After our cruise was kaput Becky and I spent a day in Vancouver, a day in Victoria, and then a day in Seattle before flying back home to Atlanta. Vancouver is a clean city but has a serious problem with beggers. At night Becky and I passed by a begger on every couple of street corners. Robson Street was the center of Vancouver’s weekend nightlife. I don’t think the sidewalks of New York City could be any more packed than the sidewalks along Robson Street. One tourguide said that Vancouver is known as “The City of Water.” There were a good number of water-themed decorations in and around the city, but I noticed more glass than water. Many of Vancouver’s buildings are styled similarly to the buildings you see in the photo below.

In Vancouver we stayed in the Hyatt Hotel and took this photo from our balcony. Notice the snow-capped mountains at the top of this photo. Radiance of the Seas, the Coral Princess, and Holland America’s Zaandam were all docked within a mile of the end of this street. The body of water is called the Burrard Inlet. A freighter makes its way toward the Straight of Georgia.

I took this photo of the majestic Hotel Vancouver from our balcony. The Hotel Vancouver was to our right and the Burrard Inlet was to our left. According to our tourguide, it took eleven years to build the Hotel Vancouver, and King George and Queen Elizabeth once stayed there.

Becky wanted a photo of this entrance to Vancouver’s underground shopping mall, Pacific Centre. The mall spans six blocks. Notice the ubiquity of glass. We didn’t get a chance to actually go in the mall. For some inexplicable reason, almost everything in Vancouver that’s not on Robson Street closes around 6 pm.

I took this photo of the Coral Princess as she was docked at Canada Place. The guests pictured here have just boarded the ship and are about to embark upon their own seven-day Alaskan voyage. The turbine-looking structure at the top of the photo is just for ornamentation. The Coral Princess sails Alaska and the Panama Canal.

Now this was a sad sight to see, indeed. Radiance has set her sails for Juneau with a new group of guests. Becky and I were awaiting the start of a 3D IMAX movie, Alaska: Spirit of the Wild, at Canada Place when Radiance passed us by. If I wouldn’t have been arrested, I would have jumped into the water and tried to catch her. Those guests just didn’t know what a treat they were about to receive. In a week, though, they’d be tossed off the ship, ejected from luxury’s bosom, just as we were. Cruiselines make no ceremonies over getting passengers off of their ships.