Tulip Festival and Cruise Ship

 We woke up and got dressed about 7:00 a.m.  We visited with Stacy, Alex, and Jacob for an hour or so before saying good-bye.  Blaine had left for work very early in the morning.  I was thinking we had time to take a ferry to Whidbey Island and go north that way, but then we decided it might take away from our time at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.  We stopped at Fred Meyer to find a knee brace for Wendy and then drove straight to RoozenGaarde.  We arrived at 9:30 a.m. and parked in the first row of cars in a large parking area.  We found out that they had handicapped parking near the entrance, but we managed alright with the wheelchair.  The paths were a little rough, and Wendy walked as much as she could, but the tulip fields were several acres in size, so it was nice that she didn't have to walk all of it.

We were amazed at the brilliant colors and the different types of tulips.  The blue skies and bright sunshine really made the tulips stand out, and the flowers were so tall.  Some of them were above Wendy's waist.  We spent quite a bit of time walking and taking pictures.  We also bought some kettle corn and fudge at their food pavilion, and Wendy bought a tulip ornament as a souvenir.  It was about 11:30 a.m. when we left, and the parking area was completely full of cars.  We were glad we arrived when we did, and we were quite happy with our experience.  After our visit to RoozenGaarde we decided to take a short drive to Deception Pass.  It was a little out of the way, but the weather was too good to miss it.  We arrived at the pass about noon and spent 30 minutes taking in the view and walking to the center of the bridge.  I've always been impressed with Deception Pass.

After our short stay at Deception Pass we drove straight to Vancouver.  When we arrived at the Canadian border we were surprised to see how little traffic there was.  We pulled up behind a vehicle that was just finishing up with the border agent, and then it was our turn.  She asked us a few questions, looked at our passports, and we were done.  It took less than five minutes to get through the border. 

We drove into Vancouver and the traffic slowed us down a bit.  We finally arrived at Canada Place, but when I pulled into the parking garage I took a wrong turn which forced us back out of the exit.  We had to drive around the block and enter the parking garage again.  We found a parking assistant who directed us to a parking spot, and then she drove me by golf cart to the ticket booth to buy our parking pass.  She drove me back to the car where Wendy had waited.  We unloaded our bags and locked the car.  We went up the elevator and found the entry to the line for our cruise ship.

It was after 3:00 p.m. which I thought was our boarding time, but there were very few people in line.  We showed our passports and went through a security checkpoint.  One of the employees said we had picked a good time to come as most of the passengers were already on board.  It surprised me that we were among the last to board.  We got on the ship - the Koningsdam, and found our cabin on deck 7 - the Schubert Deck.  Our cabin was at the back of the ship with our own veranda.  We were in room number 7194.  We met our room attendant, whose name was Radi, and he provided us with our room keys and showed us how to operate the lights.

We were able to relax for a while in our room.  We unpacked our bags and stored them under the bed.  We took in the view of downtown Vancouver and Canada Place from our veranda.  We did have to leave our room to find our muster station and show our room keys to let them know we were aware of where we needed to go in case of an emergency.  We took a little time to explore the ship, and found a party going on near the pool.  They were playing loud music, dancing, and drinking.  it was too much for us so we returned to our cabin.  We decided we would watch from our veranda as we left.  The ship pulled away from Canada Place around 5:30 p.m.  We watched as we slowly moved away from the dock.  The skies were bright and sunny, and we had a really nice view of Vancouver.  The ship made the curve around Stanley Park and under the Lions gate Bridge, and then headed out to open water.  We could see the surrounding mountains clearly.

We were getting hungry by this time, so we went to the buffet restaurant on deck 9 - the Lido Deck.  We found a table near the window and ate a lot of food.  I was disappointed to learn that soda had to be purchased, but at least it wasn't as expensive as the alcoholic drinks which people were buying a lot of.  We decided to go see a show at the World Stage on decks 2 and 3.  It was an impressive theater, and we found seats near the stage.  We watched a singer named Emily Yates perform hits from Celine Dion, Adele, Whitney Houston and others.  She said that she just recently auditioned for a role in Wicked, but she was waiting to hear if she landed the part.  She had a good voice.  We returned to our cabin and watched the movie, Wicked, until about midnight when we fell asleep with the ship slightly rocking.