King Pacific Lodge Canada – Perfect Luxury Hideaway Resort

My next amazing journey's destination was the luxury hideaway resort in Canada - King Pacific Lodge - Princess Royal Island at British Columbia. Actually if you are planning for your luxury hideaway holidays, this is one of my top suggestions.

We flew from Hong Kong to Vancouver and had a brief stop. From Vancouver, we were transferred to Bella Bella by a chartered flight which was part of the luxury all inclusive package offered by King Pacific Lodge. From Bella Bella, we were transferred to this remote resort by float plane. This is actually one of the top luxury resorts I have visited and at the same time, the most remote. I remember my boss said ‘We are in the middle of nowhere’ when we landed in Bella Bella. I’m sure you’ll feel the same when you are here.

There are several reasons King Pacific Lodge is on my Top 10 List. Here are a few of them:

Best Whale Watching
There were only 17 rooms. Some of them had sea view and only two of them had a balcony. One of the balcony rooms was occupied by my boss, of course. I was lucky enough to be assigned the other one with both sea view and a balcony. Hence I could enjoy whale watching by lying on a chair in my balcony. Three steps in whale watching: heard a sound, saw a splash of water, saw the whale’s head or tail or body. I went by late September and there were lots of them, as it was the best time in a year to watch whales at King Pacific Lodge.

Best Eco Adventure
Kayaking among sea lions and starfishes was something extremely interesting. The sea lions were curious to find out who we were and were not afraid of swimming around us. Water here was crystal clear and along the shore, we could see a lot of dark red starfishes, some of them had five limbs and some had more. Of course we did whale watching at near distance. I failed in bear watching because I went on a rainy day when the bears might probably prefer to stay home. Many other wildlife were seen in areas around the lodge.

Transportation within the lodge is by sea only.

Best Luxury Hideaway Resort
King Pacific Lodge is a perfect remote resort to do any corporate offsite because laptops and mobile phones wouldn’t work here. We were completely separated from rest of the world. My boss was happy to have full attention from everyone as they could not talk on mobile phones or check blackberries under the table while attending meetings. Likewise, if you want to enjoy a hideaway holiday, King Pacific Lodge is one of the top Canadian resorts where you won’t be disturbed by phone calls or emails. (Only VERY LIMITED access of internet and telephone was available at the business centre.)

From their official website:

King Pacific Lodge provides the ultimate in luxury adventure travel and ecotourism vacations from its location in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. As a luxury wilderness lodge, this is an unsurpassed eco adventure travel destination. Among its many accolades, King Pacific Lodge was selected as the Best Resort in Canada
by Condé Nast Readers' Choice Awards in 2008 and again in 2009.

– I personally think that KPL well deserves these awards.

Anna's Amazing Journeys - King Pacific Lodge

Ottoman Party

There were shops in Istanbul where we can rent an Ottoman custom to dress up ourselves. To prepare for our Ottoman Party, we were delivered to one of thoese shops to choose our own favourite custom. Our Ottoman Party was not only a party, but our next team challenge.

Our exercise for the day was to invite a guest with inspirational stories in their life to our party and share with us their experiences. I must say this was the most difficult exercise. All 'A' members in our team, Anna (2N), Ana (1N), Ashley, Adam together with our local guide Yavuz, held a strategic meeting at the Four Seasons before departing to the Grand Bazzar.

We actually had a number of proposals but none of them seemed perfect. Yavuz suggested to invite his wife to share their love story but we all wanted to test our luck at the Grand Bazzar first. As you know, once we were at a place with interest and fun, we all forgot about our target. We just enjoyed shopping the beautiful souveniors, the Turkish Blue Eyes and a lot many other cheap, colourful and beautiful things at the Grand Bazzar.

When we meet again over lunch, we had no chocie but to accept Yavuz's suggestion. Yavuz alrsoreminded us of the risk of other people might not turn up in the last minute which will spoil our entire plan. His wife and him will of course honour their promise. Yavuz then took us home after lunch to meet his wife and planned for the evening.

Dennis, a bronze-hair beautiful English woman, married a Turkish guy; a Protestian and a Muslim got married at a Cathorlic church...well not quite appropriate to share too much of their privacy here. But for sure their love story was really inspirational.

Ottoman Party & Presentation
As a tradition, we took our group photo over the party with all and everyone in Ottoman custom. Dennis came on time with some visual aids. Our group was picked to present first. The two 'N's were busy organising the visual aid while the boys conduct the presentation together with Dennis. We noticed that the carpet shop owner was the guest of one of our groups. Anyway, as we have guests with us, our boss decided to announce the results the following day.

I've asked my guide to wrap my head to make me look a 100% Ottoman

Yavuz and his wife were so helpful that we were completed impressed. Adam suggested to share our winnings with them. But believe it or not, we acctually didn't win a penny thought we were the second runner-up. The reason being too many complaints. Our boss finally decided to cancel the last team challenge and gave rest of our jackpot to charity. Wow, we can't look down on the power of complaining. But somehow, I did support such decision, as many of us didn't accept the 'rule of no rule' which induced the many complaints at the beginning.

Anna's Amazing Journey - Ottoman Party, Istanbul