After getting some tickets through a connection we planned a bit of a last minute trip to Whistler and Vancouver. This isn’t going to be too extensive of an entry since I don’t think I’m able to offer especially helpful advice on either of the two cities or the Winter Olympics in general, but I’ve got pictures!
|
|
Attending both a Winter and Summer Olympics have been two items on my list of things to do before I die, and I always thought they’d be something I’d have to plan waaaayyy in advance. But that’s not necessarily true. We managed to get hotels in both Whistler and Vancouver about a month prior to the start of the games. Apparently this isn’t uncommon for the Olympics as corporate sponsors, delegations and media often overbook and cancel. The rooms were still CRAZY expensive, but they were there.
|
|
|
|
Speaking of prices, if you’re very set on attending an Olympics and it’s not local or you don’t have friends or relatives you can stay with, get ready to pay for the privilege of being there. Our condo in Whistler was more than double what it will be next month, and our hotel in Vancouver was close to four times what it will be on the same day of the week next month. Even the Days Inn was $300 a night. And tickets…well we didn’t pay for ours, but the person who did spent a ridiculous amount of money on them.
|
|
Two things that might help with prices: go during the week, and don’t be afraid of general admission or standing room options. At ski jump and bobsled we had seats, but chose to hang out in general admission areas because the views were just as good and closer to the action. We also had tickets for a skiing event that got moved from a weekend to a Tuesday, and scalpers wouldn’t even bother looking at them because tickets for weekday events were too hard for them to sell.
|
|
What to see
The events we attended were large hill ski jumping, two-man bobsled qualifying, and the USA/Canada qualifying hockey game. All were fantastic events to watch. My husband had read somewhere that seeing the winter events on TV is very different than attending in person, and I definitely agree. The scale of ski jump and bobsled is ridiculous in person. I was worried there would be a lot of downtime between jumpers/sleds, but it went pretty quick for both. In the qualifying round for ski jump they were going every 40 seconds. While the hockey game was awesome for obvious reasons, I thought it was more fun to attend outdoor events. Also don’t shy away from going to events that your home country isn’t a contender for. Chances are the team that is good at the event has loud supporters from its home country, and they make it a lot of fun. Ski jump events in some of the Nordic countries draw something like 70,000 people, so there are some crazy fans!
General advice
Be patient: Between security, lines for shuttles, and waiting for venues to open, we did a lot of standing around. It’s just part of getting a large number of people where they need to be safely.
One event per day: We did a morning/early afternoon event and evening event in one day, and it was a pain. I don’t regret it and we were only there for a weekend so we had to cram in what we could, but it made for a very long and tiring day. And if you have to take shuttles to both venues, it can actually be tight time-wise. Leaving open time where you’re not scheduled to see events leaves you time to soak up Olympic atmosphere or just relax.
Do your research: Even if you do it last minute like we did, find out as much as you can ahead of time about transportation, your venues, security and anything else you can get your hands on. The volunteers that were everywhere were pretty helpful, but sometimes we’d get two different answers to the same question from different people. Plus not having to figure things out on the fly means you’ll be able to get where you need to be sooner and not miss anything!
Marylandgirl's Blog 