Karen’s niece Marie works for Expedia CruiseShipCentres in Barrie. She has been trying to plan a Maloney Family cruise. Unfortunately circumstances had it rescheduled a couple of times but finally a date was picked and the invite went out. I think in total there are sixteen of us going including Steve and Linda.
For me, this is a very busy time at work so I ended working the morning from home. Once I was done work, it was nice just being able to relax for part of the afternoon. Eventually Karen, Maui, Steve, Linda, Ashby and Levi arrived. You see Nana offered to babysit the three dogs. I think she nuts but she said it would be fine. You should have seen Maui’s face when his buddies showed up. We said goodbye to Nana, Papa and the boys and we were on our way to the airport. It took us a little while to get there but we finally arrived at the Park ‘N Fly on Dixon Road around 5:15pm. We only had to wait about five minutes before the shuttle arrived to drop us off.
It was been almost two years since we have flown from Toronto Pearson International Airport and boy have things changed. The biggest thing we noticed was how few Air Canada employees there are. You use a kiosk to print your boarding pass and luggage tag and when you are ready to drop you bag off, you put it on a conveyor which scans the tag and checks it in. I think there were only two people working the area we were in. We used our NEXUS cards to quickly make our way through security and US Customs.
Before the trip, Karen kept checking Kijiji to see if she could find some Maple Leaf Lounge passes. She was able to buy four of them for $25/piece. If you ever get a chance to visit an airport lounge, make sure you take the opportunity. It is quiet, they give you free food (soups, salads, nachos, cookies, fresh fruit) and free drinks including alcohol. This lounge also had showers and a TV area that had these awesome recliners. We spent about a couple of hours there and it was so relaxing. We were very sad to leave the lounge. It was money well spent.
We got to the gate and noticed how full this flight to Orlando ($193.93 CAD including taxes) was going to be. We were supposed to leave at 8:45pm but we did not get airborne until 10:00pm. There were many excuses … Luggage delays, de-icing, etc. The pilot said he would try and make up some time. How the hell do you do that by flying in the fast lane.
After an uncomfortable flight, we finally arrived at 12:20am. We got the bags and grabbed a cab to the Best Western Airport Inn & Suites ($122.04 CAD). By this time it was 1:30am and it was time to go to bed.
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