Back story … my mom and I were supposed to go to Europe so that she could visit here family. Unfortunately in January, Nana had a gallbladder attack and she ended up in the hospital. She had a follow up visit with her doctor who said it would be advised to not to travel until her gallbladder is removed. This means the trip was off. But she is going to have the surgery in August so it looks like we will be going next spring instead. Since I already had the time off of work, I did not want to waste it. So now I had to come up with a plan. Somehow Karen talked me into going to Maui to visit with our friends Darren and Allison. I talked to Karen’s niece Marie Maloney who works at Expedia CruiseShipCenters in Barrie and she was able to secure all of my travel bookings. Thanks Marie. This was back in March. At this point, I was going by myself and Karen was staying at home. As it got closer to my departure date, Karen changed her mind and decided to go. Now the trick was for her was to find a flight which she was able to. We thought it was best to stay last night which we did at the Best Western Plus Toronto Airport ($211.48 CAD including taxes and ten days of parking).
Karen left the hotel this morning at 5:20am for her 8:00am flight with United Airlines ($909.36 CAD including taxes). Lucky for me, my flight was not until noon with WestJet ($741.75 CAD). The shuttle picked me up at 9:20am and by 9:45am, I had dropped off my luggage, gone through security and was on my way to the gate. I had time so I was able to get breakfast, get the electronics charged up and just relax.
When I checked in yesterday, I picked an aisle seat that had nobody beside me. I was hoping that I would be able to stretch out on the flight but as luck would have it, it was a full flight. The thing that really sucked was just as we were departing, the flight attendant said that the plane we were on is a brand new 737-800. So new in fact that it did not have WestJet Connect which meant there was no inflight entertainment. Are you kidding me? What the hell am I going to do for five hours. I did sent out a tweet to WestJet so we shall see what happens. How did I spend my time … well I listened to a few podcasts and got in some napping.
We arrived in Vancouver just after 2:00pm local time. It was nice to get off of the plane and stretch my legs. Going through customs is very interesting in Vancouver. The first thing you do is go to a kiosk to fill out and print your customs declaration. Once that is done, you show it an agent who then directs you to a small waiting area that has screens. What is happening behind the scenes, is that your luggage is also going through customs. When your bag has been cleared, your name appears on the screen letting you know that you can proceed to the US border officials who take a look at your identification and take your customs declaration. I think it took about an hour from the time I left the plane until I was standing at the entrance of the Plaza Premium Lounge.
Since we do quite a bit of shopping at Costco and they only take Mastercard, I decided to get the BMO World Elite Mastercard. One of the benefits of the card, is the free membership to the Priority Pass Lounge program and four passes on a yearly basis. Lucky for me, Vancouver International Airport has five of their lounges so I was able to check one out. It is much smaller than other lounges I have been in but it was nice and quiet. I spent a couple of hours there relaxing and enjoying their snacks which included chips. I went online and saw that WestJet responded to my tweet. They were sorry for the inconvience and gave me $25 into my WestJet rewards account. Now that’s what I call customer service. I left the lounge and headed over to gate E83. When I got there, I asked the agent if the flight was full. She said it was not. I then asked if by any chance there was an empty row. She said yes and then proceeded to move me there. Thank you again WestJet.
We left at 6:30pm local time and it was almost a six hour flight. But it was made so much more bearable because I had the entire row that I could stretch out. I felt like Liam when he flies. I passed the time by blogging, watching “Modern Family” and sleeping. Finally the captain announces that we are making our final descent into Maui and we land at 9:45pm local time. As I was heading to baggage claim, I see Karen. This was a nice surprise being greeted by someone. Karen had a jump start on the vacation since her flight landed at 5:10pm. My bag was one of the first ones on the carousel so we were able to get over to Alamo pretty quickly to pick up our Hyundai Velostar. We are staying in Kahului just for the night at the Maui Seaside Hotel ($579.40 CAD for the hotel and the car). This way we will be able to hit the Maui Swap Meet nice and early before heading to Lahaina.
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