My wife and I celebrated our tenth anniversary in Feb 2012. To celebrate we decided to take and Alaskan cruise.  We invited several of our closest friends to join us and to help celebrate.

The cruise we chose was Royal Caribbean’s Radiance Of The Seas, porting out of Vancouver, BC with a final destination of Seward, AK.

We flew to Vancouver on Thursday.  Our first adventure was finding transportation to our hotel downtown. We discussed taxi and shuttle bus and we ended up getting a limo to take all eight of us.  It was interesting for me, being only the second time in my life I’d ever ridden in a limo. It did kinda feel like we were rock stars. 🙂

We arrive at our hotel, the Moda; get checked in, and immediately begin the pursuit of lunch.

We walk around downtown Vancouver and locate the Yaletown area.  This area is full of restaurants and breweries.  We decide on the Yaletown Brewing Co. for lunch. Food was excellent, the beer was outstanding, especially the Black and Tan.  Yum!!

After lunch we do a bit more sightseeing, then head back to the hotel.  With the 3 hour time change it felt weird going to bed at 8:30 local time and having complete daylight. Try falling asleep under those conditions. Thank goodness for the beer.

Friday morning we are up by 6 am.  First order of business, breakfast.  I look up local diners based on ratings and find a four star rated diner, named the Elbow Room Cafe is only 4 blocks from our hotel.  Off we go.  We arrive and are seated. The place is small and cramped.  The server is berating everyone who walks in and is calling everyone ladies and bitches.  We order our food, which arrives quickly and well prepared.  Whatever reservations or misconceptions I had vanished as soon as I took my first bite. The food was great!  Next trip to Vancouver will definitely include a stop at the Elbow Room.

After breakfast we head back to the hotel to check out.  We had previously arranged for a shuttle bus to pick us up at the hotel and transport us to the port.  Shuttle picks us up, drives us maybe 10 blocks and drops us off at the port.  We get our luggage checked in and head back into downtown for more sightseeing and lunch.

We found another brewery near the port for lunch, the Steamworks Pub, Brewery, and Restaurant.  Another gem.  Food and drink were excellent.

After lunch, we did more sightseeing and souvenir shopping. a couple hours later we boarded the ship.

More to follow…..