Rocky Mountaineer Tour

The trip was excellent, but it is exhausting, “always on the go”. The ride from the airport was exactly on time, in the right place. The stay at Pan Pacific was very nice with exceptional accommodations and service. (Breakfast was for a king). The Vancouver and area Tour was really well done,(by Evergreen Tours), including Whistler and Whistler village. The Tour Guide was exceptional, anything we wanted to see he took us there and also had a very good handle on the History and the Folklore of the various areas.

We were picked up at 0800 hrs from Pan Pacific to the train ( Rocky Mountaineer) and headed for Kamloops, The Fraser Canyon was very scenic from the Railway, Hells Canyon as well as several Falls along the way, again the food on the railway was exquisite. The only “not so nice” was the devastation caused by the fire. The entire area is blackened, at Litton, we passed through with no pictures allowed and a period of silence for the fallen. In Kamloops, we stayed @ Hotel Delta by Marriott, but no breakfast. From Kamloops to Jasper was a very scenic trip, with lots of ranches and logging locations. Throughout this leg of the trip, we saw little wildlife, a few deer, a bear, Eagles, female Elk and rodents, I Jasper we stayed at Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, in one of the cabins, no Breakfast. A tour of Maligne Lake was interesting, plus we saw nesting sites of the Eagles, mainly the bald-headed types. We left Jasper and went to Columbia ice fields (walked on the ice as though we had never seen ice before) then on to Lake Louise at Fairmont Chateau Louise, with excellent accommodations and service. We moved on to Banff where we stayed at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, (next door to the ‘Hot Springs’). We then took part in the Gondola ride, When we left this area to Calgary we checked into the Palisades Hotel before we headed off to the Calgary trip back home.

Overall this is a fantastic trip, recommended for the 50+ group. If you are Canadian you will have a refresher on the early history of the Province. I would recommend for sure to those who are retired and still mobile. There is quite a bit of walking involved.