Well, I’ve spent the last couple of hours planning my trip to Victoria this weekend. It turned out to be somewhat of a challenge. Everyone has told me that it is a 90 minute ferry trip. I had planned on just a day trip, but research revealed that there is a whole lot more to do than I first thought. So, I checked hotels and there is a new Marriott in the Inner Harbour – which apparently is the heart of Victoria. I have enough points for a free room, so I decided to make a weekend of it. Made the hotel reservation and then started looking for the ferry schedules. Figured I’d go to the office for a few hours Saturday morning and then walk on over to the harbor, hop a ferry, and be in Victoria by 1:00.
Welllllllllllllll, guess what? What nobody TOLD me (including my beloved Albert) is that the ferries don’t leave from Vancouver. The ferry terminal is 27 miles south of the city and then the Victoria terminal is 25 miles from Victoria!!! So, the 90 minute trip has now become 3 ½ hours!!!!!! So, my options are:
1 – rent a car, but that’s expensive and a lot of trouble – I don’t want to deal with parking and I want to be able to enjoy the scenery
2 – take a tour bus – more expensive and BORING and probably uncomfortable – and there is no driver commentary (they actually say that on their webpage – must have had some complaints about it).
3 – public transportation. Cheap – but adds two hours to the trip both ways.
I decide that #2 is my best option – just as I’m about to make a reservation, it suddenly dawns on me. I sit in my office every day watching seaplanes take off and land in the harbor. Surely some of them are going to Victoria!!!!!! I checked it out and sure enough – I can get there in less than an hour on a seaplane!!!! Now, it is the most expensive option – though it’s not as much as I thought it would be (and my hotel and several meals in Victoria are free) – so I’m going to go for it!!!!! But, I will come back Sunday evening on the ferry and tour bus. That way I get two scenery options – both of which sound spectacular. Hopefully, I can time the ferry trip to coincide with the setting sun.
Well, I don’t mean to sound like a miserly penny-pincher all the time – I just can’t get over the shock of how expensive things are here (plus April 15 is looming large in my memory – the taxman wasn’t very nice to me this year). But, you know what, I work to travel (and sometime travel to work…ha ha), so what the heck. Like they say, I can’t take it with me.
I am REALLY looking forward to the weekend now. Luckily I’ve got a VERY busy two days ahead of me at work (several deadlines to meet) so the time till Saturday morning should go by quickly.
Stay tuned for some fabulous pictures when I get back on Sunday!!!!!!!
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