Joe & Deb USA 2014: Day Thirty-Four

Today was an unexpected stopover in Vancouver. Our flight to Sydney was not ( in fact is not, and this is being typed out in the departure area of the airport!) until 11pm so we basically had the entire day to wander around. We wanted to ensure our booking was OK so didn't want to go too far afield so that we could get to the airport & coinfirm with plenty of time in hand.

Thus we settled for a day excursion into downtown Vancouver. It's quite a nice city , with a large bay bisecting it, and we took a fast and cheap light rail from the airport into downtown. There's a tower that one can go up and see views of the city so we did that for about 30 minutes then wandered the streets.

There wasn't much to report - most of the shops we saw were the same as other places , and we couldn't really buy anything as we were already packed and ready to go , so after a bit of desultory wandering we decided to go back to the airport.

We were able to finally check in after 4pm, although the check in officer was bemused by our early check in and there was also the excess baggage issue - even though we had paid it at Portland, that went to Air NZ whereas Air Canada were looking to charge us again, however the panicked look on our faces swayed her and she relented.

Additionally, most of the people checking in were on London flights , so there was an initial concern she may turn us away until 7pm when it was the accepted check in time, however as we'd already waited in the queue 14 minutes, she checked us in anyway. Phew !!

So we basically spent almost all day in the airport , from 3pm until our intended departure time but given the worry that we may be bumped we wanted to ensure as soon as we could that we could get on this one.