Month: September 2014

Crossing the Pacific Ocean on Celebrity Solstice

As I start writing this, it’s 05:20, about 90 minutes before sunrise. I’m on the back deck of the Celebrity Solstice, 8½ hours out of Honolulu, and it’s about 82°F. As usual, only a handful of other passengers are up and about, but crew members are seen often, cleaning...
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How to fill 5 sea days on Celebrity Solstice

One of the first questions asked by people who haven’t been on a cruise is often “what do you do on the ship?”. That’s particularly true on an itinerary such as we’re on, which starts with 5 days at sea between Vancouver and Honolulu. The short answer is that...
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The cruise on the Celebrity Solstice begins

When I closed the blog on Tuesday morning, a glorious sunrise had just started the day. As I write this, we’re out in the Pacific Ocean a few hours southwest of Vancouver Island. It’s dark (06:00) and the seas are heavy – there will certainly be some sick people...
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48 hours in Vancouver, the cruise port

Cathy and I are in Vancouver for 48 hours before boarding the cruise ship Celebrity Solstice. We’ll be on her for 12 nights as she sails to Hawaii and around the islands, and Vancouver is a marvellous city to get into the vacation spirit. We took the afternoon Air...
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Fall colours & the Yukon Suspension Bridge

I had to make a quick trip to Skagway yesterday to pick up some stuff for the motorhome at the post office and Wings, but with Fall colours at their peak, a great lunch at the Yukon Suspension Bridge and some other fun, it turned out to be a...
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A fall colours weekend at Congdon Creek Campground

For our first “no-services” camping weekend with the RV, we chose Congdon Creek Campground on Kluane Lake, and it was perfect, with spectacular scenery and Fall colours. I had the rig ready to go when Cathy got home from work Friday night, and stopping for dinner at the Otter...
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A special trip on the WP&YR railway

It doesn’t matter how many times I ride it, I never get enough of the White Pass & Yukon Route railway. Yesterday, though, was very special – a long-time friend was being honoured by the company for 20 years of promoting the railway on his private Web site, and...
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A wedding trip to Kelowna, BC

Cathy and I returned yesterday from a 5-day trip to Kelowna for my daughter’s wedding. I’ll just talk about family stuff briefly – as usual, this post is mostly about the experience of travel. We flew from Whitehorse to Kelowna (via Vancouver) on an Air North Boeing 737 Thursday...
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