Less than a week after I signed for a new apartment for my relocation I was on my way out the door to SEA. After a relatively uneventful trip to the airport I spent a few minutes in the SEA Centurion lounge to grab a quick snack and confirm some of my relocation details.
Turns out award tickets aren't eligible for free wifi on EVA. Also, I left those headphones in the lounge
After making sure that I would have a place to live when I came back, I headed over to the A concourse to board my flight to YVR. Currently there's a fair amount of construction going on in the A concourse, resulting in a long gap in the terminal where there are currently no gates. While AC normally had jetbridges for their flights, they were using bus gates during the construction.
Empty concourse
Gate art featuring local artists
AC8084
SEA-YVR
Dash-8-400
15A
For a turboprop assigned to a bus gate, there was naturally one bus for all the passengers. As the only passenger in group 1 or 2, it was a decent wait on the bus before the next passenger arrived on the bus several minutes later.
Empty bus
After everyone boarded the bus we drove basically halfway to Tacoma to our Dash-8. Now, considering that I grew up flying Saab 340s and Dash-8-200s I would actually pick a decent seat so I could see something...
After a relatively uneventful 40 minutes in the air we arrived at YVR at the faraway transborder concourse, before walking halfway to Richmond to grab my EVA boarding pass on EVA stock.
Arriving at YVR...with a view
After grabbing a new copy of my boarding pass, I headed over to the Maple Leaf Lounge in the international terminal. There was no line to get in and, even during the evening/night bank of flights, the lounge was never particularly busy. There are even some plane-spotting opportunities from the lounge.
Plane-spotting
Lounge
Since many of the late-night flights are to Asia, they have some Asian..."inspired" food in the lounge. The hot options were essentially an overly dry overly sweet sampling of westernized Asian food which can be described as mediocre at best. After sampling the snack I left the MLL to head over to the Plaza Premium Lounge, which is the BR contract lounge at YVR.
Food area
Yum...
I had brought what Canadian cash I had at home with me so I spent it at a shop on the way to the PPL. Overall the PPL is decently appointed and generally pretty consistent from location to location. EVA also contracts with PPL to set aside an area of the lounge for their own Diamond members. I immediately put my name down for a shower, especially given the number of passengers in the lounge and how few showers are available.
Entrance
Interior
The PPL boasts a better food selection than the MLL, with fresher (and better) hot Asian food. I visited the live station to grab a bowl of fish ball noodles as a somewhat more proper dinner than what the MLL offers.
Noodles
About an hour later my buzzer rang for the shower. I was assigned to the generously large accessible shower, where I did my trademark 10 minute brush, poop, and shower before heading over to the gate. Generally when I travel I always bring my own toiletries since many of the large toiletries dispensers in lounges (and some hotels) are easy to tamper. In this case, there was a phase separation in the shampoo/body wash...
Shower room
Yikes...
After showering I left the lounge and made my way to the gate for boarding and the beginning of this RTW trip!