OK - who among us lives on the West coast of Canada? Knows people there? Is there a buzz about the tour and are people planning to try to see the family if they are close? Were the 25k locals or did people drive in from Vancouver, etc.? Does anyone want to be our local reporter a la Sun lion on the Australia Tour (nod of cap to Sun Lion)?
I was there!
A couple of friends and I took the ferry over to the Island for the day for the event. It's not a cheap trip, nor a short one (between getting to the ferry, waiting for the ferry, taking the ferry, then driving into the city, you're looking at 3 hours each way), so it's somewhat discouraging to go over.
We walked about the city for a bit in the morning, and there was a definite buzz about the visit - Union Jacks in shop windows, and people chatting about the upcoming visit.
The streets around the Legislative Buildings were blocked off to traffic, and there were a lot of people there. I can easily believe 25,000 which is no small number - the city itself has a population of about 80,000, the metropolitan area around it only 345,000. Most of them were on the lawns of the buidlings itself, but a good chunk were across the street around the harbour. We showed up around there at about 2PM and took up spot across the street from the War Memorial. At the time, it was a neglected area and kind of looked like a not great spot to be in - we were clear to see things at the War Memorial, and we knew that they'd be laying a wreath and there would be a moment of silence, so we knew we'd see the couple, but we couldn't see the stage from where we were, and it was hard to hear. We wanted to go into the center of it, but we were told that at about 4 PM they were going to be closing off the street to foot traffic until after the event (so if you were on the lawn, you couldn't leave until after the royals were gone), and we knew we were going to have to leave early to make our ferry back.
The crowd was in a great mood, and cheering every time cameras panned over them (to some annoyance to the people who couldn't see the stage; every time cheers happened it was a "is something happening?!" only to be disappointed by the TV). A bit before 5 Premier Christy Clark and her son, Hamish, arrived (Clark is unmarried). Then a bit after that a convey arrived - people thought it held the Royal Couple, but it just had PM Justin Trudeau, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, GG David Johnston, Sharon Johnston, and LG Judith Guichon (her husband was not in attendance).
Then a bit later a third convey arrived and parked right in front of the war memorial. A group got out of it and everyone freaked out because it included a tall, bald man in a blue suit. The man totally played it up a bit until people realized that he wasn't William - he got out of the car with his back to us, so we could just see the bald head over the car. The crowd that could see his face was overjoyed so everyone where I was started getting excited until he turned around. I had a moment of "wow, William's uglier than I expected" before I realized it wasn't William at all, but a member of the media who happened to be a bald man in a blue suit.
The Canadian contingent of the party went into the Legislative buildings to wait until a bit closer to when the couple was arriving. We were told that the Royals were expected at 5:05, but then we were told that they were running late (what the problem was was never revealed). At about quarter after we were told that they were going to be 5 minutes, but they didn't actually arrive until 5:30. A few minutes before the couple arrived the Canadian contingent of the party came out of the Legislative buildings, walked down the red carpet to the War Memorial and then stood on the corner of the street across from where I was, waiting for the couple to arrive. There were mild cheers for the GG and LG, as I don't think they're well known (I knew who the GG and his wife were, but didn't know the LG's name until yesterday), and a lot of cheers for the PM (not, I would say more than the royal couple, although perhaps a bit more than the bald man in the blue suit), and a mixture of cheers and boos for the Premier.
Everyone seemed to go overjoyed when William and Kate did arrive. It was a half hour late, and I think people were getting a bit restless, but once they arrived and the show was on everyone was happy. Perhaps a bit too much - as the couple got out of the car in front of the War Memorial, did the meet and greet with the Canadian contingent again, and then went right into the moment of silence at the War Memorial that the crowd was not ready for.
Sadly, I wasn't able to stick around past the moment of silence for any of the speeches, as we had to leave to catch our ferry.