Travel

June 2022 annual Whistler trip

Posted by Wynne Lock on

At the last moment before they expired, NPY used his travel credit card’s annual bonus rewards points to book a two-night stay at the Pan Pacific Whistler Village for June 24-26. Pan Pacific huh? It’s an old hotel at the Vancouver waterfront where we celebrated B+K’s nuptials back in 2012. Old but elegant.

As we approached our departure dated of June 24, I could hardly wait for it to arrive. Kiddo was sick with his second bout of Covid in the same spring. Work was bonkers and had been like so for a month and I was burning out, yet unwilling to say it aloud.

As usual, I created a packing list but unlike our previous trip, to Halifax, I was packing into a variety of shopping totes. A large Ikea Frakta for me and Baby’s stuff, a Planted Meals cooler bag full of snacks, dishware and related items, and a smaller Frakta for Kiddo’s stuff but I can’t remember which one now.

One thing I critically forgot was to pack Gravol and a vomit bucket….

We stopped at Fox & Oak as our first stop in Squamish. It seemed too early for lunch for NPY so we got donuts and ate about half a donut each.

Then we head for lunch. NPY forgot that last time we passed through Squamish – around the same time last year when we traveled to Whistler with MY and her family – he presented us with the choice between going to Crabapple Cafe and Fergie’s Cafe. We (I) chose Crabapple and so I wanted to try Fergie’s which you also see the IGers raving about. He griped because we seemed to be driving to nothing and his first thought, before seeing the whole building, was that we were going to some camping cafeteria….

Fergie’s Cafe once upon a time may have been a campsite restaurant but it has grown tremendously with a new, incongruous but neat building and we set on the lower/ground level in the shade, with the kids wistfully looking over at the playground.

Baby ate not a huge amount but it made her stomach uneasy during the last stretch to Whistler and she threw up twice. It was pretty gross and I’m glad I was tasked with cleaning her up and figuring out her clothing change and NPY cleaned out her car seat to the best of his ability. After the second bout, she went back into her carseat wearing just a diaper!

So we were pretty relieved to get to the hotel and find a comfortable one-bedroom suite in a room that felt clean. NPY used his annual points bonus to book a two-night stay at the Pan Pacific Whistler Village location and the room very much reminded me of the one-bedroom MY stayed in last year at the Westin. I claimed the bedroom because NPY stays up later and watches TV. I didn’t know it was a one-bedroom and it’s the only way to travel these days with two kids. We had a balcony we didn’t use but we did admire the straight-on view of the majestic mountain from our windows.

After freshening up and it was so needed, we did an early and no-frills dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Kids ate and got ice cream (so we weren’t going to get Cows) and we went to the playground in the village.

Omgosh, it was flying ant season. It was strange and a little unsettling but harmless. It seemed like a plight but I wouldn’t know the first day that it was not going to be nearly as bad the following two days!

A great feature of the Pan Pacific was having breakfast included! We are four so we could order four things and that stretched well across the four of us with some extra pastries and beverages for the rest of the day.

The kids might have complained but they were placated with tons of television in both rooms.

I was really looking forward to Saturday because we arranged to rent bikes and bike around the area. We hadn’t done it every before and it felt like we were missing out on a key experience. Last year we went to Whistler over Canada Day weekend and looking into rentals too late. Further, the kids had never been in a chariot before.

Hilariously, I think Kiddo is just about the maximum age for the chariot and this was the first and last time he would be in one (that size).

Still, they had a great time and I liked cycling and managed on my Extra-Small bike. We were planning on taking the Valley Loop and stopped at three spots: Meadow Park where the kids played, Rainbow Park which we thought was too busy to stop and then Alta which was definitely too busy! The kids had gelato in the chariot and Baby fell asleep. If we stopped, Kiddo started to get too hot. It seemed to me like we were constantly going downhill and when we returned, it wasn’t too hard. It was NPY’s first time pulling a chariot and he struggled at times and thought his bike was broken but it was just the weight of the chariot.

We went to The Keg for dinner which was mercifully just across the way from the hotel and delicious. The kids had ice cream with their kid meals and and it was the last day to get Cows so we went there and the kids had a second helping of ice cream just before more playground time in the village.

For our second hotel breakfast, I ordered one portion of cook your own and it was brilliant and I would do that again and order more portions. It was so nice to have a hot breakfast!

I took NPY literally when he said we weren’t in a rush to leave and we visited the Rocks & Gems store and it was so thrilling for Kiddo and I liked how it had an educational element. We also visited the bookstore.

NPY had found a dead bug in his food at Fergie’s so we had a gift card and considered going back for lunch on our way back to the city but we ended up driving home directly. The kids had doses of chewable Gravol and no vomitting incidents to have to pull over for!

On this day..

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