Vancouver, B.C Travel Diary
This weekend me and two of my close friends were able to take a break from work and school and go and have a nice little vacation. We went into Vancouver B.C. because we managed to find a Groupon that made the trip so much more affordable for three college girls. We left Friday morning for what we thought would be a relaxing weekend, and though we had a lot of fun, there was a lot less relaxing than we thought.
We drove into Vancouver Friday night, with the plan of hopping on a ferry and traveling to Vancouver Island, where the hotel was. We were on track to make the last ferry of the night, and even after hitting some crazy Polar Vortex snow storms, we still managed to make it to the ticket booth only one minute late to purchase tickets. But, apparently ticket buying times for ferry’s are set in stone, and even though we were only one minute late, the woman in-charge of the booth refused to sell us tickets to get on the ferry that hadn’t even left yet and was not even at 2% capacity. With that, we made the most of it and found an inexpensive hotel for the night in Vancouver and got a lovely surprise.
After the manager hear our sob story of not being able to get on the ferry, he upgraded us for free, to the hotel’s most expensive room. We got to spend the night on the 15th floor with an awesome view of downtown Vancouver. It was a huge room within what turned out to be an actual fairly fancy hotel. We had found the listing for one night on HotWire for extremely cheap, but later that morning at breakfast we found it was actually the hotel of choice for celebrities that are in town to shoot for movies or tv shows. While we were there, the cast of Riverdale was also there, and we may have even had a star sighting or two. We had marvelous breakfast, that made us feel far more fancy and boujee than three girls from the University of Oregon, and spend the morning in the most amazing dining room.
From here, we had to check out and head to the ferry to hopefully get there in enough time and make it on so we could enjoy at least most of the day and one night in the hotel we were supposed to be in. Luckily, we made it on the last ferry out before they cancelled the rest due to bad weather. We got there two hours early and enjoyed some of the best tea and hot chocolate we had ever had at the small cafe near the dock. Once aboard the ferry we did your typical tourist things: watch the sunset, eat some odd snacks, get irritated when other Americans were being obnoxious, and pretend to do homework while really just observing the ocean we were floating in. It was such an amazing trip in and the freezing cold was hardly noticeable.
Once on the island, we had to drive another thirty minutes to the hotel where we found that nothing was as it said it was. There was supposed to be a spa we had access to, a hot tub, and so many other things. When we got there, hardly anyone else was there and the front desk woman seemed annoyed whenever we wanted to know something, like how to turn our heater on, and whether or not there was a restaurant at the so-called resort. Even through it wasn’t what we were promised, the room was extremely nice and the bathtub was large enough to fit all three of us in if we wanted to. We order pizza, made cocktails and watched some romantic comedies while carefully watching the weather to see if we would be able to leave Sunday.
Sunday morning, we caught the only ferry off the island that day and drove all the way back to Eugene, OR. The drive that usually only takes seven hours, took a little over ten hours since we once again hit some massive snow storms. But, at the end of the trip, laying in bed in the middle of a rain storm since it only ever rains here, I wouldn’t have had the trip go any other way. Even though it wasn’t perfect, it was full of adventure and that is all you can really ask for out of any kind of vacation. Although, next time we go to Canada, there will be no islands or ferry’s involved.
Madey