Day 32 - Fri 10May2024 - Victoria, BC

 With the need to pass under the Lions Gate bridge, our departure from Vancouver was started around 2am. I wasn't awake, but other travelers stayed up and photographed the passing under the bridge.  We weren't scheduled to dock in Victoria until 11am and I still don't know why we couldn't sail faster to Victoria.  In any event, after a very quick breakfast we attended the interdenominational Bible study which was shown in the printed program to start at 9am and be held up on deck 14.  However, Ron decreed that it would be at our customary time of 8:30am in the Princess Live theater.  He gave some introductory remarks about the book of Revelation and then there was a slight train wreck when we got off the scripture passage and into other contentious topics.  

Just before 11am the crew backed the Majestic Princess into its berth at the Victoria Cruise ship terminal.  It took a while for the gangway to get set up, but around 11am we were able to exit the ship for the day with an onboard time of 10:30pm.  This is one of the longer stops in Victoria that we have experienced in a number of times that we have had to stop here to fulfilll the Passenger Vessel Security Act dating from the late 1800's.  Our plan for the day was to catch a public bus to Buchart Gardens and spend the afternoon there.  We exited the terminal grounds and crossed the street eastbound up to the next street where there was a bus stop.  We waited a bit and a bus with a "NOT IN SERVICE" sign on it. The driver did say that we could ride this bus downtown to a transfer point to the 75 route bus that goes directly to Buchart Gardens about an hour ride away.  The fare was $5CN/pp for an all day pass.  Fortunately I had Canadian Currency so the ticket purchase was easy and 20 or so of us boarded the bus which followed the regular route downtown and we were dropped off at a transfer point where we waited about 40 minutes for the next bus at noon.

The bus stop at the Buchart Gardens is right at the main gate.  While we were waiting for the bus I did purchase our entry tickets which were good for this day only and non-refundable.  The cost was  $39.35 CDN or $28.05US per person.  After a quick bio break, we scanned our tickets in and enjoyed a lovely time walking the gardens.  We haven't been to the gardens in probably 20 years but in my memory it looked much the same.  Before we did our actual walk around the garden we enjoyed a fish chowder and salad lunch in the Blue Poppy Restaurant.  It was quite good and the cost for two of us was only $38.10US.

Just before 4pm we decided that we had seen enough and headed for the bus stop and caught a 4:05pm bus back to downtown next to the Legislative building.  After we got off of the bus a local resident asked if we were tourists.  We said we were and she said at 5pm the bell tower across the street will go off indicating it's 5pm.  So we waited a few minutes, and sure enough, the carillon went off and played to beautiful music. 

We thanked the gal for suggesting the stop and walked across the street to the BC Museum, but it was closing in 1 hour and we didn't think that it was a wise use of our time or money so we walked back to the terminal via the David Foster Beach Trail.  It's a lovely walk away from traffic and I even spotted a large red crab in the water at one point.  We reached the terminal area and gift shop where we had a nice discussion with the locals about the PVSA and other things.  We then reboarded the ship and immediately spotted JoAnn who said I looked tired.  So we stopped and chatted with them over some refreshments until we realized that there was an Italian singer for the night's entertainment.  We missed the 7:30pm set, but attended the YES/NO game show where I lasted the full 3 minutes and won a nice Princess backpack.  I turned down a bottle of champagne for the second prize and the host was stunned as he hadn't seen anyone turn down alcohol.    We then attended Marco Romano's 9:30 set which was very good.

Tonight was our last laundry night and we started our laundry and came back to the stateroom just as the Majestic Princess was leaving its berth.  And then it happened!  The Northern Lights appeared in colors and quantities we've never seen before.  So as our clothes washed and dried, we watched the Aurora Borealis for around an hour from deck 17 aft. It was one of the biggest and best displays of the Aurora that I've seen in my lifetime.  Over the past few years we've searched for them quite unsuccessfully.  But on this night, they were given to us as a free gift.  There's a possibility that we'll be seeing them again tomorrow night as we sail to Seattle.  Our port side stateroom faces north, so we should have a great view.  

Tomorrow is our final day of the voyage. We have a day at sea which means we'll do a leisurely cruise out into the Pacific Ocean and then return in the afternoon before ending up in Seattle on Sunday morning.  I'll have a review of the cruise after we finish it.  It'll compare doing a trans Pacific cruise on Princess compared to Holland America.  What's really interesting about this 3 day cruise is that much of the agenda is repeat activities from the crossing and there aren't the craft or cultural activities we experienced.  This is, however, lots of loud music and activities in the Piazza.  Plus the pool areas are quite active and the LIDO dining area is quite crowded.