So while waiting for our helicopter to take us to our next destination, Sonora Resort, i wrote and e-mail to the hotel manager. All hotels make mistakes and thats fair enough, but it's the way they go about correcting that mistake that matters and in my opinion they did absolutely nothing. I had a reservation to stay at the hotel again before we flew home so i told him i was cancelling and going across the road to the Four Seasons. He responded quickly and apologised and agreed with me they hadn't done enough and asked me to keep my reservation and give them the opportunity to set things right. I agreed.
While in Vancouver, the weather was pretty poor and rainy. We went for a few walks, went up the tower and had a good look around. We liked the place but decided to leave Stanley Park and Granville Island for our return.
Some restaurants we ate in;
Hawksworth - Absolutely exceptional
The Flying Pig - Good pub type food
Water Street Cafe - Bit touristy, bit arrogant, pretty average, expensive.
Tojo's - Truly Fantastic sushi in an empty, random and boring room. No atmosphere. Very expensive.
We fly up to Sonora Resort on a London Air helicopter from the airport, a 45 min trip. We had the honour of having the resort owner on board with is, Brandt Louie and his wife, who are both lovely. Shared a drink with him while talking about the resort, fishing the next day.
The resort is absolutely phenomenal. The view from our room;
It's basically an all inclusive, albeit an eye water expensive one. In the evening you have a choice of al a carte or tasting menu. All up to michelin star quality and all superb. The house wine is included and was very good although i did upgrade it a couple of nights to some stuff i really wanted to try.
From out room we could see seals playing, huge amounts of bald eagles and even a pod of dolphins swam past. There are some whirpools outside the resort that force fish up to the surface so you can watch the eagles feeding with a nice G+T.
Facilities include tennis, golf simulators, games room, private cinema, swimming pool, countless hot tubs located all over the place, putting green, biking, hiking, and then some pay for activities such as fishing, eco tours,, heli fishing etc.
We spent a day in the spa, which i've never ever done before, spent an obscene amount of money, but have to say it was worth every penny.
From there we took a water taxi to Campbell River, hired a car and drive to Port McNeill where we started a 4 day Kayak trip. We used Kingfisher Kayak and the trip was incredible. Camp site was top notch, huge tents, raised off the floor on wooden platforms and purpose built kitchen and dining area and located on Hanson island right next to Johnstone Straight. The only thing we didn't see was on Orca, but just being out on the water in that environment was special enough (for someone who lives in London).
After the Kayak trip we did a day trip to see grizzly bears We saw Bella with her two cubs and a small male. I took this photo on that trip,
On the way back a giant black fin pierced the water out of the corner of my left eye and i shouted Orca, boat slowed down and sure enough a huge male transient Orca swam right by. A awe inspiring sight for me, never seen one before.
We flew back from Port Hardy to Vancouver and checked back into the Hotel Georgia. We had been upgraded from Junior suite to a suite and a bottle of wine ($156) was in the room with a personal apology from the hotel manager. I sent him an e-mail thanking him.
This time around the sun was shining and we both fell in love with the outdoor nature of vancouver. Granvile island was great, had a salmon burger from a place in there that was incredible. We ate at Abattoir, my food was superb but my wifes main, lamb, was a bit fatty. We ate in Hawksworth again on our final night and had the tasting menu with the wine. An absolutely super dinner for our final night.
Next day we had some time before out flight back so i hired a small boat and we spent 3 hours going around looking at Vancouver from the water. It's an absolute must and inexpensive. £150 for 3 hours including fuel.
So off we went to the airport to fly home. Vancouver First lounge is nothing to write home about and we boarded the plane to find OF. I find it very difficult to understand how BA can charge full fare for a product that is so old, tired, dated and quite frankly dirty. It's pretty embarrassing for an airline that is trying to claim to be No.1 - it's just not good enough.
That said, we had 1A + 1K and it was a night flight, so we got on, had some food - watched a film and went to bed. So as the space and seat are the same when asleep, it didn't make a huge difference that it wasn't NF.
Steak
Breakfast
The cabin crew again were very good and apart from it being OF i couldn't complain !
Overall, the best 3 weeks off of my life !