Day 5--Vancouver Aquarium

Beluga whale at the Vancouver Aquarium

Pacific white sided dolphins at the Vancouver Aquarium

Bald eagle at the Vancouver Aquarium

Day 5: Vancouver Aquarium

We decided that going to the aquarium would be an excellent transition to the “sea” portion of our vacation, which starts August 9.  I got up and got ready, then took my computer over to Blenz to use the internet while I had breakfast.  I had a blueberry scone and a cup of coffee and enjoyed feeling like J.K. Rowling, writing in a coffee shop.  (If only I had her talent!)

When I returned to the room, Dave was waking up and we got ready to go out for the day to the aquarium.  We took a cab over to Stanley Park (where the aquarium is housed) and then, after a little wait, we got our tickets and headed inside to see the exhibits. 

We started by looking at the sea otters, which were bigger than I had pictured them from seeing them on television.  They were just as adorable, though, and seemed to be having a good time grooming themselves and floating in the water.  They were moving too fast to get good pictures of though, even with my camera on sports setting.

Then we went to see the beluga whales!  These were very small whales and so cute!  There was even a relative youngster, only three years old, who was born at the aquarium.  She was in the exhibit with her mother and her grandmother.  We walked over to see the Pacific white-sided dolphin training session and then back to see the beluga whale show.  Then we decided to have lunch.  I had a hot dog and fries and Dave had a Thai chicken salad.  He said it was very good. 

We then tried to see the dolphin show but it was too crowded.  We watched part of it from the underground viewing area.  We got in line for the Birds of Prey show and stuck around for the next dolphin show.  All the shows were quite good, but only about 15 minutes long.  That seemed to be the standard training time. 

After that, we walked through the Amazon rainforest exhibit.  By this time, it was getting quite crowded.  Dave even made a joke that it was an aquarium AND a zoo!  It was so crowded that I could not even enjoy shopping in the gift store (now *that* is crowded!). 

We left the aquarium and got a bottle of water, then walked to the information booth to find out where to catch the bus.  Wouldn’t you know it, we had to walk back to where we had just come from!  However, on our way back, we stopped and looked at the rose gardens and enjoyed walking through the park on our last day in Vancouver.  We caught the bus back to Burrard Street and then walked to our hotel from there.

We had a light snack in our room, and then I set about charging all the electronics and getting everything ready for our transition to the Disney Wonder cruise ship!  We would be heading down to Canada Place to embark the ship in the morning.