Alaska Cruise Day 1 🌲 Boarding Coral Princess + Vancouver Fun & First Impressions! 🚢

Duration: 11:35 1845 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Monica welcomes viewers back to share her exciting Alaskan adventure, which she describes as a long-awaited bucket list trip lasting about two and a half weeks. The journey began with a complex travel itinerary involving a bus from Portsmouth to Boston, followed by flights to Seattle and finally Vancouver, where they arrived late on June 9th due to delays. Consequently, their exploration of the city was pushed until the next morning, starting with a visit to the famous Capilano Suspension Bridge. Although the bridge itself is impressive, situated high above a rainforest, Monica notes that the experience was somewhat hindered by crowds and tourists jumping on the structure, which made it difficult for her husband Jay, who has hip issues, to enjoy the full walk through the park. After their time at the suspension bridge, the couple explored other parts of Vancouver, including viewing the massive Grand Princess ship in the harbor before boarding their own Coral Princess the following day. They stayed at the Windom Hotel, which was conveniently located but not recommended for a future stay. Upon arriving at Canada Place to board the cruise, they found the embarkation process incredibly smooth and efficient. With only carry-on luggage, they were able to immediately explore the ship's amenities, including the pools and hot tubs, while enjoying breathtaking views of Vancouver from the deck before the ship departed at 4:00 p.m. Once settled in their spacious and beautiful stateroom, Monica and Jay took advantage of the early morning crowd by relaxing in the hot tub and changing into their bathing suits, a decision they made knowing their checked luggage might not be ready yet. As the sail-away party began, they enjoyed special snacks and decadent desserts on the pool deck with friends Mike and Judy. The evening concluded with a nice dinner featuring pizza and drinks on the outdoor pool deck, allowing them to get comfortable with the ship's layout before settling in for a day at sea. Monica expresses her love for the little informational notes left in their cabin and looks forward to the upcoming days of the cruise, noting that this is just the beginning of a multi-part vlog series about their trip.

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Hey guys, it's Monica and yes, I am back and I am back with our adventure, our Alaskan adventure. So, if you are new to my channel, please subscribe. I'm going to be sharing with you a trip that my husband and I took. And for all the rest of you that have followed my videos and my vlogs and all my lifestyle videos and struggles and all of that, thank you so much for coming back. I know I've been absent for a while, but life has been totally crazy. But I'm so excited to be here to share with you this trip we had to Alaska. I mean, this was a bucketless trip. It was like almost 3 weeks, 2 and 1/2 weeks, I think we were gone. And uh we did a land and sea sea and land combo. Have you ever been to Alaska? Comment below and let me know if you if you've been. And if you have, did you do a cruise? Did you do just land? Did you do a combo? and let me know what time of year because I'm really curious to compare. I struggled with my packing. I've already done the packing video. I'll make sure I link it somewhere here. And uh you know cuz we really wanted to do carry-on only and there were some things that I didn't wear, but I will regroup all of that at the end of this. I think this is probably going to be a five or six part vlog because Alaska has I've got a lot to share. a lot of different things that we did that we saw that we that we enjoyed. Oh my gosh, it was amazing. So, thank you so much for for joining me and again, if you're new to my channel, please subscribe. Please leave me a comment, like the video, share the video, and let me know if you've been to Alaska and what was your big takeaway about Alaska? What did you love the most? So, stay tuned. Thank you guys. And we are off June 9th heading to Boston. We took the bus from Portsmouth. Had a really smooth ride and got on our plane 4:24 p.m. Boston, which was 1:24 p.m. in Seattle. Our first leg brought us to Seattle where we caught a flight to Vancouver. And this is us landing. And then we started to have delays. So, we had a lot of different delays and we actually didn't arrive until something like 6:00 p.m. on the 9th. So, we didn't really start to explore till the very next morning. This is June 10th. And we decided to walk around Vancoua and we had decided to do a little tour. We are actually at this place called >> Capalano Suspension Bridge. >> Suspension Bridge. And I don't know what to expect. It'll be fun. >> It'll be fun. And we're going to vlog it. We got here with a free shuttle and then we had to pay >> senior cities. >> 70 bucks for senior citizens >> per person. So, it better be worth it. >> We caught the early morning bus, which I was really glad we did cuz it wasn't as crowded. But when you first get there, you walk through this whole section of history of, you know, when they originally built the area, the bridge, I think it was in 1889. It was like a 450 foot long suspension bridge. Um 230 ft above the river and the forest, it's a rainforest is just absolutely beautiful. This would be perfect for families, for kids, anyone that's into nature like this to see all of the stuff that they have preserved. And you just walk along and you can take photos. And as we left and meandered our way up to the suspension bridge, we got to this area that was really super cool. It was a a section where there was a ton of totem poles, giant totem poles, and it was so beautiful to really see what an impressive collection, authentic totem poles, and they were all carved uh with powerful symbols and stories that been passed down through the generations. It was just beautiful to see. And then we went to the bridge. We should have known better. This suspension bridge is just a tiny bit of the 27 acre suspension bridge park. The park is just absolutely beautiful. And there was so much more to this park that Jay and I did not get to do because the bridge kind of did us in. There were a lot of tourists on the bridge and there was some tourists that were jumping and videoing themselves and and even though they weren't supposed to, they kept jumping up and down, bouncing the bridge and of course Jay with his hip issue. >> It was a little harder than I thought. What did you think? >> Yeah, it was. Well, it was I don't want to >> Yeah, I don't complain. Yeah, there was tourists, but you know, we're tourists, too. This and ice cream is calling Jay's name and mine. It's mine in mine over there. Well, we're going to sit here and rest. Oo, chocolate. What? >> Tree top chop. >> Tree top chop. I wonder why. Yeah. >> Chalk. Same thing. That's all they had. >> Chocolate. Tree top. >> Big chocolate. Marshmallow. Chocolate chips. [Music] >> Good. It's got marshmallows in it. This is actually kind of scary looking >> if you ask me. >> What? >> This is kind of scary looking. >> Yeah. I don't know how much we're going to be able I'm going to be able to make it. >> I mean, look at that up there. Holy camole. >> So, I don't know if we're going to do this or not. Lovely hand. >> Wow. That's pretty cool park though, huh? >> Absolutely beautiful scenery. Look at that squirrel over there. That's cute. We decided not to do all of the other suspension bridges and and different the granite walk and all that that you can do in that park. The suspension bridge just stood us in. So we went back to Canada Place and explored along the harbor. Checked out the boat. This is the Grand Princess that was in port and we had actually met people at the airport that were taking that cruise. Our cruise on the Coral Princess wasn't leaving until the next day. Got to see some sea planes take off. Just a really pretty clean harbor. Oh my gosh, the port is so clean, so friendly. Really loved it. The Grand Princess, as you can see here, is pretty big. I think it's a bigger ship than our Coral Princess was. We had a smaller ship, but um it was just really a nice day. I would definitely go back to Vancouver and I would definitely do especially if we were in better shape and condition. I would do that whole Stanley Park because it was just beautiful. The rainforest was just beautiful. So, we had lunch and a drink and early dinner. >> After we walked around a bit, we made our way back to our hotel. We stayed at the Windom and while it was really super close and within walking distance to everything, we would not stay there again. This is the next morning waiting for our Uber to bring us down to Canada Place to catch the coral princess. Embarkment was a piece of cake. I could not believe how smooth it was to get on the ship. We had dumped our luggage and just had our backpack carryons with us. Got to explore the ship. It's beautiful ship. Of course, there were not too many people on, so it was not really crowded at this point in time, but it was just really nice to be able to take in the ambiance, so to speak, and feel uh a little bit more comfortable with the layout. I mean, these ships are huge. Even if you're on a smaller ship, they're huge. And of course, the views of Vancouver from the ship was just breathtaking. Both Jay and I marveled at what a beautiful city it was. And we were going to be taking off at 400 p.m. So, everyone would be starting to come on. So, we decided to explore a little bit more, check out the pools and the hot tubs and all of that. We had packed our bathing suits in the backpacks that we had with us. So, we knew that our luggage might not be in our stateateroom. It might not be ready for us. But we knew that our room was ready, but we didn't have any luggage. So, we maneuvered our way around and went to our room and changed into our bathing suits. And our room was beautiful, our stateateroom. And I did a separate tour of that, so I'm not going to share that here. But it was just really nice, comfortable, spacious stateateroom. Really enjoyed it. Put on our bathing suits, went back out to the pool, as you can see Jay sitting there in the hot tub, relaxing, having fun. So, here we were in in uh still in port in Vancouver on the Coral Princess in a hot tub. Not too many people at all around at just people were still coming on the ship. And people were looking at us, some of them in envy that we had bathing suits on and we were in a hot tub. But that's how we kind of planned it. So when the sail away party started, we were ready. >> So we can't help but think we can't help but think that we should be drinking with Mike and Judy. So cheers to >> Cheers to Mike. >> Cheers. Cheers to Mike. >> Cheers to Judy. >> We love you. >> Miss you. >> So, this was a little bit of a snack if you like muscles and shrimp. >> Jay just got the shrimp. How is it? Good. >> Going to be bad tonight. >> Oh my gosh. Dessert. >> Special dessert made for us. [Applause] I think that's yours. I think that looks >> Is that yours? >> And that's mine that you Thank you. >> So, how is it? >> I know. I haven't tasted any yet. >> Taste it for us. And and looks decadent. So, dinner and drinks that night was just out on the pool deck. We had pizza. Then we explored the ship some more and went back to our cabin. And I love how they leave you all these little notes and tips and a little magazine so you know what to expect for the next day, which was going to be a day at sea. And I think on for a sort of dressy night, so I was looking forward to that.