Saturday Feb 10
The weather was sunny and cold but it was back to Vancouver for us on the 10:40 am bus. We arrived at the Shangri La just after 1pm - since our room was not ready we upgraded to a suite for an additional $30 per night - seemed like a good deal but they could have given us the upgrade automatically however I presume since we booked through Expedia (at a cheap rate) they weren’t inclined to do us any favours.
We dropped our luggage and headed to Joe Fortes for lunch - the concierge offered us her card in case we couldn’t get in and said just to mentioned her name. Well this worked a treat - we were initially told up to 1 hour wait but when we flashed the concierge’s card it was “open sesame” and we got in straight away. We had brunch then went back to the hotel, did a bit of unpacking and then made a walk around Coal Harbour.
We went to Cin Cin for dinner which we had booked a week earlier - and had a bit of a mishap which ended very well. The waited spilled my main course all over the table - the manager rushed over after we were re-seated and said our whole meal was complimentary - what an amazing service recovery.
Sunday Feb 11
Ah a beautiful day in Vancouver - sunny but cold (+5℃) - after breakfast we did a huge walk - 3.5 hours around Stanley Park - ending with a late lunch at one of our old favourites, Lift, right at the marina. We got back to our hotel late in the afternoon - did some Olympics viewing before having a happy hour drink in the bar then later dinner at the hotel dining room. Service was pretty sloppy but the food was OK - certainly not in the same league as Cin Cin. We spent the rest of the evening watching more of the Olympics.
Monday Feb 12 - Family Day holiday in BC
Well it was off home today - via LAX on AA and QF. When Dieter checked out the agent noticed that Dieter was a Shangri La Jade level member (thanks to Amex) so she comped us our 2 breakfasts ($90 worth) - made up for the sloppy service at dinner.
Monday Feb 12 - 14
It was a long trip home since we were flying via LAX - our layover in LAX was 5 hours so we had plenty of time to enjoy the QF lounge. We arrived home at 8:30am and were in the door just after 9:30am.