CANADIAN ROCKIES BY RAIL: Family Time on the Continental Divide

Once you arrive in Vancouver, the entire day is yours to do as you please. Since you’re meeting with your Local Host® the next day for sightseeing suggestions, stick to one activity today after checking into your hotel. Go to Granville Island, just 2 ½ miles away. Granville Island is most famous for its large and bustling Public Market where local food vendors and artisans sell their wares. However, it’s also home to wonderful galleries and boutiques. Plus, it’s a terrific spot to take in Vancouver’s towering, all-glass skyscrapers and Coast Mountains that beckon in the background. While on Granville Island, don't miss: Edible Canada, the nation’s largest culinary tourism and locavore retail company that has its headquarters on the island. This is the perfect spot for an all-Canadian brunch, lunch, or dinner (plus: they boast an extensive wine list, including many fine Canadian wines from British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley that are only available within Canada). Plus, if you want to organize a private tour of Granville Island, Edible Canada can arrange that, too. Get to Granville Island by town car (we can help) or by walking 10 minutes from your hotel to go via water taxi. The nearest station is at the Plaza of Nations Marina (ask the concierge for directions) and look for signs to the False Creek Ferries, which will take you to the island.

After breakfast at your hotel and meeting with your Local Host® to get the lay of the land, you’ll receive complimentary tickets for the turn-of-the-(20th)-century hop-on/hop-off trolley to see all of Vancouver’s sites. Make sure to check out Robson Street (Vancouver’s main shopping area), Gastown (home to the city’s oldest buildings and popular with tourists), sites from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, Yaletown (the go-to neighborhood for high-end galleries, chic fashion and furnishings boutiques, high-concept restaurants, brew pubs, and salons), and the wonderful green oasis that is Stanley Park (which is actually 10 percent larger than New York City’s Central Park). If you hit the park later in the day, grab dinner The Teahouse. Surrounded by the park and the Pacific Ocean, the view alone is reason enough to go, but since you’re in the Pacific Northwest, you can’t pass up the fresh BC salmon with lemon caper sauce and pairing it with a BC white wine from the four-star restaurant’s extensive wine list. For young palettes, order the margherita pizza.

Enjoy a guided sightseeing tour (by bus) of the area that includes a visit to Lake Louise, Castle Mountain, and Moraine Lake. Afterward, there is plenty of free time for you to explore on your own. We recommend canoeing on Lake Louise. The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise – right on the lake’s shores – offers canoe rentals by the hour, as well as an hour-and-a-half Voyageur Canoe Experience in traditional, authentic, 26-foot cedar-strip canoes with a historian guide versed in the stories of the old fur trade that dominated the region. If you prefer to keep it on dry land, the two-mile trail from Lake Louise to the Lake Agnes Teahouse is one of the area’s most popular hikes. The ascent is moderate, with only a few steep sections. Before you reach Lake Agnes and the teahouse, you’ll reach Mirror Lake, a subalpine lake. We recommend stopping in at the teahouse for some apple crumble and for a cup of tea (there are several hundred kinds on the menu). With older children, this hike takes about three hours, there and back. This evening, you’re back in Banff. Try a different restaurant tonight—we recommend ordering the Thai mussels at The Maple Leaf. Ask your server to whip something up for junior.

After breakfast at your hotel this morning, you’ll check out and be whisked to Calgary International Airport (by bus). Travel time from the Banff Park Lodge to the airport is about an hour and a half.