We spent a couple of days having fun in Vancouver. We checked out of the hotel and headed to the train station. The station was beautiful and we were all pretty excited. We went and found the VIA check in booth. The person welcomed us and ask if we were on the Canadian. We said yes and showed him our prestige reservations. He said that there was no meal serviced leaving Vancouver so here are taxi vouchers so you can go get dinner. He gave all of us taxi vouchers and suggested we check out Olympic Square. We took a taxi to the area and found somewhere to eat. I think we were too excited to eat a big meal so we had a quick dinner and headed back to the station.
Inside the station, we noticed more activity as more people were arriving for the train. We walked over to the VIA booth and they told us to hang out in the prestige area of the lounge and we would be boarded first. Our luggage had already been taken aboard to our rooms so we just strolled around the station.
The VIA lounge isn't much to look at. It is just separated from the rest of the lounge area for the other passengers by a simple panels. They had juice and coffee if we wanted it. But not much going on so we went out to the patio area where the bulk of the other passengers were sitting. They had a nice mural and we took pictures under it. Then we walked over and looked at the sets of train cars. They had four rows of cars and that represented two train sets. The train is so long it is split into two when it is parked in the Vancouver station. We guessed at which set was ours and then I started looking for the park car. Was easy, it was on the end and the prestige cars right in front of it. We walked all around in anticipation of our trip and watched the preparations
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It wasn't long until the crews started moving barriers from the far end of the patio and a gentlemen came up to us and told us that we would now be boarding. He lead us out of the patio and into the boarding platform. We got some looks from a few people that were waiting to board and I was very happy with priority boarding, we were taken to our prestige car and shown to our room.
Our concierge stopped by and introduced himself and explained everything about our room in detail. He showed us how to work the television and the shower. He pointed out all the features in the room. It was awesome compared to an Amtrak bedroom. The air and heat, the call buttons, the speakers and everything else that is a crap shoot on Amtrak worked perfectly. They included some nice amenities. We had a refrigerator that wasn't going to get really cold we were told so our concierge would put ice in it to help it out. Very hard to power all the gadgets in the room so I wasn't surprised at all. I was just thrilled that we had a refrigerator! We were told to come down to the Park Car when we were all settled. There we were greeted by all three of the prestige class concierge and told all about the Canadian. What our schedule would be like, how dinner service worked, things to do on the train and reminded to always just ask if we need anything.
We were then treated to our first appetizer and had our first drinks. The bar has lots of different kinds of alcohol and mixes and some of them were top shelf. We were then asked to sit in the dome and we got a chance to see the top of the train. It was awesome! They brought us our drinks and snacks and proceeded to tell us about this leg of the journey. While we were getting ready to pull out, the staff went and converted our rooms from daytime to nighttime configuration. We started moving and we all let out a cheer. We were on our way!