Day 0/1 Victoria

Arrival:

This trip is a do-over a previously booked trip to Victoria the previous year which I had to cancel at the last minute because Hannah got sick with peumonia the day before. (I was a bad mom and wanted to just leave her with my parents since I had never ever cancelled on a trip before but my mom made me feel guilty). Luckily I discovered later that my citibank credit card gave me trip cancellation protection.

Playground structure

Anyhow, after a 2 hour delay for the flight we arrived in Victoria and managed to only have to wait 15 minutes for the not so frequent shuttle to downtown. Surprisingly, this was the easiest flight ever with the kids. Hannah just watched YouTube the whole time and Christopher went to sleep on the plane.  I actually was able to read the entire flight on my kindle. Afterwards, Charles said we should go to more places 2.5 hours away since the flight seemed so easy.

After we checked in to the Victoria Regent which was right on the water and of course had amazing views, I dragged everyone out to catch a water taxi to Fisherman's wharf where we did the touristy thing of eating at Barb's fish and chips. We checked out the playground around there and then I saw a crowd down below on the dock and remembered that this was also a common place to see seals. I don't think I had ever been that close to seals before so it was really cool. They seemed to be waiting for something and I read online later that it was a thing to feed the seals fish but they were looking to ban that activity. Well I didn't see anyone there do it so maybe it is banned now. But more than likely the seals were staring at us wondering why we weren't feeding them. Of course Hannah stepped really close to the edge of the dock but luckily didn't fall in (which reminds me of the gorilla and 4 year old incident - now I will live in fear of my kids just falling into things because I don't react fast enough to stop them).

Harbor seals

The day we arrived in Victoria was blustery and cold. It was terrible. I literally felt chilled to the bone and took a hot bath later. The forecast for the next 2 days only had a high of 55 F unfortunately with rain all Saturday.

Day 1:

We crammed a lot in today just to keep the kids busy but we did some activities that I thought we were going to do on the rainy day. Oops. We hit Miniature World first on the way to Beacon Hill Park which was much bigger than I thought and super interesting. Then with a lot of whining from Hannah while we walked to Beacon Hill Park and checked out the petting zoo there (lots of baby goats!). We didn't make it in time to see the Running of the Goats but whatever. It's a pretty good park but walking can be frustrating sometimes because it just takes so long - seemed like a great place to bike though. On the way back, we had lunch and then hit the bug zoo  (why did we just do all the indoor activities today???) This place was much smaller than I thought - basically just 1 room. The ant hive and information was super interesting. Hannah loved holding lots of insects. Even cockroaches which was super disgusting. I didn't realize that cockroaches will survive anything. That's just scary.

Holding a cockroach. Yuck.

So the Victoria Regent that we are staying at is awesome in that it has 2 bedroom units with full kitchens and sweeping views. And its location is prime also. But I really do wish for an indoor pool. For our last two trips we are falling into a pattern where we do a lot of activity until early/mid afternoon and then go back to the hotel and just sit around in a stupor until dinner time. A pool would have helped give us an afternoon activity. Just something for me to ponder more when booking future trips.