Rocky Mountaineer – Our two-day luxury journey aboard the Rocky Mountaineer train from Vancouver to Jasper was completely out of this world.
We had been anxiously anticipating this part of our exploration of western Canada as folks like National Geographic were naming this as “one of the world’s greatest trips“.
As you can see in my photograph, we sat in a glass-domed rail car where our every need was attended to by smiling staff as the stunning scenery of western Canada, and the Canadian Rockies, streamed by in a constant, breathtaking panorama.
A level below our luxurious glass-domed seats was the dining car where we were served wonderful gourmet meals and enjoyed the company of people from all over the world.
I shot a significant amount a video during this phase of our trip, and I look forward to sharing it with you when we get back home.
This experience is certainly to remain one of our top travel experiences, and I think it just may have incubated a desire to make luxury train travel a consistent part of our travel regimen.
I’ll tell you much more about our “GoldLeaf” experience when we get home. For now, it’s time to explore Jasper in the Canadian Rockies.
Vancouver, British Columbia – Days 3-6 found us in Vancouver, British Columbia for a travel bloggers convention called TBEX ’11 (Travel Bloggers Exchange).
We were nearly the only baby boomers in attendance as we found ourselves surrounded predominantly by 30-somethings.
Travel writers converged upon the city to forge new relationships, meet with industry partners, and to sharpen their skills under the tutelage of seasoned experts.
The shiny forehead in the bottom right of the picture is yours truly as I lifted my iPad overhead and snapped the crowd during one of the sessions.
When we weren’t sitting in the conference, we enjoyed fantastic Aburi-style sushi from Miku Sushi…
a cruise of the harbor…
a visit to Vancouver’s famous Granville Market…
and in closing, a peek out the window of our room at the Fairmont Vancouver at thousands of Vancouver Canuck hockey fans.
Tomorrow we board the Rocky Mountaineer Train for our two-day adventure to Jasper in the Canadian Rockies.
We’ll have far more in-depth stories when we get back home. For now, stay tuned!
Our second day in Whistler found your traveling baby boomers hiking into the village to enjoy breakfast with Vanessa Murphy (Whistler Convention and Visitors Bureau) from our very comfy night’s stay at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler.
As we were hoofin’ it to the village, we encountered a couple of black bears foraging for their own breakfast that stalled our brisk pace a bit.
Someone mentioned to us that black bears in Whistler are as common as squirrels in other places. If you give them a wide birth they will go on about their own business and pay you no attention.
We did give this guy a wide birth as he strolled around like he owned the place.
After a wonderful breakfast at Elements (awesome Eggs Benedict) we strolled around the village of Whistler, which as you can see from the photograph above, was host to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
The village is filled with specialty shops, ice cream stores, candy stores, hiking & skiing stores, and just above everything to make a baby boomer woman’s heart go pitter-pat.
Carol was drawn like a magnet to a local shop called Ruby Tuesday where local artisans display their jewelry and fashion accessories. She walked out with a smile, a new scarf, and some new jewelry.
We’ll tell you more about this later, but we spent the bulk of our day enjoying majestic and surreal views aboard the Whistler Blackcomb Peak to Peak Gondola experience.
Two separate chair lifts took us to the top of Blackcomb Mountain where we boarded a gondola which transported us from the peak of Blackcomb to the peak of Whistler mountain. Absolutely stunning views!
Well, that’s it for today. We have much more to share about Whistler, but we will do it in our feature post when we return home to the US.
Tomorrow, we’re off to Vancouver where we will spend the next two days in a conference of travel bloggers, writers, journalists, and PR folks called The Travel Bloggers Exchange (TBEX ’11).
Stay tuned for more from western Canada. We’ll soon be boarding the Rocky Mountaineer for a luxury train ride to Jasper in the Canadian Rockies!
I (David) was no sooner in the door from my wonder-filled trip to the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Tweet-Up (which I still need to tell you about) when I found us back on a jet and headed off on our greatly anticipated baby boomer tour of western Canada.
Carol secured our tickets for this flight on United Airlines, and while jetting our way to our intermediary stop in San Francisco, I snapped the photograph to the right playing with an iPhone app called Camera Magic.
I think Carol tires sometimes of me always sticking a camera in her face, so I thought this time I would join in the parade.
After a short layover in San Francisco, long enough to grab a sandwich at Boudin Sourdough Bread Company that is, we were back on a regional jet and headed towards Vancouver, British Columbia.
While making our way toward Vancouver, we flew by Mount St. Helen’s. Please pardon all the grunge in the photograph from the dirty airliner’s window. Nonetheless, it was beautiful to see this majestic volcano popping her head above the clouds. Don’t you think?
A little later we also few by Mount Rainer sticking even higher above the clouds.
We hit the ground in Vancouver around 3:30, grabbed a rental car, and were off to make the roughly two hour drive to Whistler.
One of the highlights of the day was absolutely the stunning Sea to Sky Highway coastal drive from Vancouver to Whistler. In this photograph, we were just outside of Squamish when Carol snapped this photograph with the iPhone. I’m continually amazed with the quality of photographs that we can produce from this pocket-sized wonder.
Around dinner time, we pulled into the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, our home away from home for the next two days.
This AAA Four-Diamond luxury resort opened its doors in 1989 and sits right at the foot of Blackcomb Mountain where winter visitors can climb aboard the ski lift right from the back door of the hotel.
Tomorrow, we will be jumping aboard the ski lifts, climbing up the roughly 5,000 feet to the summit, and then we’ll board a glass-bottomed gondola for a peak-to-peak ride over to Whistler Mountain.
A ride aboard this chairlift/gondola system puts you on the longest continuous lift system in the world.
It should be a blast, and we look forward to telling you about it.
Stay tuned!
Oh! PS. This town is crawling with black bear. We have some cool bear stories to share with you as well.
Delta Vacations Luxury Lifestyle Travel Collection – As baby boomers who enjoy luxury travel experiences, we feel that the folks at Delta Vacations really hit the ball out of the park with their Luxury Lifestyle Collection.
Not only did we enjoy first class seating aboard our Delta Airlines flights, but we experienced world-class pampering with features like a “whisking” service through immigrations in the Punta Cana airport (only 8 minutes total in the airport), private limo service to our resort, and the incredible amenities, friendly staff, and exquisite service of the Caribbean’s newest AAA five-diamond resort: Tortuga Bay Punta Cana Resort & Club.
In addition to enjoying ultimate luxury, we also enjoyed adventures like snorkeling in the stunning turquoise and azure Caribbean waters, our very first scuba diving lessons, and a fantastic two-hour Segway tour of the Punta Cana resort through the natural beauty of miles of private beach, million dollar estates, championship golf courses, and a stop at the Ecological Reserve with 15 natural spring water lagoons.
To share with you the highlights of our experience, we had produced five videos for you to enjoy. Just below, you will find our first video spotlighting our overall experience, and further down in this article you will find links to our four daily video journals packed with adventure, luxury, and natural beauty.
Another fantastic benefit offered to baby boomer luxury travelers by Delta Vacations is value. Because Delta Vacations is part of Delta Airlines, they have the ability to combine first class airfare with their international purchasing power to bring you incredible savings in luxury travel.
It truly is a knock-out one-two punch for luxury baby boomer travelers.
We can’t wait to go explore and experience another Delta Vacations Luxury Lifestyle Collection trip, and we highly recommend it to you!
Disclosure: our luxury travel experience was largely sponsored by Delta Vacations Luxury Lifestyle Collection. Additionally, we also enjoyed dining and adventure experiences from the folks at Tortuga Bay Punta Cana. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! We had a fabulous experience!
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The Roaming Boomers
A level below our luxurious glass-domed seats was the dining car where we were served wonderful gourmet meals and enjoyed the company of people from all over the world.
