My husband and I are 50 years 44 years and celebrating Dave's 50th birthday. We already had a great pre cruise week, spending 3 days at the elegant Fairmont Pallisair Calgary. Lovely decor, but practices a little rigid and faux English, afternoon tea(e.g. need 24 hrs notice for a cream tea???, Strange for the class of hotel) none the less I loved the grandeur and was determined that this was the hotel for me prior to travel, I did not change this opinion. Calgary was dusty and dismal after the snow. We found little other than shopping, eating or walking around the Malls. What will remain with me as an impression of Calgary however, is not the Fairmont, but the street people and numbers of mentally ill walking and sleeping on the streets. Truly shocking, florid illness passes by the tourists and business people, with little interaction between these 2 social classes.
We boarded the Rocky Mountaineer for a two-day Gold Leaf journey to Vancouver, with a stop in Kamloops. Our favorite leg of the journey was Kamloops to Vancouver. We found the landscape breathtaking however; we saw most wildlife on the Calgary to Kamloops line (4 bears, 2 wolves, mammottes, beavers, multiple dear and bald eagles)
We pre-booked the lumberjack show, but having arrived late in the evening we had no time to wash up and I really did not want to go. It was a funny talented show and the salmon was the best I had in Canada and Alaska.