Wine Country Coastal Cruise – 2015

We slept great in our inside cabin, and were both surprised that we actually slept until about 6:00 AM local time. Today, we are in the port of Santa Barbara. This is our only tender port, so after we ate breakfast in the buffet, and headed back to the cabin to gather up our gear for the ride ashore. On the way back to the room, we headed outside to look at the shoreline, and happened to see a large pod of dolphins swimming around the ship. We went and got the camera from the cabin, and were pleasantly surprised that the dolphins were still near the ship when we returned. We tried to get some pictures, but it was hard to predict when and where they would surface, so we only got one picture with dolphins in it. Trying to zoom in to be able to get good close up, it was just too difficult to try and aim and take a picture quick enough while the dolphins were at the surface for a breath. It looked like the ship was anchored about a mile off the coast, making for a fairly long tender ride ashore. It was a cloudy, cool morning, but the forecast was calling for warmer sunny conditions later in the day.

Dolphins Swimming Around the Ship

After going back to the cabin once again for our backpacks, we headed to the priority tender waiting area in one of the bars, and timed it just right to get onto the next tender with a group going ashore for a Princess excursion. We really had no definitive plan for the day other than attending Mass at 9:30 AM at the Catholic Church in downtown Santa Barbara, Our Lady of Sorrows.

We knew we were probably going to have to walk the 1.4 miles to the church, but had hoped the local shuttle bus might be running earlier with a cruise ship in port. We asked the Santa Barbara tourist advisers that greeted us at the tender docking area, and they verified that the shuttle would not start until 9:00 AM. Not wanting to risk getting to the church late, we just started walking toward the church. It was a pleasant walk, not much was going on in town yet on an early Sunday morning. There were quite a few joggers out and about, and several folks out getting coffee for several local coffee shops.  There were not a lot of folks out walking to church!

We arrived at the Church about 9:15 AM, and headed inside. It was quite a large church, and had been established sometime in the late 1700’s, although the current building was obviously newer than that.

Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church

After Mass, we decided to walk to the Franciscan Mission Church, one of the most recommended tourist destinations in Santa Barbara. It was about another mile from the Catholic Church to the Mission. We had obtained a map from the tourist advisers at the tender pier, but also used our cell phone and Google Maps to help us find our way to the Mission.

There were already quite a few folks there from tour buses and shuttles. There was a beautiful very large rose garden in a park near the Mission. We headed into the mission and purchased our tickets to see the grounds, and read about the mission itself. The church was closed until 12:30 PM until their Mass was over, but the rest of the grounds were open, so we visited them first. By the time we finished looking at the museum and grounds, the mass was over and we were able to visit the church.

Mission Church

We took some photos outside around the Mission Church, and then headed back into town to the Santa Barbara Public Market. We were not sure what it was before we got there, thinking it was an outside market.  The Market was inside a large building, and consisted of several restaurants and stores inside the main building.  The restaurants were small independently owned ventures, and since it was lunchtime, we picked one that served pizza, sandwiches and pasta. We ordered two different sandwiches and shared them. They were very good.

After lunch, we visited a few of the stores on State Street, the main street for shopping in Santa Barbara. By this time in the day, there were a lot of people out visiting the stores. What had been a peaceful area at 8:30 AM when we were walking to the church, was now a crowded shopping area.

Chuck & Stephanie at the Mission Church

We walked about half way back to the harbor, and then rode the remainder of the way back on the locally run shuttle. We got off at the “Stearns Wharf” at the end of State Street, which was a long pier with various shops and restaurants located out on the water. The weather was sunny and warm in town, but on the shore near the Pacific Ocean, it was much colder and more windy, even with the sunshine. Out on the pier, it was even windier, so we has to put on our jackets while we walked out onto the pier for some photos.

After that, we walked a few blocks back to the harbor area where the tender stop was located and rode the tender back to the ship. It as about 3:40 PM, and the ship was scheduled to leave at about 5:00 PM.  We wanted to return early so that we did not get caught up in the last minute tender rush of passengers trying to get back onto the ship.

Sunning Sea Lions

We rode back up on the top of the tender, and it was a fairly cool and rough ride back. The wind was blowing pretty hard, and that caused it to be rough. We did get to photo some of the sea lions that were laying out on a special platform dock placed in the harbor for them to use to sun themselves.

Once we were back on the ship, we headed to our favorite bar, The Calypso,  for some refreshments while we waited for the ship to leave Santa Barbara. The ship was  a little late leaving, we think they were having some difficulty offloading passengers from the tenders due to the rough sea conditions, and it was also taking them longer to make the run from the ship to the tender dock, again due to the rough seas.

As was the case yesterday, when the ship started moving, the warm sunny conditions turned too cool to be out on the open decks.

Santa Barbara Coastline

We decided to go to the hot tubs since we were a little sore from all of the walking, probably close to 6 miles total for our day in Santa Barbara. It was all uphill from the harbor to the mission church, but of course, downhill all the way back.

After a warm soak, we got ready and headed to the dining room for dinner. It was about 9:00 PM by the time we got seated. Our wait staff was just OK, we think they were ready to be done by this time in the evening.

After dinner, we headed to a wine bar named Vines and had a coupe of glasses of wine, and then called it an evening.

Today’s port stop was San Francisco. The ship was scheduled to arrive at the pier by 8:00 AM, so we got up early so that we could be out on deck when we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge as we headed into San Francisco Bay.

Golden Gate Bridge

The weather this morning was sunny, but cool, around 52 degrees. We bundled up and headed out to find a good area of the ship for viewing our arrival. We initially were on the upper decks, but could not find an area that had clear views of the bridge as we approached.

Everywhere we went, some part of the ship was obstructing our view. We did get to see a small whale swimming ahead of the ship as we approached the Golden Gate Bridge, but could not get into position for a photo. Eventually, we headed to Deck 7 so we could go to the Promenade that circled around the bow of the ship.

Passing Under Golden Gate Bridge

We got some good photos as we approached the bridge, but the rising sun was directly behind the bridge. As we passed underneath, the bridge, we started to walk to the stern of the ship to get some photos of the bridge with the sun to our back.

The ship proceeded to Pier 25 and tied up as we went inside to eat breakfast at the buffet. There was some difficulty in getting a large gangway attached to the ship and this caused everyone’s disembarkation to be delayed about an hour. Luckily, we are scheduled to be in port until 8:00 PM tonight.

Downtown San Francisco

After getting all of our gear packed into our backpacks, we headed to wait in the long line that was forming as a result of the gangway delay. Everyone was ready to go ashore. Finally, at about 9:30 AM, we were walking off of the ship and heading into San Francisco.

Our plan for the day was to visit a few of the major sights, and to take an excursion boat ride out around Alcatraz, and over to the Golden Gate Bridge, then over to the Oakland Bay Bridge and back to the dock. We headed up to Pier 39, a major shopping and restaurant area on the waterfront. It was about half way between where the ship was berthed and Fisherman’s Wharf.

Excursion Boat

Our excursion boat part of the Blue and Gold Fleet Boat fleet was right near Pier 39. We went ahead and purchased our tickets for the only morning time for the particular excursion we wanted to take, a 90 minute tour names “Escape to the Rock”.

We opted for this boat tour instead of actually heading over to Alcatraz itself. We had about an hour to kill before the tour departed, so we walked up to the Fisherman’s Wharf area, and then over to the Hyde Street cable car departure point near the waterfront. We did not have enough time to ride the cable car before we left on the boat tour, but we intended to return afterward and ride the cable car.

Cable Car on Turntable For Manually Rotating Cars

It was getting close to the time to meet for our boat tour so we headed back to Pier 39 and got into the line to board our boat. There were only about 30 people in the tour, so the boat was not going to anywhere near full capacity. We headed up to the uppermost deck on the boat so we could get seats with good views for photography.

The boat ride was nice, but a little cold and windy as we headed out to the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun was almost directly overhead, so picture taking was much better than it had been earlier in the morning when our ship had passed underneath. There was an audio tour playing during the boat ride giving information on the sights we passed heading out to the bridge, some history of the Bay area, then and some history of the construction of the bridge played as we arrived at the bridge.

Golden Gate Bridge From Excursion Boat

We then headed back toward Alcatraz, and made two circles around the island while additional audio history was explaining all about the history of “The Rock”. We could see all of the people on the island that were taking the tour of Alcatraz, and we could see it was really crowded.

Alcatraz

Next we headed over to the Oakland Bay Bridge and then it was time to head back to the dock. One of the more interesting things to see at Pier 39 is the area that has been made for all of the sea lions to lay on large wooden floating platforms. There were a lot of sea lions laying in the sun. They were fun to watch sleeping, jumping on and off of the platforms, and barking. There were all sizes, from small juveniles, to very large adults.

Sea Lions at Pier 39

After the boat tour was completed, we headed over to Boudin Bread company location near Fisherman’s wharf to have a sourdough bread “bowl” filled with clam chowder for our lunch. It was quite tasty. Next, it was time to head over and wait in line for our cable car ride. We waited in line about 40 minutes before we boarded our car, paid the $6.00 per person fare, and headed out of the station. Each car holds about 30 people, and the cars seemed to be on a schedule of about 15 minutes between departures.

Our plan was to just do a short ride up the hill, and then get off and walk over to Lombard Street, which is “the crookedest street in the world” We actually rode the cable car past the Lombard Street stop, and continued uphill, before then starting to go downhill. We had to make a sudden stop because one of the passengers was not staying away from the area where the cable car operator we standing.

Lombard Street

Cable Car on Hyde Street

The operator was not happy with the passenger, he was just listening to his instructions. We thought that he might not really understand English. We were stopped for a few minutes, so we just opted to get off here, and head back to Lombard Street before we went anymore downhill, making the walk back to Lombard even more uphill than it already was. It was a very short ride experience, but enough to get the feel for riding the cable car.

Cable Drive Motors in Cable Car Museum

We walked the couple of blocks back to Lombard Street, and walked downhill to the bottom. Of course, there were a lot of other tourists there, both walking down the steps on either side of the street, and also driving down the street. It is only about one block long.

Once at the bottom, we headed off toward the cable car museum, of course, uphill. We don’t think we took the best route there. It was not that we walked farther than we needed to, we just do not think we took the “flattest” route, and might have walked up a few very hilly blocks that we did not need to.

Cable Car Museum

We were using a phone app from Trip Adviser specifically made for sightseeing in San Francisco, and it did a good job of locating various sights. However, it lacked detailed map instructions, so we had to do a little of the navigating ourselves. It did have a “point me there” feature, and would show an arrow pointing in the direction needed to reach the destination, but it was not specific enough.

After climbing some very steep blocks, so steep they had steps instead of flat sidewalks, we did make it to the Cable Car Museum. It was very interesting to see the large motors driving large wheels that moved the cables for all of the cable car routes. There were displays on how the cable cars operated, and on the history of the system.

Chinatown in San Francisco

Our next destination was Chinatown, which was only a few blocks from the Cable Car Museum, so it was not difficult to navigate there, and a lot less hilly. We walked down the main street in Chinatown where a lot of shops and restaurants were located. Of course, we had to stop in a few to look around.

We were starting to feel the effects of all the walking and hill climbing we had done so far today, so we opted to head back to the Pier 39 waterfront area to visit a few of the shops there. It was close to 5:00 PM, and it was starting to get cooler outside, and the wind near the waterfront had picked up.  We looked in several stores, and then we started our walk back to the ship. We still had several blocks more to walk from Pier 39 to the ship, and we were glad when we reached the port terminal, went through security, and boarded the Golden Princess. We went to our favorite bar, The Calypso Bar, to get some water and to have one adult beverage, well maybe two, before heading to the spa area for a soak in the Spa Area hot tubs to relieve some of the muscle aches in our legs.

Setting Sun in San Francisco

We met some folks from Calgary, Canada in the hot tubs, there were on the cruise with several other family members, part of the 15 total brothers and sisters (and spouses) from one family.

After a nice relaxing soak, we headed back to the room for showers before heading to watch the ship’s departure at 8:00 PM and then to the buffet for dinner. We had known we would be too tired to go to dinner in the dining room tonight. The ship was about 30 minutes late leaving, so we missed the sail away at sunset, the sunset being at about 8:00 PM.

Port of San Francisco

It was still nice to see San Francisco lit up at night as we headed back under the Golden Gate Bridge and out to sea. We were so glad that it had been a sunny day from sunrise, all the way until sunset. Even though it was cool in the breeze at times, it was probably about as good of a weather day for this time of year as could be expected for San Francisco.

Passing Under Golden Gate Bridge Leaving San Francisco

Our dinner in the buffet was nice, there were a lot of other passengers there enjoying the relaxing casual dining experience. After dinner, we had a nightcap, and then turned in at about 10:30 PM. It had been a long and tiring day.

The port stop for today is Astoria, Oregon. It is a quaint little town on the banks of the Columbia River. There were a lot of old houses built on the mountainside of the town. We got ready and headed for breakfast in the buffet, then packed all of our gear in out backpacks and got off of the ship at about 10:00 AM.

Port of Astoria, Oregon

There was a shuttle service that cost $7.00 per person that dropped us off in town, about 1.5 miles from the port. The shuttle cost was for the day, for unlimited rides, and also had a couple of other stops. We had considered walking, but the main selling point was that it also included a ride up to “The Column”, which is an observation tower on top of the nearby hill, about 600 feet in elevation above the town.

It was supposed to have great views of the river and surrounding mountains. We had walked up enough hills in San Francisco, so we were glad to purchase the tickets just to be able to ride to the Column. The only issue was that the local shuttle to the Column did not start operating until 1:00 PM, and we found out later that this was mandated by the cruise line so that they could sell ship’s excursions to the Column for the morning.

Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon

We rode a bus to the middle of the small town, and walked a couple of blocks looking at some of the local stores. We then headed to the Maritime Museum, located on the waterfront. The town also had a trolly that operated on old railroad tracks along the waterfront.

However, the trolly only made one round trip per hour, so it was not worth waiting on. The town also had a really nice asphalt paved river walk that was about 4 miles or more in length, and ran from the pier where the ship was berthed (Pier 1) to a converted fish processing building that was now stores, at Pier 39. There were also a lot of Sea Lions congregating on special docks near Pier 39, so we headed in that direction. It was about a mile along the river walk from the museum to Pier 39.

Sea Lions at Pier 39

The weather this morning had originally been mostly cloudy, and a little cool, but the sun eventually appeared and it warmed up to the mid 60’s. There was some wind, so the walk along the river was still cool.

There were a lot of Sea Lions congregating at the special docks at a protected harbor near Pier 39, and we walked out to take pictures. They were very loud, and you could hear them long before we got to the the area where they were located.

We continued out to Pier 39, but were really disappointed that most of the spaces for businesses were vacant. There was only one coffee shop in operation, and one restaurant that was not yet open. The building had been used for processing large fish, presumably salmon. There were large, old scales in several locations that apparently had been used to weigh the fish brought in for processing when the building had been used for that purpose.

Old Pilings Along The River Walk

We had seen the trolly pass by on our way out to Pier 39, so we thought about riding it back onto town, but that is when we found out that it was about an hour before it would be back here, and since there was nothing to really do at Pier 39 to pass the time, we decided to walk back. We never did see the trolly again, so it verified that walking was much quicker and a better use of our time.

We got on one of the shuttle buses at the Maritime Museum and rode it back into town to the stop that was set up for the shuttle to the Column.

The Column – Astoria, Oregon

We looked in a few more stores, and then went to the special shuttle stop for the Column. We wanted to take the first shuttle at 1:00 PM since the ship was scheduled to leave at 3:30 PM, and we needed enough time to get back to the ship before the rest of the crowds.

There was a volunteer giving directions at the Column Shuttle stop, so we sat on a bench with a couple of other riders and waited about 30 minutes for the first shuttle to arrive, and that is when we found out from the volunteer why the shuttle to the Column did not start operating until 1:00 PM.

Views From The Column

We were glad we had arrives early at the shuttle stop. By the time the first shuttle arrived, there was quite a line. However, the volunteer did a great job of making sure the people that had arrived first got on the shuttle first.

It was not a long ride to the Column, but it was quite a steep climb in some areas, and the bus struggled to make it up the hill full of passengers. We did pass by some of the older homes, some dating from the late 1700’s to the early 1800’s. There were a lot of flowers blooming and the ride was really nice.

Chuck & Stephanie at the Column

We arrived the the Column, and immediately were glad we had waited to come up to visit. The views were spectacular. There was a circular stairway inside, so we opted to walk up the stairs to the top of the tower and the views were even better. It was a tough climb, about 8-10 stories. Going down was much more pleasant. After a few more photos, we waited on another shuttle to arrive to take us back down into town.

Once we arrived back into town, we walked about a block to the shuttle stop for going back to the ship. We were glad we were not walking the 1.5 miles back, although we had to wait in line a bit before we boarded out shuttle.

Heading Back Out to Sea

After getting back on the ship we had planned on doing a little laundry, hoping that we might have gotten back tot he ship early enough so that the laundry was not crowded. We first ate a little lunch, and then gathered up out dirty clothes and headed to the Laundromat. We apparently just made it, there were two machines available when we arrived, but several people came in after us and were going to have to wait on washers.

We loaded up out two loads, checked the time for the cycle, and headed to the Calypso Bar for a refreshment while the clothes were waiting on the washers. The ship was scheduled to depart Astoria at 4:00 PM, and started to leave about the time the drying cycle was scheduled to be complete. Stephanie headed down to get the clothes out of the dryer, and I stayed up on the deck to take photos of the ship leaving.

Back Out Into The Pacific Ocean

We were several miles up the river from the Pacific Ocean, so it took the ship a while to get to the ocean, and passed by some nice scenery on the way. It was quite breezy now with the ship underway, and had turned a little cooler. I went to help out with the clothes, and we were both able to come back up to see some of the scenery long before we actually got out to the ocean.

We stopped back for another refreshment and decided that we would not get all dressed up for tonight’s formal night, we were too tired and did not want to go through that effort. We just opted to eat dinner in the buffet. There were some good food items, but certainly not the lobster dinner we assumed was being served in the dining room on the last formal night. But, the lobster was still not worth the effort of getting ready, waiting in line for a table, and taking two hours to eat dinner.

After dinner, we headed over to the Vines wine bar and had a couple of glasses of wine. They were having a special party in the Atrium, but not many passengers showed up.

We decided to head back to the cabin for the night, it was late and we were tired.

Today was our Disembarkation Day for the cruise portion of this trip.  It was an early wake-up call at 6:15 AM this morning.  We had to get ready, eat a little breakfast, complete the last bit of packing, and be in the Casino at 7:30 AM.  The casino was our designated waiting area for our 7:30 AM scheduled walk-off disembarkation.  We arrived in the casino about 7:20 AM, and by 7:45 AM, we were getting off of the ship.  We had already filled out Canadian Customs Forms earlier in the cruise, and the total experience of getting off of a ship in Canada was wonderful.  There were no lines to wait in for processing passports, no customs lines, nothing.  We just walked through the port terminal at what is called Canada Place.

Room at the Hotel LeSoleil

Room at the Hotel LeSoleil

We already had directions to our hotel, it was only about a 5-6 block from the port.  It was an easy walk, there were not many people on the streets at 8:00 AM.  We found our hotel, and walked in to the reception desk.  We were hoping that we could go ahead and get our room, even though it was early morning.  Otherwise, we were going to store our luggage at the hotel and still head out to see some of the sights.  We were happily surprised that they had an open room, so we went ahead and checked in early.

We were able to organize our luggage, and drop off some of the unnecessary item we would have had to carry if we had stored our luggage.  I was able to drop off my camera bag and trade it out for my backpack.

The hotel also had free wi-fi, so we did a little research on locating a Catholic Church for later this evening, so we could attend Saturday Vigil Mass.  We found out that there was a Catholic Cathedral just a few blocks from the hotel called the Holy Rosary Cathedral.  Mass was at 5:10 PM, so we had plenty of time to see some sights before then.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge

We decided to take a free shuttle out to a park called the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.  We used google maps to help us locate the nearest bus stop for the free shuttle, and it was about 4 blocks away.

We packed up and got to the bus stop just as the bus was arriving.  It was about a 15 minute ride to the park, and we also got to see some of the city on the way.

The park was quite an experience.  For the single entrance fee, you get to cross the suspension bridge, go on a treetop walkway, a walkway supported off the side of a cliff, and a few other elevated boardwalks through a forest full of large trees, some 1200 or more years old.

Stephanie On The Capilano Suspension Bridge

The suspension bridge crosses the Capilano River, and is 459 feet long, and is 125 feet above the river.  The bridge is very shaky as you walk across it, and there are a lot of people crossing together.  After crossing the bridge, you take several elevated walkways though the forest, and learn about all of the trees and animals that inhabit the forest.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

The elevated treetop walkway was really interesting.  there were platforms banded to the trees with metal compression bands so that there is no damage to the trees.  We did learn that these bands have to be moved about every 10 years due to the fast growth of the large trees.  Between these platforms are short cable suspended walkways.

Tree Top Walkway – The Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

We then headed back across the suspension bridge to the other side of the park.  It was funny to see how nervous some of the people were crossing the bridge, either from  fear of heights, or from the wobbly movement of the bridge caused by people walking across, or both.  There was one woman who would not let go of the handrail to pass up while we were taking some photos.  She just waited until we were done and had gone over to the other side.

We went to the cliffside walkway, which is completely cantilevered out over the river, supported by steel supports that were anchored to the rock face of the canyon.  is was very sturdy, no movement like on the suspension bridge and treetop walkways.  The last part of the park was focused on conservation of water and paper products, and had a lot of information on how much water and paper, converted into trees used, that they typical person uses in a year, and how much recycling paper helps.

Downtown Vancouver

We completed the park, and got in line for the free return shuttle.  We selected a different shuttle that took us over to Canada Place, the area near the pier.  There was a section of older Vancouver called Gastown that we decided to visit, which is located near Canada Place.

First, we waked around the pier, and found that there were now three ships in port taking on new passengers.  There were two Princess ships, The Golden Princess, which was our ship from the cruise, the Grand Princess and one Holland America ship.

Grand Princess Docked at Canada Place Pier

It was a mad house of passengers trying to board the three ships for their cruises.  There was a really long line outside, and everyone had to keep their baggage with the until they could get into the terminal, and then get in the appropriate line for boarding their ship.  We talked with a lady that was trying to keep the long line organized, she worked for the cruise terminal.  Apparently, they do not ever have three ships in port at once, and it was overwhelming their normal boarding  process.

We found a spot to have some lunch near the convention center, which is next to, or part of the Canada Place complex.  It had an outside seating area and we enjoyed the nice weather.

Olympic Cauldron, Canada Place

After lunch, we headed a few blocks to go to visit Gastown, which is a national historic site for Vancouver and the oldest neighborhood in Vancouver.  It mostly consisted of stores and restaurants, and was very crowded.  We did not really see where it was all that as a destination to visit.

From Gastown, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for church, and to take a rest break.  We were tired from the early morning disembarkation, and from all of the walking.

We were able to see some of the TPC Golf Tournament in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, our old home town. This was the first year we had not attended the tournament in a long time.  We headed off to church about 4:50 PM, having about a 10 minute walk to get there for 5:10 PM Mass.  The Cathedral was an older church, of french Gothic Architecture, built in 1900.  It was quite crowded for mass, with a lot of older people, most seemed to be of Asian decent.  We had noticed that there is a large percentage of Asians in Vancouver.

Stephanie Relaxing In Our Room

After Mass, we headed over to the Pacific Center Mall, which spans about 3 city blocks.  It was just about like any other mall other than some crosswalks between mall sections that are built over some of the streets.  We grabbed some quick food from the food court since we were there.  We were still full from our lunch, so we did not want to eat another big meal.

After walking around in the mall, we headed back to the room to work on the blog and relax a little before retiring for the night.

The alarm sounded early at 5:30 AM this morning even though we had try to go to bed a little earlier last night.  We got ready and completed our final packing, and were down on the lobby of the hotel checking out at about 6:20 AM.  We had about a half mile walk tot he Quick Shuttle stop near the Holiday Inn, Downtown Vancouver.  There were quite a few people out on the streets that early, and it was fairly well lit by the early morning sun, albeit cloudy.

The walk was uneventful, but there was no bus at the stop when we arrived at about 6:40 AM.  We were a little concerned we might be in the wrong place, even though we had verified the location, and were relieved when the the bus showed up about 5 minutes later.

The bus driver checked us in, and scanned our passports since we would be crossing from Canada into the USA during the ride to Seattle.

Several other passengers showed up, and the bus left promptly at 7:00 AM, even though we were one passenger short.  The bus driver was nice, we had a good conversation with him for about the first 45 minutes.

We made two other stops to pickup passengers, one at a casino resort, and the other only a few miles from the border.  It was a strange stop, it was actually at a small convenience store/trading post, but several passengers got on.  We think they were heading to a stop at the Seattle Airport. which was after we would depart first in Downtown Seattle.

The US Customs stop went very smoothly.  there was only one bus ahead of us, and it was not full, and most if its passengers had already completed their customs processing.  We had to get out bags and all belongings from the bus, and carry them inside the Customs inspection processing building.  We went through Immigration, handed over our customs form, and then took our bags to be x-rayed.  When all of that was completed, we all took our luggage back out to the bus, loaded it into the storage compartment under the bus, and boarded the bus again.  there were only 21 of us to go through customs, and for some reason, one passenger was held at the checkpoint.  We added three additional passengers who had been held from a previous bus, possibly a Greyhound bus that had arrived before us, but still going to Seattle.  Apparently our Quick Shuttle Bus works with Greyhound to handle passengers who are held over for processing.

Room At Hotel Motif

View From Our Hotel Room

After getting back on board our bus, we had about 85 miles more to drive into Downtown Seattle.  It was a cloudy day for most of the drive, with some periods of rain, so the scenery was not anything special to see.

The bus dropped us off at the Convention Center in Downtown, Seattle, which was only about a four block walk to our hotel, the Hotel Motif.  We arrived at the hotel about 11:00 AM, and our room was ready, so we checked in.  We have a nice room with views of the harbor.  We could see the Pike Street Public Market Center from our room, so after settling in, we headed out to walk the few blocks to the market.

Public Market

Pike Street Fish Market

The market was crowded, and very interesting.  It is mostly known for the fish markets, especially the Pike Street Fish Market, where they throw fish around from worker to worker as sort of a show.  In addition the the several fish markets, there were quite a few fresh vegetable and fruit markets, and a lot of independent venders set up selling their wares, mostly arts and other crafts.  The City Market is several levels, and took a while for us to walk through and see everything.

Vegetable Vendor in Market

There were also a lot of food vendors, so we stopped in one of them, which was a deli store that made fresh sandwiches, salads, and soups.  We had some soup and a couple of great sandwiches for lunch.

From the market, we headed down, literally, to the waterfront area.  There were several flights of stairs to get down to the harbor level.  There was some construction going on so we had to detour around that but finally got out to the pier buildings.  There is a large Ferris Wheel with enclosed gondolas out on one pier, along with some shops and restaurants.  On another is the Seattle Aquarium.

Ferris Wheel on Waterfront

We walked out and took some pictures of the Ferris Wheel and out onto the harbor.  We do have to say that there are a lot of homeless people in this part of Seattle, especially in the areas where the stairways are to get from the City Market to the Waterfront.  We also saw a lot just in the area around the City Market, and also on the walk from the hotel.

It may be partially due to the  cloudy weather, but Seattle does not appear to be nearly as clean as Vancouver, nor as pretty in the Downtown Core.  After we finished walking along the Waterfront Area, we headed back up the stairs to the City Market to complete waling through one section we had not yet visited.

The Seattle Aquarium

From there, we stopped at a large City Store, the same as a Target on the East Coast.  They had a grocery area, so we purchased some snacks and refreshments for the room.  They did not have anything fresh, so we then stopped an an IGA market on the way back to the room and purchased some fresh baked goods for breakfast tomorrow.

We took our supplies back to the room and rested a bit, using the wi-fi in the room to try and figure out some other sights to see today.

We decided that we would walk to the Westlake Station, a station for the underground light rail, and for buses, located underneath a Mall.  This will be the station we will use to take the light rail to the Seattle Airport on Wednesday evening, so we wanted to scout it out and make sure we knew where to go, and how the system worked.  We went ahead and purchased a couple of automated fare cards, called Orca Cards, which utilize the electronic pay system on all of the transportation systems, light rail, buses, monorail, and some ferries.

Ferris Wheel on Waterfront

The cards cost $5.00 each to purchase, and we loaded them with $10.00 in prepaid fares.  You can reload them in any station or online if we need additional fares credits.  We man not use all of the fare credits, but this keeps us from having to have exact change to use the buses or from having to use the ticket machines for single rides.  Seattle does not have prepaid daily passes for visitors, at least none we could find looking at their metro system website.

We used our Orca Cards to ride the underground light rail to the Pioneer Square Station, two stops away, to go to the Columbia Center Sky View Observatory. The underground station is different than any others we have ever seen, it is a combination of light rail and also an underground bus station, running on the same “roadway” in the station.  Sometimes there are buses pulling up for passengers, and then the light rail will come through in the same area, using the tracks in the road instead of the roadway itself.  The buses then go one direction, still in tunnels, and the light rail goes another way in a different dedicated light rail tunnel that splits off.  We scanned our cards in the automated machine when we entered the station, and when you get off, you scan again so it knows how far you went and how much to charge in fare.  We did not know there were buses coming into the station as well as the light rail, and since we had scanned our cards before we went down to the passenger pick up area, we had to ride the light rail.  In the end, the fare is the same, or close to the same, but you scan the card on the bus, and it charges a flat rate, not a rate dependent on length of travel like the light rail.  We were glad we were spending some time now to figure this all out, and not when we were trying to get to the airport on Wednesday.

Columbia Center Building

When we got off the light rail at the Pioneer station, we were a little surprised that it was partly sunny outside.  we had been in the underground station a light rail for about 40 minutes, purchasing our tickets, trying to figure our route, and the ride itself.

The Columbia Center is the tallest building in Seattle, and the second tallest on the West Coast at 902 feet tall.  We had to walk a couple of blocks from the Pioneer Station to the building.  We went inside and purchased our tickets from an automated system.

Views of Seattle From The Columbia Center

We then had to take two elevators to get to the top, the first was an express to the 40th floor, then the next one went from the 40th floor to the upper floors.  The observatory is on floor 73 out of 76 total floors, the top floors are reserved for a private club.

Views of Seattle

Since it was only partly cloudy, we were able to see a lot of the surrounding areas of Seattle from the observatory.  However, there were still a lot of clouds in the distant mountains, so we could not see Mt. Rainer, which is visible on a clear day.  We had chosen to do this today because the weather is forecast to be even cloudier tomorrow.  We stayed in the observatory for about 40 minutes, and then walked back to the area around our hotel, scouting out some potential restaurants for dinner.

Football and Baseball Stadiums

We headed back to the room, and also looked online for some restaurant reviews and suggestions using Travel Adviser and some other online systems.  We had seen one Italian restaurant and another called the Tap Room.  We could not remember the name of the Italian restaurant, and were not able to look at reviews, so we opted to go to the Tap Room tonight.

Our Hotel – Hotel Motif

Since they were close together, we walked to the Italian restaurant first to get the name so we could look it up later.

Our dinner was really good, although we were seated near a large party of 16 young business associates celebrating some special event, and they were a little loud until their food was served.  It also tied up our poor waiter, and we had some issues getting service, but he was very apologetic, and the restaurant finally got him some help.  We split two flatbreads, and some hot wings, and had a couple of local brewed beers.  They serve over 160 beers on tap, hence the name, the Tap Room.

Public Market Center At Night

After dinner, we walked back down to the Public Market Center for some photos of their neon sign at night.  The market closes around 6:00 PM, so there was not anything going on there other than a couple of restaurants serving dinner.  We had though about getting some seafood, but the two main items served fresh here are Dungeness Crabs and Salmon, neither of which we are that fond of.  Prices for other seafood we like, such as shrimp or scallops were quite high, and we can get them elsewhere.

We returned to the room about 9:00 PM, and settled in to relax.

Today is our last day in Seattle before we fly home tonight at 10:00 PM.  We awoke to cloudy skies with rain showers for our last day.  The weather in Seattle has not been that good, but probably typical for here at this time of year.  It does not rain heavily, just a drizzle, but the constant grey skies and drizzle are a little depressing.

We slept in this morning, not having any real plan for the last day, mainly due to the unpredictability of the weather.  If it rains for most of the day, as predicted, we will try and find indoor activities to do, probably some shopping in nearby inside shopping malls.

We were up and getting ready when we had a disturbing event happen in the hotel.  Stephanie had just completed her shower, and I was packing, not have had my shower yet, when the fire alarm went off n the hotel.  At first, we were not sure exactly what it was, I think mostly due to surprise.  The smoke detector in the room is right above the speaker for the alarm, so at first I though it might have been the smoke alarm going off due to steam from the shower.  We looked out the door into the hallway, and the alarms were going off out there, so we knew it was the fire alarm.  We hurriedly put on some clothes for the cool weather outside, grabbed our passports and wallets, and headed for the stairway.  We were on the 19th floor, so we had a long way to get down to the bottom.

We saw a few other quests in the stairwell, but not a lot of other people, either because they were already out of the hotel, or that we had taken a few minutes to get to the stairwell to start our descent.  We got to the bottom, and headed out the back of the hotel to the street.  We had not smelled any smoke, nor heard anyone else that was waiting outside talk about seeing any fire or smoke, so we were wondering if it was a test or false alarm.

We had seen the fire department at another hotel yesterday, so I though maybe they were conducting drills for fire prevention preparation in the city.  We walked to the front of the hotel, and there were two large fire trucks outside with their lights flashing on the street in front.  We could see some of the firemen for one of the trucks removing their gear, so we were pretty sure there had not been any real fire.

We headed into the hotel lobby, and the hotel staff were acting like business as normal, except for some maintenance personnel, who were running around talking on radios and talking to the firemen who had remained.  Then we saw some policemen enter the building and overheard some of the staff talking about a suspicious person who had entered the hotel earlier in the morning.  A little while later, we saw the police bring someone through the lobby in handcuffs.  He had the appearance of one of the less fortunate people we had seen a lot of in Seattle, probably a homeless street person.  Apparently he had either set a small fire on the 5th floor, the hotel’s floor where the hotel’s restaurant/bar are located, or had tripped the alarm and set off a fire extinguisher.  We did see the firemen bring in a small exhaust fan, and overheard one make a joking comment about there being a good deal on rooms on the 5th floor, so we know something happened there.  We had to wait about another 20 minutes for the elevators to start working again, there was some issue getting them released from the fire mode, where they all get locked on the lobby floor for firemen use only.

We finally got to return to our room, the entire episode had lasted about 45 minutes.  With the restaurant being a public access point in the hotel, I guess it is hard to have key card lockout access in the elevators like we had in our hotel in Vancouver.  There are security staff in the hotel lobby, but I am not sure how much they can do in choosing who they let into the hotel, not knowing who might be going to the restaurant.  They either had seen this person or had video surveillance because we did hear them describe someone to the police when they arrived.

Catching Thrown Salmon in the Market

One we got back into the room, we both finished getting ready and did our last packing.  We had gotten the hotel to extend our check out until 2:00 PM, so we still had a few hours before we had to leave the room, so we headed down to the City Public market to look for a Christmas ornaments Stephanie had seen in one of the shops the other day.

We headed the few block over to the Market in the drizzling rain.  I took my large camera flash with me so I could get some better photos of the fish markets and also the flower and vegetable markets inside the market building.

Flower Vendor in the Market

We found the store and purchased the ornament, which is a replica of the Space Needle made out of glass, in a style typical of glass ornaments.  Since we had time, and the market was less crowded than the first day we visited, we looked around at the various crafts being sold inside.  We then headed over to a store that made fresh cheese right in side the store and got some lunch.  All of the items featured their cheese, which is a white cheese.

We ate inside looking through the glass windows watching the workers process the cheese that was being made.  We had two good sandwiches, and some macaroni and cheese in a small container.  It was all good, and of course, cheesy, like this comment.

After lunch, we headed for an inside all area called Westlake Center.  There is a large Macy’s and Nordstrom’s, and a Nordstrom’s Rack.  There are also three floors of smaller stores, and a large food court on the top floor.  Underneath the mall, over a three block span,  is the location of the light rail/bus station we had visited earlier in our stay here, and where we will be heading to take the light rail to the Seattle Airport later today.

We visited a store called Fireworks, and it had a lot of interesting things in it including the Christmas Ornament we had just purchased at the

Fresh Vegetable Vendor in the Market

Market.  Unfortunately, we had overpaid at the market based on the price in this store, but we had not seen the ornament anywhere else during our visit, including several other stores we had been in during our stay here.  Oh well, we had gotten what we wanted.

We then headed over to a large office building to try and make a surprise visit to someone we knew worked at the Zillow Office in Seattle.  We went inside the building and asked the information person how to get to Zillow’s Offices, which we found out was on the 32 floor.  We headed up and spoke to the receptionist, who communicated with our friend through some type of messaging system.  Unfortunately, the person was not available due to a meeting, so we headed back to the hotel to complete the last of our packing and to check out. We planned to return to Zillow later after we checked out.

We completed the last of the packing, and headed to the lobby to check out of the Hotel Motif.  Other than the fire alarm event, we had enjoyed our stay here.  They had a locked area for storing luggage, so after we checked out, we checked three bags into the hotel’s secure luggage storage.

Riding Monorail on Banked Curve

We walked back to the Zillow building, which was only three blocks form the hotel, and this time, we were able to visit with our friend.  We visited for about 20 minutes, also enjoying the tremendous unobstructed view of the harbor from their location near the waterfront.

After the visit, we headed back to the Westlake Center to take the monorail over to the Seattle Center, which is the location of the Space Needle and for other cultural event buildings.  The monorail, Space Needle, and the surrounding buildings, now used for various cultural events, were all constructed for the 1962 World’s Fair.  It was a short ride over on the

Space Needle

monorail, and it dropped us off right next to the Space Needle.

There were a couple of things we could do here, either the visit to the Space Needle, or to w glass artwork display called the Chihuly Garden & Glass, which is a glass exhibit made by artisan Dale Chihuly.  Had it been sunny, we would have visited the Chihuly Gardens, but since some of it was outside in the rain, we opted for the Space Needle.

View of Downtown Seattle from Space Needle on a Rainy Day

We headed to the Space Needle and first visited the Gift Shop, where once again, we spotted our Christmas Ornament. It was almost as expensive here as at the City Public Market, so we mentally felt a little better, and got a little laugh about how many ornaments we were now seeing once we had already purchase the only one we had seen before today.

Puget Sound From Space Needle

We purchased our tickets for the ride to the top of the Space Needle.  there was not much of a line since it was not a nice weather day.  We rode the elevator to the top, and walked around the outside perimeter of the observation deck.   When it had been constructed in 1962, it was the tallest structure on the West Coast, but now, it was much lower than several other building in Seattle, including the one we had visited on Monday.

Inside The Space Needle

It was still interesting, and there was an electronic system to add you name to the visitors list, and to get a free electronic image of the photo we had taken by the Space Needle Staff before we entered the elevator for the ride to the top.  They place your image over several backgrounds, and you get to choose which one you want, and to get the photo sent to you via email.  You can also sent it to others via email, so we sent it to our mom’s.

Looking Up One Leg Of The Space Needle

We headed back to the monorail for the ride back to Westlake Center.  It was about 4:30 PM, and we decided to get a bite to eat and a couple of Happy Hour beers to kill some more time before we retrieved our luggage from the hotel and rode the light rail to the airport.

Space Needle

We headed back to the same restaurant we had eaten at yesterday, we knew they had good specials on both their homemade craft beers and appetizers.  We split some appetizers and had a couple of draft beers for our dinner, not wanting to get too full for the flight home.

Afterward, we went back to the hotel and retrieved our luggage from storage.  We had to do a little re-packing to put away some items we had carried with us for the day’s exploring, getting everything  into airplane mode to meet weight and security restrictions.  With that effort complete, we walked back tot he Westlake Center to the underground station for the light rail.  we waited about 10 minutes for the next train to arrive and we boarded.  It was nice because the train was empty since it originated in this station, so we had ample space for us and our luggage.  It was about a 35 minute ride out to the Seattle-Tacoma airport.  The train never got really crowded, and so it was a nice relaxing ride.

We arrived at the airport station, and the only negative we saw in this method of getting to the airport was the fairly long walk from the rail station to the terminal building.  It was equivalent to several blocks, or at least seemed that long toting wheeled luggage.  Once in the terminal, we packed our raincoats into the luggage before checking in.  ewe knew our bags were close to the 50 pound limit based on using our luggage scale, but not certain of it’s accuracy.  One bag weighed in at 50.5 pounds, and the other was 49.5 pounds.  Both were accepted, and we got our boarding passes and headed to the strip down area, also knows as security screening.

Once through that hectic process, we headed to our gate.  We had about an hour to wait before we boarded our 10:05 PM flight home.  The flight was uneventful, other than being a little bumpy.  We only got one round of beverage service before they dimmed the lights for everyone to sleep.  The flight was only about five hours long, so it was not really long enough to sleep much.  We arrived in Charlotte on time, and had about 90 minuted before getting our connecting flight home, which also went well, other than being on a smaller turbo prop plane.

We had enjoyed the trip, but we both were tired form being on the go, and from all of the walking we had done, especially over the last few days in Vancouver and Seattle.

We may post some after trip thoughts and a few more photos into the albums, but for now, Bon Voyage once again.

Chuck & Stephanie