Oh my goodness . . . what a great report with two themes. First half wonderful - second half the trip from hell.

Your photos are lovely and Vancouver looks like a great holiday destination. The hotel looks like a gem and it sounds like the staff really took care of you. Actually, with all the travel mess over Christmas, I'm surprised you got home as soon as you did. Did your bags ever show up???

Over the years I've traveled just before/just after and over Christmas Eve/Day itself several times and never run into any snafus.

Great TR and photos Denisea. Loved your line 'The hostage crisis began early.'
The amount of enjoyment you guys experienced during the first part will eventually overshadow the difficult ending.
Lady Luck will treat you better next time. Maybe back in Van?

I am done. The end.

Oh boy, I also only saw this as it was posted on the other thread, and I don’t look at the Canada forum.

First, wow, those photos of snow and trees and those dogs and the Christmas lights. Really wonderful. I’m loving all the snow.

And second, wow, crikey, what an ordeal getting home.

Thanks so much for a fabulous Trip Report - and the wonderful photos. I really enjoyed the read.
Your attitude is great and no doubt makes a lot of difficult things easier to deal with from both sides.

Denisea

Thanks for the trip report. And to think late February and early March 2022, I flew to Vancouver to escape the snowy winter of eastern Canada! Just awful that you hit a blizzard and ran into travel snafus. Glad you managed to get some good food and I did enjoy the pictures of the city blanketed in snow and decked out for the holidays.

best wishes, Daniel

nyse - I don't know ...maybe tips on what not to do!

janisj We used to go to Paris every year for Christmas and never had a single issue. This was just an insane situation. I am still trying to get the bags. Apparently, they are now being held hostage b/c UPS didn't tell us we have to pay customs on them (why, I don't know as we didn't buy anything in Canada) but literally last night the shipper gave us a phone number for a customs office at UPS so I hope that will get the bags moving and on their way home! The hotel was a real bright spot in all this---really excellent service.

zebec we were just talking about what a bummer it was to miss Christmas entirely. After being sick, I'm still trying to get our decorations put up. We will go back to Vancouver again one day. The whole thing hasn't become funny yet, but it will someday.

Bokhara thank you - my attitude was all over the place! I really wanted to deck a few people along the way

Daniel_Williams Several of the hotel employees had moved to Vancouver to get away from wintery weather they grew up in other parts of Canada! The food was definitely a high point and the snow really was beautiful. Very Christmasy as long as you can leave a go home to enjoy Christmas.

An now, to try to get those UPS people in customs and try to get the bags home!

Wow what a read! How fortunate your hotel could accommodate you and you could afford to stay and didn't end up sheltered in am emergency center.

WOW! What an adventure. I don't usually come to the Canada forum, but your report was so interesting, it was a suggested read on another forum.
Hopefully, the rest of 2023 will make up for all this.

wow!!! What a horrible ending to what started out as a fabulous trip. We had a cancelled flight that resulted in a missed flight getting home from China a few years ago, but nothing like what you experienced. Luckily the hotel was able to put you up for the duration. If it makes you feel any better, your photos and descriptions are fabulous!!!! I am not usually on the Canadian forum either, but we are thinking of going to PEI this summer, so that's how I found your report. And someone posted the link on the Fodors Lounge. I hope you feel better soon!

Just a quick comment re Customs - and it likely won't help you now :( but when sending things internationally one needs to put 'used clothing' or something to that effect on the export form. Otherwise you can/may be charged for importing the value of the contents.

I traveled with an older family friend 3 or 4 times ages ago who always planned on major shopping on our trips and would send her old clothes home parcel post. The one time she forgot to fill out the customs form with the 'used contents' note, she was hit with a pretty stiff duty assessment back home. This was at least 20 years ago so procedures and personal import allowances have likely changed since then.

Oh wow. What a debacle at the end. But that was a great trip report. You make me want to go to Vancouver (and stay at the hotel you stayed at!)

Totally makes sense...we actually never filled out an export form. We completed a very basic form at the hotel and maybe b/c of the amount of insurance we requested it was valued at a higher level or as new goods. The UPS store in Canada called us as they were entering the info into their system but they didn't even mention customs. I should have realized it but it never crossed my mind that the bags would go through customs....my ability to think clearly was severely compromised.

So, now we are still waiting to see the bags start to move. We paid the customs fee and then UPS did call but the customs release was sent to UPS in Atlanta and the bags are in Seattle. The woman I spoke with finally gave me her direct number to follow up but she said even she doesn't have a direct number to UPS in Seattle. At first, she was very "I don't have any control over this" and I wasn't having ANY of that as I certainly don't have control over this and the fact that they never provided info on how to pay the customs fee. I had to remind her a few times that I am caught in the middle of all this and it is UPS job to ship items and get them to their destination. I also had to remind her that UPS provided no instruction on how to pay the fees and actually indicated that the fees would be due on delivery and also that calling UPS gets you no where - its an endless maze of automated BS (and that includes the chat bots). She was always nice but it took awhile to get her to at least give me a number so I can follow up.

I have no confidence that we are gonna see the bags. I checked this morning and the tracking shows nothing new (it doesn't even show that the fees were paid) and now Monday is a holiday, so that won't help. I hate having no control over what happens here...nothing I can do really to impact it. I am going to keep calling the customs line, the woman in Atlanta and also the UPS shipper in Vancouver - hoping the squeaky wheel will get the grease. It won't take long for me to start demanding they escalate but I'll give them a day or so to make something happen...looking for the right mix of pushy but polite to make people want to help because I really want to go full out nuclear!!!

I couldn't say I can really afford to stay that long but as I mentioned in the previous post as the days went on my mental capacity felt like it was going quickly and I didn't want to try to sort out finding another hotel. At least our hotel did give us a break on the room rate, we knew the area and there was a train station two blocks away. That said, I was NOT going to spend the night(s) at the airport. I saw all those poor people on the news and I knew that would put me over the edge (and I'd end up on the national news). I can't say enough about Wedgewood Hotel and their efforts to assist us.

Ah, this got posted in the lounge! Was wondering how suddenly people were finding this report. Appreciate all the comments--I think we all fear this situation and I hope I've done my time in traveler's purgatory. We go to London in April and I'd love to travel to and from Merry Olde England with no snafus.

To those who are considering Vancouver, it's lovely. If you go and you like a smaller hotel, Wedgewood really is nice and the service is very good. There are lots of larger hotels but we were really happy with Wedgewood. We had several discussions about extending our stay and also checking out and back in and whether or not anyone at the larger hotels would have taken any notice or gone out of their way to try and help us and we felt like we were in the right hotel in terms of getting help and a little sympathy.

What a great trip report! Although it didn't end as planned you posted some beautiful pictures and great ideas for dinner for when we go in August. Thank you for sharing. You will look back one day (maybe) and laugh. It is a great story!

Willowjane, I hope you have a great trip and you should be clear of snow.

we are still in travel hell as we wait for UPS and their investigation. We don’t have much hope they will actually locate the bags. Dealing with them is the worst and I am sure getting the money for the insurance of the bags is gonna be a PITA. If we can get some $ from the airlines for the hotel and food, I’ll be happy but that also will take time. Once we are finally done with that and it’s really over, the story will finally be eligible for humor!

At long last...today is February 9 and after much work and chasing UPS we finally got our luggage today. Miracle.

YEAH!!!! What great news! So happy for you!

Thanks for the tips!
 

We are headed to Vancouver as tourists for a few days at the end of May before taking the train south to Seattle for an Alaska cruise. I am reading Vancouver threads to make a list of sights and restaurants, thanks for the tips! I'm from Atlanta, so I'm very familiar with the ways that a bad snow/ice storm can impact travel. Atlanta hasn't had a bad bout since "Snowmagedden" a few years ago. Your pictures are beautiful and I loved hearing the successful parts of your trip.
Barb

also from Atlanta and actually was stuck at Hartsfield for two nights during Snowmageddon! Vancouver is wonderful as long as you can leave when you are ready. I am sure you’ll have a great time. Great city with so much to offer.