2024-08-23: Goodbye Radiance!

It was time to head home. Amanda and Darrell woke up around 6:30am and watched the ship pull into Canada Place in Vancouver. Seabourn Odyssey was pulling into the other side of the pier as well. We woke the kids up at 7:00am and had our last shower on the ship. We packed up our remaining belongings into our carryon bags and said goodbye to our cabins.

We headed up the Windjammer for some breakfast. After breakfast, we headed to the Colony Club on deck 6 to await the call for us to disembark. We were group 27 which was scheduled to be called at 9:10am. Around 9:15am they called our number and we headed to the gangway one deck below.

As we were leaving the ship, they scanned our seapass cards for the last time and then we had to collect the knife that they confiscated from Michael when we boarded. That only took a minute and then we were off the ship. We found our suitcases quickly and did a quick shuffle to move our pajamas and such from our carryon to the suitcases. We then went through customs which was a bit of a joke. We just handed over the customs declaration to a border agent. She asked a quick question about what food we were bringing into the country (some candy and a jar of jam) and they waved us on our way. No checking passports or anything.We left the terminal building and took one last photo of the ship before continuing to the Waterfront train station. We bought our tickets and boarded the train to the airport. About 25 minutes later we arrived at the Vancouver airport.

We made our way to the domestic check-in area for Air Canada. When we tried to do online check-in yesterday it told us we had to talk to an agent to get our boarding passes for some reason. We tried to check-in via the automated kiosk but got the same message that we needed to talk to an agent. We found the check-in assistance line but there was no way to enter it without talking to an Air Canada staff member. The first lady we talked to sent us back to the automated kiosks and said we had to call someone on the white phones at the end. We thought that was odd since we were right beside the check-in assistance desks, but okay. We headed back and found the phones which were labelled “reservation assistance”. We did not need reservation assistance. We went back to the check-in assistance area and talked to a different staff member, who simply lifted the barrier and allowed us into the correct line. What a hassle. We talked to the agent and she said we hadn’t paid for our checked bags which is why we couldn’t get our boarding passes. The online check-in told us there was no charge for the bags which we thought was odd at the time. We didn’t think our checked bags were included. Anyway, we paid for the checked bags and received our boarding passes.

We made our way through security which was pretty empty and were at our gate a few minutes later. We had a couple of hours to wait until boarding so we made ourselves comfortable. Around 11:30, we went to find some lunch. Patrick wasn’t hungry so he stayed at the gate. We were going to eat at a place called Whistler Taphouse & Grill but due to a bunch of plane delays, they were packed with a waiting list. We headed to the food court instead and grabbed a couple of burgers.

After lunch we returned to the gate and then Amanda took Patrick to grab a snack. Our plane was delayed by an hour leaving Calgary which delayed our flight of course. Our flight was supposed to leave at 1:25pm. Just before 2:00pm we started boarding and took off around 2:45pm. The flight was a little turbulent. The flight attendants eventually did come around to offer drinks and snacks, but water was the only drink option which was disappointing.

We landed in Calgary a little over an hour late. We collected our bags and then called Darrell’s Dad to pick us up. He was waiting in the cell phone lot at the airport. We were home about half an hour later. The end of another great vacation.