So, here I am, on the way home. My flight departs at 12:20 PM EST but, my
pre-booked and pre-paid shuttle insists on picking me up at 7:45AM EST. I arrive at the airport just after 8:00 AM,
breeze through baggage check-in and through security. Again, flying business class and having a
Nexus card makes things so much easier.
Unfortunately, I’m sitting at my gate at 9:00 AM EST. The kicker to all this was that I intended to
hang out in the Maple Leaf Lounge and have a free breakfast.
Imagine my consternation when I discover that there is no
Maple Leaf Lounges in Orlando. Oh well, I can live with killing three hours sitting at the gate. While I’m sitting there, I get an update on
my flight, saying that departure has been delayed until 1:00 PM EST. Ten minutes later it’s updated again, and the
new departure time is 3:10 PM, arriving in Toronto at 6:00 PM. Not a problem, I have time. Except, my connecting flight departs Toronto
for Vancouver at 5:00 PM EST.
Now what? Being a
relatively novice flyer, I have no clue what comes next. Finally, an Air Canada employee shows up and
advises me that they are aware of my connection and once we are in the air on
the way to Toronto, they will update my connecting flight and give me a new
boarding pass when I get to Toronto.
Apparently, our aircraft was delayed in Toronto by
mechanical problems. I sure hope they
fix it, really, really well, or send us a new airplane. Because the mechanical problems are Air
Canada’s fault for the delay, they handed out food vouchers for $15, good for
any place in Orlando Airport. So,
because it is now noon and I haven’t eaten yet, I grab the voucher and head to
the “lobby area”.
There I have a choice between Burger King, which I don’t
like at the best of times, or Outback Steak House. So, I opted for good food over fast
food. I’ve never eaten at Outback
before. I ended up with a steak dinner
and Caesar salad and for desert cheesecake.
My part of the bill came to less than $20, but I tipped the waitress 20%
of the whole bill, as she took such good care of me.
I’m still waiting for my aircraft to arrive, and wondering
when I will actually get to YVR, or if I will be spending the night in
Toronto. That will be at the expense of
Air Canada as well, since they will put me up at a hotel. If I take a night flight home, I don’t think
going East-West qualifies as a red eye flight.
We shall see. Bear in mind, I have
at least an hour and 15-minute drive home after. Who knows though, with the snow and ice
waiting for me. I can’t write any
further at this point and will finish this off when I know more.
Finally, we got the notice that the plane would be arriving,
and we would be departing at 3:30 PM EST.
The arrival in Toronto of 6:00 PM EST is one hour after my connecting
flight to Vancouver. So now what? Well, I discovered what. Within 30 minutes I got a notice on my phone
that I had been booked on a new flight out of Toronto, leaving at 8:00 PM EST
and arriving in Vancouver at 10:00 PM PST.
I’m still in business class and was scheduled to be on an Airbus A320,
just like the one I’m waiting for now.
Which means no pod.
Our aircraft arrived and we got boarded, I’m sitting directly
behind the bulkhead with plenty of leg room.
Business Class in this situation means you only have one seat mate and I
lucked out and got one of the most unfriendly guys I could get. No biggie, I’ll just look out the
window. It turned out our plane had been
delayed on landing in Toronto and a bolt broke and destroyed one set of brakes,
so it took three hours to repair and replace those.
The flight was smooth and quick, we arrived 15 minutes ahead
of schedule. Lunch was a dish of a very
tasty pasta, ravioli, I think. We got
nuts to snack on and unlimited drinks. I
settled for 7-up. Once we arrived in
Toronto, there was no opportunity to hit the lounge. I had to make a beeline for my departure gate
and go through customs. I also had to
find out which gate to go to.
On the plane, the staff made the announcement that if you had
a Nexus card, you didn’t need to fill out a customs form. However, when I got to the customs CBSA agent,
he told me “we don’t recognize Nexus cards here” and I would have to fill out a
declaration. Thankfully there was no
lineup. It didn’t take long to fill out
the form, and I was through and racing to my gate.
It was a long-convoluted path and I ended up outside and
thought I had made a wrong turn or something.
But, no, we just had to board a bus and take a five-minute ride to where
we needed to resume our race. I’m quite
exhausted by now and limping badly and sweating like crazy. The -3C temperature actually felt good.
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