flight that goes from Sydney to Vancouver and takes about 17 hours to complete is going to be a bit tedious at times.
Qantas/San Francisco Airport didn't really help either. Even though the flight was sold as a direct flight to Vancouver it still involved getting off the plane in San Francisco, going through US immigration, going out through security, walking around the airport and back through security with all our baggage, going through more security screening and then sitting for 10 mintues in the gate lounge before boarding again. Doing that with 2 very tired kids, confused Qantas instructions and long security queues is a real pain in the neck.
Anyway, we eventually arrived in Vancouver, picked up the rental from Avis and then proceeded to try and find our hotel. We were to stay at the Times Square Suites which are quite nice, but finding them was a bit on the tricky side. We expected there to be an obvious front entrance like most hotels, but all we saw was a series of restaurants and shops. After a bit of hunting around we found a sign above an apartment complex security door (nested behind trees) and we actually had to buzz reception to let us in. The suites are quite good and the location is excellent so we forgave the hassle of finding them and settled in ready for the rest of the holiday.
Day 1: Travelling from Sydney to Vancouver.
The morning started as you would expect with last minute packing and the final shove of things into suitcases. We got a lift to the airport and had a little bit of a fairwell snack with the family before heading off.
The girls we're both excited about the flight, especially at the prospect of the inseat entertainment :-) and settled down quickly, but any flight that goes from Sydney to Vancouver and takes about 17 hours to complete is going to be a bit tedious at times.
Qantas/San Francisco Airport didn't really help either. Even though the flight was sold as a direct flight to Vancouver it still involved getting off the plane in San Francisco, going through US immigration, going out through security, walking around the airport and back through security with all our baggage, going through more security screening and then sitting for 10 mintues in the gate lounge before boarding again. Doing that with 2 very tired kids, confused Qantas instructions and long security queues is a real pain in the neck.
Anyway, we eventually arrived in Vancouver, picked up the rental from Avis and then proceeded to try and find our hotel. We were to stay at the Times Square Suites which are quite nice, but finding them was a bit on the tricky side. We expected there to be an obvious front entrance like most hotels, but all we saw was a series of restaurants and shops. After a bit of hunting around we found a sign above an apartment complex security door (nested behind trees) and we actually had to buzz reception to let us in. The suites are quite good and the location is excellent so we forgave the hassle of finding them and settled in ready for the rest of the holiday.