The November Epic: Prologue

Okay, I'm cheating a bit.

  

This nearly month-long trip is beginning with a short spell in British Columbia. I'm writing this in Kelowna, a sizable city in the Okanagan Valley of south-central B.C.

 

The trip here began, as so often, with a train ride up to Toronto, a connecting UP Express train to Toronto Pearson airport, and a night in an airport hotel. My favourite, when I can get it at a reasonable rate, is the Toronto Airport Hilton -- and here's the biggest reason why.

 

Not only is it a good big pool where you can swim serious laps, but in warmer weather the roof slides back halfway and the sliding glass doors open -- and it becomes effectively outdoor. There are also lounge chairs in the garden courtyard outside. 

The next morning, I was on a flight to Calgary at ten o'clock, and arrived in Calgary four hours later and 20 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit) colder. Colder, windier, and snowing heartily. As Queen Victoria was famously (and incorrectly) alleged to have said, "We are not amused."

Another fifty minutes in the air, though, brought me down into the valley airport at Kelowna, and there the weather was much kinder altogether. 

So was the management of the Delta Grand Okanagan Resort. Once again my loyalty paid off. Even though I was staying on reward points, I got upgraded from a basic king room to a suite in the "vacation homes" wing. They're not kidding. This two-room suite has ample closet space for a family, with a king bed and sofabed, and a fully equipped kitchen, complete with all cookware, dishes, and utensils.

 

And then there's the view.

 

This resort is in downtown Kelowna, and sits right by the park on the shores of Lake Okanagan. Not just a little postage-stamp balcony, the suite has a sizable outdoor terrace with a couple of chairs, to enjoy the surroundings. In this picture, the tower is part of the Grand Okanagan. The building on the left with the octagonal tower is actually a completely separate hotel in the same complex, the Royal Kelowna by Bellstar Hotels.

 

I had a room at the top floor of the Grand Okanagan's other (south) tower the last time I stayed here, a year ago. Here's the view a year ago from that tower room.

Returning to my current suite, though, I'm very glad I looked out the window again an hour later, as the colour of the sunset really highlighted the view.

On Thursday, the weather was cooler and cloudier, but I still got in two good walks on all the intertwining pathways in the park between the hotel and the lake. Even though autumn is well and truly here, and winter is on the way, there were still plenty of splashes of colour, including a number of flowers which had not yet died in spite of the frost the previous night.

A small artificial hill in the park holds a pipe-fed pool at the top. This drains through a couple of chains of artificial waterfalls down to the lagoon in the centre of the park -- which in turn has small outlets through a boat lock or under a bridge to Lake Okanagan. 

Another intriguing sight along the way was this tree stump, about a metre across and just recently sawn off. I could picture a couple of craftspeople I know making some very interesting furniture or ornamental work out of slabs of wood cut from this tree.

 

This morning, things looked somewhat different. Colder air moved in during the night, with predictable but (to me) lamentable results. Although it does look rather pretty.

 

 

And finally, the reason I have chosen to come to Kelowna at the beginning of November. These two screen shots from the Ballet Kelowna Facebook page show my nephew, Robert, at work in the studio, and a dress rehearsal picture of his newest major ballet work, In the Light of the Waking Sun. This new ballet receives its world premiere tonight from the artists of Ballet Kelowna. The proud uncle will be there!

 

 

And with that, what comes next on my travels? What is the actual main event of this November Epic? Enquiring minds want to know! So here's the situation, in map form. I've flown from Toronto to Calgary, and connected on to Kelowna. Tomorrow, I am flying from Kelowna to Vancouver -- and then? The next connection is to the true starting point of my November Epic. Guesses are welcome, but not from people who already know the answer. All will be revealed in the next post. Stay tuned!

 

 

Base map attribution:  https://freevectormaps.com/canada/CA-EPS-01-0004?ref=atr

 

 

Return to Aloha # 4: Helpful Hints for Hawai'i

It's been a remarkably low-key holiday, but I'm in no doubt that this is exactly what I needed. I've been off the property a couple of times, but have no more spectacular photos to share -- far too much pool and chill time this week! And the views....

 

 

What I can share is the following helpful hints, the product of five separate experiences with Hawai'i over a period of 25 years:

 

[1]  Bring lots of money (or credit limit on your cards). Hawai'i is out in the middle of the Pacific, and Honolulu is located farther away from the next nearest city of a million people than any other city of that size on the planet. This map gives you the overview.

 

 

Likely three-quarters of everything you will eat, the linens your hotel will provide, the furniture you will sit, eat, and sleep on, the gas in your car or tour bus, the vehicles themselves, all will have been shipped in from outside. It's easy to take for granted the bottle of Heinz ketchup on your table at breakfast time, but when you stop to think that the ketchup -- like you -- has travelled many thousands of kilometres from its place of origin and crossed up to six time zones to land on your table in time to go with your scrambled eggs, bacon, and potatoes... well, suffice it to say, prices in Hawai'i are high, and "expensive" is likely the most common criticism levelled against Hawai'i's restaurants, shops, and hotels.

 

[2] Be patient. Hawai'i may be an American state, and it may look American on the surface, but at heart, deep down inside, it is a tropical island culture. Take-it-easy is much more than just a cultural manifestation, it's a survival skill in the tropics, especially for those who work out of doors. The result is that much of what you will see and do in Hawai'i runs on "island time," and there's nothing to gain by expecting/demanding that service personnel keep up to your expected standards of mainland speed and punctuality. And anyway, aren't you here on holiday?

 

[3] Be realistic. You are not going to see everything Hawai'i has to offer on one trip, any more than for any other destination you might visit. My advice? Confine yourself to a maximum of two islands for your first time. Make O'ahu one of them, and pick any one of the other big three (Kaua'i, Maui, or the Big Island) to go along with it.

 

[4] Enjoy the gifts of the islands. These include the fresh fish and shellfish, the tropical fruits and vegetables, and the coffee. Oh, that Hawaiian coffee. Not many people who've never been here have any idea that Hawai'i grows some absolutely incredible coffee beans, and right here is the place to enjoy the results. I've been in heaven for over a week, brewing up a fresh cup of mouth-watering Hawaiian coffee in my room every morning, and then enjoying even more of it with my breakfast. You can imagine how I pity the people who think they're better off walking to the nearest Starbucks for their morning java. Perfume? Clothes? Liquor? Nope -- my shopping is for a stash of Hawaiian coffee to bring home with me!

 

[5] Speaking of shopping, as an American state, you can find all sorts of familiar American brand stores here, ranging from the Targets and Walmarts in the residential districts all the way up to the top-end luxury brands in the tourist areas. But why? It's actually easy to find shops and stalls selling the products of local makers and crafters, and those are the places to seek out.

[6] Lu'au. You probably want to do one, and so you should. Many hotels and resorts in the main tourist areas offer lu'aus. Many of them are good, but light years ahead of them all (for my money) is the one offered at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, on O'ahu. I've been there twice and will certainly go again (just didn't make it on this trip). 

 

The ideal choice is to take one of the full-day tours which picks you up from your hotel in Waikiki, drives you to the center (about an hour away), gives you the day to visit the outdoor exhibits, shows, and demonstrations which sum up the cultures of all the main Polynesian island nations (not just Hawai'i), and then culminates with the lu'au dinner and the landmark evening show, staged in a large amphitheater with full theatrical lighting and sound effects. What makes this entire day event so special is that the participants are all residents of the various Polynesian cultures which they present to you. All have come to Hawai'i as students and faculty of Brigham Young University of the Pacific which is built entirely around the preservation and dissemination of these remarkable cultures of the islands. The PCC wrote the book on authenticity in Polynesian culture, arts, and food. If you can only do one thing on O'ahu, let this be it.

[7] Speaking of tours, Pearl Harbor is one place where a tour is advisable. The number of visitors to the USS Arizona memorial has to be limited each day, and by turning up on your own you might find you need to wait for a long time. On a busy day, especially on the weekend, you might not get in at all if you don't arrive early enough. Tours, of course, have space pre-booked and get in with no waiting. It matters because the memorial is reached by boat from the landside parking, museum, and exhibition.

[8] On being early. Hawai'i consists of tropical islands, and the temperatures ensure that clouds build up over the islands as the day goes on. Every day. Depending on location, if you are a chronic late riser, you might not see much sun at all. Trust me on this. In the tropics, you are far better off to cut your big nights short and get up each morning in a timely way. Case in point: the pool area was filled with gorgeous sunshine this morning; by 3:00 pm the sky was clouding over. Also, there's the rain. Little sprinkly showers can happen almost any time of any day, but are certainly more common, and sometimes more forceful, in the afternoon. Just as a by-the-way, I read years ago that islanders refer to these frequent little showers as "liquid sunshine."

 

[9] Rental cars, like everything else, are pricey. On O'ahu in particular, I recommend doing without your own wheels.  The traffic in and around Honolulu is heavy-duty, not surprising in a city with nearly a million people in the metropolitan area. Now, really, did you have to travel all this way just to sit in traffic jams? Especially this is so when the range of coach tours on offer is so enormous, and when the island's own transit bus service (laconically called "The Bus") runs on an unbelievably cheap fare of just $1.00 per ride.

If you ever decide to go to Hawai'i, I hope these hints will help you. I can guarantee you that Hawai'i is not just "another resort" like Cancun or the Dominican Republic. To close this off, I'm going to wrap up with a collection of useful Hawaiian words that you should certainly know if you are going to come here. Some of them have already cropped up in earlier posts.

 

Well, that's a wrap. Hope I will see you in Hawai'i the next time I choose to go!

Lessons Learned, or "I Told You So"

Well, I didn't actually tell you so, but I'm just about to.

 

It's finally happened. After travelling in so many countries for half a century, I've chosen to pull the plug and cancel an entire trip. 

In case you're wondering if I've turned chicken (like Colonel Sandurz) I have -- but not about the chances of getting sick with the pandemic virus. What did it was the Canadian government speculating about the possibility of again requiring 14-day quarantine for everyone entering the country. Who needs that?

The point of this post is that, thanks to foresight and planning, I'm able to get back over 95% of all the money and loyalty points I expended up front, one way or another. I'm out of pocket for less than $150 and I didn't actually need to lose even that much.

The big # 1 is the cost of the Princess cruise, which was paid up in full since the sail date is only 2 weeks away. Thanks to the premium version of the Princess insurance plan, I got 100% of the cost in future travel credits. If my cancellation had been due to one of the permitted reasons (which it wasn't), I would have gotten a 100% cash refund. Without this, I would have been at the mercy of the fine print in whichever third-party insurance plan I had bought.

Lesson Number One:  Especially in times like these, you need to know exactly what protections and coverages your insurance offers. Don't just buy an insurance plan because the summary says that "Covid coverage is included."

 

The credit is good for a year, but might be rolled over for another year if the travel issues continue to be a complete mess for that long.

 

My air ticket was bought with loyalty points. I cheaped out and bought the refundable-with-a-penalty ticket. For 10% more points, I could have had a fully refundable ticket. I got all my points back, but had to pay a cash cancellation fee to get them. This is where the cash loss took place. Again, these are not normal times we're living in -- hence:

 

Lesson Number Two:  If you can get a fully refundable fare, hotel room, tour cost, etc., DO IT! Pay the extra so you don't lose far more.

 

 By the way, if you carry credit card "insurance," be aware that some card insurers will move heaven and earth to try to wish the bill onto someone else rather than paying it themselves. Don't just assume that the card will cover you. Do some research to find out what others have to say about their experience with the card's insurers.

Hotels: same basic rule. The price may be higher but, the times being what they are, you're far better to get a fully refundable rate. I did -- and that included the hotel where I paid out 140,000 points for a five-night stay. 

Lesson Number Three:  For airlines, hotels, etc., make note of the cancellation deadlines and follow them carefully. They vary, even between hotels in the same chain. I always mark them in my calendar when I add a reservation.

 

Finally: many people choose to use third-party websites to book hotels, flights, etc. Year after year, I see frequent news reports and online stories about people who've gotten into battles with their third-party suppliers over how much they should get back, how long it should take, and (horror of horrors) why the airline or hotel had no record of their reservation and sent them back to the third party supplier to sort it out.

 

I've always dealt direct with the operators for all air, hotel, rail, car rental, and cruise bookings. It took me just one bad experience in my thirties to convince me to do this. I use no third parties at all. I completed all the cancellations except the cruise in about 20 minutes online last night. The two items that included cash refunds are already back in my card account, and the points are back in my air and hotel loyalty accounts.

 

Cancelling the cruise this morning took longer only because I had to wait on the phone for nearly an hour to get through to an agent. Once I got through, it took less than two minutes before I got the verifying email. The only items that will take a bit longer are the prepayments for premium restaurant reservations and shore excursions on the cruise. Those will likely hit my credit card account in less than a week.

 

There's a reason why all the cancellations moved so easily, and here it is.

Lesson Number Four:  When you deal directly with the travel supplier, you come much higher on their list of priorities than when you reserve through a third party. They value you because they know that you value them. Despite what some people think, virtually all major airlines, hotels, car rentals, etc., will match any third party's price for comparable services or facilities so there's no cost advantage in using third party sites. But there is a HUGE advantage in dealing directly with the supplier any time your plans go off the rails.

 

Well, that's about it for now. Sorry to be missing my long-planned trip, but not sorry to miss out on the possibility of a two-week quarantine afterwards. California and Mexico will still be there another day.

Down East by Rail -- Again # 1: The Journey from Woodstock to Montreal

Relax and refresh.  That's what rail travel does for me.

I think this week's trip marks the fifth occasion in ten years that I have taken the train from my home in Woodstock, Ontario, to Halifax, the biggest Atlantic port city in Canada.

You'd think that by now I would have it all covered, but this journey still endlessly fascinates me -- and every time I make this rail voyage, I find new sights and make new discoveries.

In the course of the trip, I have to travel on 3 trains using two different kinds of equipment.  The first two legs of the journey are part of VIA's "Windsor-Quebec Corridor" network, and normally use this kind of train -- the Canadian-built LRC's, which date from the 1980s.

VIA Rail Photo

The "Ocean," running from Montreal to Halifax, is normally equipped with the Renaissance cars, built in Europe in the early 2000s and bought by VIA when their original planned use disappeared.  At the end of the train is one of the iconic stainless steel "Park" cars with a scenic dome and rounded-off "bullet lounge," built in the 1950s for the CPR's cross-Canada train, The Canadian.

However, on this trip the Halifax train was a bit different -- as you'll see in Part 2!

If I were doing the whole trip in one go, I would be boarding the train in Woodstock at 08:07 for the first leg to Toronto.   One of the useful things to know is that on many, if not all, days, that early morning train (# 70) from Windsor and London to Toronto uses the same train set that will become the connecting train # 64 to Montreal.  On days when this happens, an announcement is made before arrival in Toronto and you may -- if you wish -- simply remain on board the train during the 80-minute stopover.

On this occasion, though, I was spending two nights in Toronto for my birthday party on Friday and a day-long culture-fest on Saturday, so I went up to the city at lunchtime on Friday, on board train # 72.  This train is booked to make the run from Woodstock to Toronto in 1 hour 40 minutes, including 3 enroute stops.  In theory, I could drive from my home to downtown Toronto in that amount of time.  In practice, I could only drive that quickly at about three o'clock in the morning, when the roads closer to Canada's biggest city are mostly empty.

Anyway, the train is so much more relaxing and civilized -- especially when I am cashing in my VIA Privilege loyalty points and going all the way for free in Business or Sleeper class.  The Woodstock-Toronto run makes up the bulk of my yearly VIA Rail travel, including most of my multiple trips into the big city for theatre, concerts, opera, or dance events.

With that, here's a map illustrating all three stages of this rail journey.

Passing lightly over my two-night stay in Toronto, I arrived at Union Station at 10:15 on Sunday morning for an 11:30 departure to Montreal.  First order of business: check in my big suitcase.  Train # 64 offers baggage car service on the days when it connects to # 14 for Halifax.  Trust me, you need to use that service.  The sleeping compartments on the Halifax train are nothing if not cramped.  You have to bring a small bag containing only what you absolutely need for that one night on the train.  The checked baggage service is free of charge and sends your bag all the way to your destination.

From the baggage room I made my way back up the ramp to the station's iconic Great Hall.  It's been said that the great urban railway stations were the cathedrals of the Railway Age, and the Great Hall of Union Station certainly calls that image to mind.

Just off the west end of the Great Hall is the VIA Business Class Lounge.  It occupies a large space which I think may originally have been a café when the station opened in 1927.  That's my guess because one pillar still has a painted sign on it with an arrow which says "Please Pay Cashier."  The lounge offers newspapers and magazines, free Wifi, work stations, comfy chairs, and non-alcoholic beverages.  The machine produces a more than acceptable cappuccino.

VIA Rail photo

About half an hour before the train was due to leave, an announcement called Business Class passengers for their priority boarding time down in the lower concourse.  It's an easy walk down the ramp to the gate, and then up an escalator to the train platform.  Your ticket gets scanned for the first time at the foot of the escalator.  Once you're on the train and settled into your seat, the ticket gets scanned again, either just before or just after departure.  Hint: I've learned to keep my phone handy until after that second round of scanning.

So here's the seat I occupied in the Business Class car.

The onboard service began right after the train rolled out with the drink trolley and a small package of snack mix, followed by hot towels.

Lunch was served about an hour after departure, with warm bread rolls and wine included.  The menu normally offers several main course choices, one of which is vegetarian but not vegan.  Today's lunch menu offered cannelloni with tomato sauce and cheese, trout with an Asian soy-ginger sauce, or a cold potato salad with sliced roast beef (my choice).  The meal tray comes with a small appetizer course and a small dessert.

Coffee, tea, and cold drinks were again offered after the meal, and as a finishing touch, small chocolates -- a choice of plain dark or dark with raspberry.

If you're wondering what the cost might be for this kind of deluxe Business Class travel, it's actually competitive with (and sometimes even cheaper than) economy class on the airlines.

And what's the outside world look like on this leg of the trip?  There's actually not a lot to see, or at least not much that might be called "spectacular."  A large part of the way, the line runs through a green alleyway lined with dense vegetation.  You do get a few views of the wind-tossed expanse of Lake Ontario which might as well be an ocean as far as the eye can see.

You cross a trestle above the Ganaraska River in Port Hope....

…and a lower bridge over the much wider Moira River in Belleville.

You get the occasional view of traffic along the parallel freeway Highway 401.

Once into Quebec, the train rolls across the Ste Anne rapids where the Ottawa River squeezes through several narrow channels to empty into the mighty St Lawrence.

On the way into Montreal, the train twice crosses the historic Lachine Canal, here repurposed as a recreational waterway and park area.

Then, on the other side of the train, there's a splendid view of the great skyscrapers in the downtown area of Canada's second-biggest city.

Train # 64 managed to remain on time right up until the suburban station at Dorval.  There, we had to hold for some minutes, waiting for an outward bound train to leave the station.  From then on, it was one delay after another, and the train finally pulled into Central Station 50 minutes late.  Grrr!!!

Among the best features of Central Station are the raised platforms, which make it unnecessary to climb stairs up into or down out of the trains.  This feature is possible because no freight trains with their wider and lower cars are ever routed through this station.

If you wish, you can plan a stopover for one or more nights here in Montreal when you purchase your ticket (VIA allows one enroute stopover at no extra charge on all tickets).  The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel is directly connected to the Central Station through an underground shopping mall, and several other upscale hotels are within a 1-2 minute walk.  Hotels and Airbnbs in the historic Vieux Montreal district (my favourite area of the city) are only 5 minutes or so away by taxi.

But for me, there was only a stopover of two hours before the next leg of the trip began.

The Sunny South # 7: Farther Into the Everglades

The short little 5-day cruise is now over, and I am back on terra firma.  Instead of flying straight home after the cruise, I am spending a little more time in Fort Lauderdale.  Thank you, Hilton Honors loyalty programme.  Five nights in a beach-front resort for free, including free internet and free breakfast, is a pretty decent deal.

And then there's the location: right smack on the beach, backing onto the Intracoastal Waterway, a ten minute drive from the airport or  cruise port, and a 5-minute or less walk to the Water Taxi.  These pictures give you the idea of the Bahia Mar by Doubletree, viewed from my top-floor room: the panorama from the tennis courts, and the second-floor pool deck and outdoor bar and café...

...to the low-rise south wing...

...and finally to the beach. 

With all these places joined by overhead footbridges, you never need to dodge the crazy drivers on the waterfront to get to the sand, or the walkway, no matter which part of the resort you are coming from.  Win-win situation in my mind.  And in this view, a spectacular shot of Fort Lauderdale....

...in which, when you zoom in, you find no less than five cruise ships hiding between the high-rises.  That's Port Everglades, the busiest single cruise port in the world by passenger numbers.

The problem: what to do on the day the cruise arrives when they boot you out of your cabin by 8:00am  and off the ship as soon as possible thereafter?  (That's so they can get ready for the next 3,000 sucke..., I mean guests, who will be arriving by noon).  There are a selection of debarcation tours available, which take you from the ship, show you some sights, and drop you off at the airport by 1:30pm, in time for later-in-the-day flights.  These tours are also great for those staying on locally.

The tour I picked focused on the environment of the Everglades (yup, we're back out there to the River of Grass again!).  On the bus, our tour guide shared this interesting statistic: in the last 20 years, the alligator has dropped from # 1 predator in the Everglades to a distant # 4 place.  The reason is human stupidity, although it isn't humans doing the predation.

The problem is idiotic people who illegally import "exotic" animals as pets, and then have to get rid of them when the little darlings get too big to handle.  The fools who dumped their Burmese pythons and such into the Everglades probably congratulated themselves on their cleverness, but there were enough pythons to mate and breed copiously, and no animal big enough to tackle them.  Result: the pythons are now the rulers of the river.  They're quite big enough to kill a small alligator, or anything else that crosses their path, and swallow it whole.  

Our first stop was an airboat ride, and the captain of our boat told us that he also works as a volunteer on a project to try to sterilize the pythons.  They're having some success, but it's going to be a long struggle.  I just hope they can stop the giant pythons before everything else in the Everglades gets killed by them.  At any rate, during our short ride into the Everglades we didn't see any pythons, but we did see a huge variety of water-based plant life, birds, Colombian iguanas (another exotic pet nuisance animal), and one wild alligator.

From the airboat, we drove on to the Flamingo Gardens -- and sure enough....

But there's a lot more to the Gardens than just flamingoes.  Originally a private estate and tropical botanical garden, it has expanded scope to become a free sanctuary for wild birds, and also a refuge and safe haven for birds and animals which have been too severely injured to be able to survive in the wilderness -- a similar role to that played for marine life by the famous Clearwater Aquarium.  Here are a few examples which I saw during the free hour for walking about the Gardens which our tour allowed for us.

As well, there are dozens of free-roaming ibis -- and they're pretty aggressive about food.  If you sit down to eat at the outdoor snack bar, arm yourself first with a squirt bottle from the counter.  The pesky critters know.  Just aim it at them and they will run the other way.  And there are other free-roaming birds of a decidedly more beautiful character.

I have no personal experience to draw on, but I've been told that the peacock is one of the most ornery and unpredictable birds alive, and also has a shatteringly raucous squawk which ill accords with the graceful elegance of its plumage.  Just as a by-the-way note, the correct generic term for this species is peafowl.  The male is the peacock, the female the peahen, and the children are known as peachicks or (in some regions) as peabiddies.  I've also been reliably informed that when the peacock unfurls his spectacular tail plumage for his mating dance, any nearby peahen is just as likely to go on pecking in the dirt for food, completely ignoring the gorgeous colours of the fan waving at her.