Plotting and planning

September 10, 2010 by Carole 4 Comments

We've come to the sudden realisation that if we're going to book the flights for next year's holiday, we'll need to know exactly what dates we want to fly. It does help. In order to know that, we need to decide what we want to do on our holiday as once the flights are booked, they can't be changed and the cruise dates are definitely set in stone.

The vague plan has been:

Fly to Vancouver and do some stuff there for a few days.
Do the cruise for a week
Take a week or so to drive in a very meandering sort of way to Calgary, taking in lots of Rockies-type scenery along the way.
Fly home from Calgary

What we've been doing today is trying to decide what we want to do in Vancouver so we know how many days to allot it. Then we'll know which day to fly out on. The cruise sails on a Tuesday so I was favouring our usual flying day which is Friday. That'd give us three whole days to play in Vancouver plus maybe a few hours on the Tuesday morning, depending on what time we need to be at the port. I thought that'd be plenty but apparently Vancouver has rather a lot to offer. We think we've narrowed it down to four essentials, though and we reckon we can fit them into the three days.

1. The Capilano suspension bridge
Yeah, I know. Lots of high stuff at this place. I think I could do the bridge though, and the treetop thing. And possibly the cliffhanger. Possibly. It does look a lovely day out.

2. Grouse Mountain
You get up there on board The Skyride – a cable car. I love cable cars! Can't wait to see the views from up there. Bet it'll be fantastic.

3. Stanley Park
There's masses to see here, including a horse drawn carriage ride, which we'd love to do.

4. The Vancouver Trolley
And this should take care of the rest. We can use this to hop on/hop off and see the other bits that we want to see, or as many as we can fit in. I really want to see the steam clock in Gastown and have lunch at The Old Spaghetti factory.

So, how have we come to our decisions? We've been sitting opposite each other, a laptop apiece, sending each other links via email, shouting "incoming" as each email was sent. We've competed to see who could find the best websites, and who could find them the quickest. Stephen thinks I may have the advantage as I'm nearer the router, but I've countered with the fact that he has the newer laptop with the newest OS. I suspect that the fact that I can type after a fashion may have rather more to do with it, but I'm keeping schtum on that one. MTV Rocks is on the TV, there has been conversation and laughter and we've had a very pleasant afternoon.

All we need to do now, is decide what we want to do and see in between Vancouver and Calgary and plot a route, and we may be able to settle on some dates. I do love holiday planning.