2010 Olympics: Long Lines to Nothing

Posted by Cynical Sarah on February 20, 2010

I thought Vancouver was busy when I was downtown on Thursday and again on Friday taking in some of the 2010 Olympic excitement. It was nothing to what it was like out there today.

Helper Troy and I left around 12:30ish to go see if we could get into Russia House today. Russia is playing host to the 2014 Winter Olympics, so they’ve taken over Science World and are supposed to have a pretty awesome hospitality house there.

Unfortunately, the whole world has heard that as well.

On Thursday when I was in the area, the line was a bit long and it looked like it would probably be a half-hour to an hour wait to get in. Today as we got of the Skytrain at the Science World stop, I could see from there we weren’t getting in there today.

Put together another beautiful day in Vancouver and it being a weekend and the result is a line that snakes back and forth to a point where I couldn’t see the end of the line. I decided to put off that Olympic experience for another day and maybe do a little rain dance to help my cause in the next few days too.

Instead, Helper Troy and I walked on to where some of the Provincial pavilions are set up. We walked through the Right to Play pavilion, which was nice but basically a kid zone. Next up was the Quebec House where you could bypass the food line and go right in if you weren’t going to eat. It was a tough call since it was poutine day in Quebec today, but I had my fingers crossed for the possibility of a buffalo burger in the Saskatchewan House.

Quebec House was a bit of a let down since the giant cube was essentially just a place to sit and eat. On the plus side, they already had some live music going for the day, and even though he sang in french, Alexander Poulin sounded pretty good. Oh, and it was definitely the right choice to skip the poutine because it was $10 for a very small portion.

Next up, Saskatchewan House. I made the assumption there must be something worth seeing in there since there was a pretty good lineup for that too. Someone actually asked a worker what was inside, and the big draw seemed to be that you could get your picture taken in a Saskatchewan field. Yeah, 15-20 minutes in line to get your picture in a field. Woohoo!

Turns out said field was actually a green screen set up and you could choose a wheat field, pond hockey, mounties or football field to be in. Not nearly as cool as the idea of an indoor field for pics, but we got in line anyway since we’d already waited in line to get in.

Count down another 15-20 minutes and just when we’re at the front of the line, next to go, they shut down for a half hour break. Those of us in line are given business cards signed by the guy running the thing so we can come back and jump right back in line, and we head over to the main pavilion to see what’s there too. Darker, and with some bigger screen TVs to watch the events on, this place was a small step up from Quebec House.

The food was ok priced, but when it came down to it, a buffalo burger for $8 that I’d have to wash down with a $4 drink was a little steep. I can handle an $8 burger – it’s no worse than county fair food prices – but $4 for a bottle of soda? No thanks.

Off we went again to see what else was along the way. Molson Canadian House probably would have been cool to check out – but once again terrible lines and I was getting pretty hungry. Ontario House was rumored to have a 4-D theater inside, and those rumors equaled huge lines as well. That would have to be some pretty intense smell-o-vision for me to wait that long before getting some food in me.

My decision was to walk along the water further to the celebration center set up at the Plaza of Nations/Edgewater Casino where they have a ton of food options set up. No live music going yet, but at least they had some decent food choices that weren’t as gouging. After Helper Troy *finally* chose what food he wanted and we got done eating, we took a quick walk through the market area and then walked up to the downtown area.

Next on my list to check out was the Canada Pavilion, which was set up at one of the LiveCity areas they had set up. We walked up to where it was and the lines were crazy there too. Once again, I knew they were supposed to have some pretty cool stuff, but not cool enough for me to wait the indicated 1+ hours it would take to get inside. Plus you’ve got to figure there are some huge lines to get to that cool stuff once you’re inside too.

That’s the point when we decided to call it a day and come home. There was just no chance we were going to get in an see anything else without loads of more patience left in our reserves.

On our way to the nearest Skytrain station we had to pass by the official entrance to the 2010 Olympic Store as well. You guessed it – huge lineup there too. People were waiting for-ev-er to just get in to see and purchase Olympic merchandise. I hate to break it to these people too, but it’s just the Hudson Bay store; it’s not anything super special. They could have even gone in one of the various other entrances and worked on making their way up to the 5th floor to see stuff too.

So the story of the day – lots of long lines, not nearly enough stuff that was actually worth the wait.

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Tags: 2010 Olympics, provincial houses

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