Flying Calgary – Vancouver – Whitehorse
November 25: Yesterday was a long day, and it was nice to wake up in a comfortable bed. This was our first stay at the Acclaim Hotel but it won’t be our last.
The only possible downside is that a lot of their amenities are fancy/gimmicky and hard to use, and when I’m travel-tired I just want simple. Even the coffee maker is unlike any I’ve seen and required instructions to use. We never did figure the phone out.
We got downstairs just as the airport shuttle was pulling away, but the receptionist called the driver and he came right back. Calgary may be my favourite airport in the world. It’s a comfortable size, and has great viewing areas.
This is us being towed away from the jetway, reflected in the terminal windows.
This ramp worker was dressed rather differently that what we’d been seeing for the past 3 weeks 🙂
Northwest Calgary, with the community of Airdrie in the distance.
We only had brief glimpses of the mountains until hitting the summit of the Rockies, then everything went white. At Vancouver, the clouds were extremely low, and this view of the runway was quite a shock!
As we taxied in, multiple aircraft de-icing stations were going full speed. We only had an hour and half to our scheduled 12:35 departure, but at the last minute were told that it would be delayed for 2 hours or so. We had met another couple from Whitehorse returning from Costa Rica, and had an enjoyable visit over beers so didn’t mind the delay.
Once we boarded the plane we were told, though, that it would be another hour until we got a de-icing position. At 3:40 we finally got pulled from the jetway but only to sit for another hour.
The speed with which this Cathay Pacific plane was de-iced amazed me, and we were next in line. We called our house-sitter as we approached the runway at 4:40 – she had called Whitehorse airport a few minutes before and they had told her that we’d be there at 4:45!
We dropped Laura off at her home, picked up some pizzas for dinner, and were up to our necks in joyous dogs by 8:00 🙂 It felt great to be home. Despite what you might think, we were impressed by the way both YVR and our crew handled a difficult situation. Vancouver has no need to have massive amounts of snow/ice removal equipment handy, and we were home safely only 4 hours late.
About The Author
