I had some vacation days that I had to make sure to use up by the end of the year. Our neighbour Pauline has been asking Nana to come and visit their home on Fogo Island in Newfoundland. Every summer, Pauline and her husband Dennis go and spend some time there. I asked them if they wanted a couple of visitors and they said they would love to have us. Unfortunately Karen could not join us on this trip since Kai is too young to fly.
As some of you may know, Air Canada flight attendants walked off the job on Saturday August 16, 2025 and therefore flights were cancelled. By Sunday, the government mandated them back to work but the flight attendants basically gave Air Canada the middle finger. At this point, I am seriously thinking there is no way we are going. But by early Tuesday morning, a deal was ratified and flights were beginning to resume by Tuesday evening. Originally Nana and I were going to stay at a hotel on Friday night but Karen graciously offered to drive us at the crack of stupid.
Karen and Kai picked us up at 5:30am and by 6:40am, we were dropped off at Toronto Pearson International Airport. We said goodbye and made our way into the terminal. Our Air Canada flight was not until 9:30am but I thought because of the strike, it would be busy and I wanted to give us enough time. Besides I have lounge access so we could spend our time there.
We got to a kiosk and printed off the luggage tags and boarding passes. As we were heading to the bag drop off area, I get a notification saying that our flight was delayed until 12:45pm. ARGH!!! Ok … no big deal … we can drop off our bags and head to the lounge. I put Nana’s bag on the conveyor belt and it says … NOPE … too early to drop your bags. Now what do we do. We start walking and I see the Priority check-in area. This is where we should have gone in the first place. The agent here says that we should be able to drop our bags off by 8:00am. But it was only just after 7:00am. Lucky for us there is comfy seating. I then get an alert that saying because of the delay, we each get a $15 meal voucher. I head downstairs to Tim Hortons and get us some breakfast. While we are waiting, I called Enterprise at the Gander airport but they were not open yet. I also emailed our Airbnb host to let her know that we will likely be arriving after 7:00pm.
Finally at 8:00am, Nana and I headed to the check-in counter. It only took a few minutes for the agent to put on a priority tag on our bags and off they went. We walked over to security and using the American Express Priority Security Lane Access passes, we quickly were through. Air Canada’s Maple Leaf Lounge is literally steps from security. I was concerned that there would be a lot of people here but I was shocked. I would say the lounge was about 25% full. Since we were going to be here for quite a while, I managed to find us a nice quiet spot. How did we spend the next three hours or so … eating (breakfast and lunch), playing games on the iPad, napping and waiting.
At around 10:30am, I called Enterprise at the Gander airport to see what is going to happen since our flight was getting in at 5:00pm and they close at 2:00pm. Most car retail agencies wait until the last flight arrives before leaving. The gentleman I spoke with said that he would be leaving at 3:00pm and all that he could do was to move the reservation to noon tomorrow. That was going to be a problem since we are staying in Twillingate tonight which is about 1-1/2 hours away. I thought about it and told him to move the reservation. Now I had to come up with a plan. I called the Gander airport and got connected to Dave at Budget Car Rental. We had a really nice chat and he told me that they would be open when our flight arrived and that he had cars available. When I told him my reservation with Enterprise was booked through Costco, he said that unfortunately it is going to be more. It turns out that it was going to be about $400 more but it is what it is. At least we have a car today and not tomorrow at noon.
The Air Canada app was telling me that boarding was beginning in about thirty-five minutes. So we filled up our water bottles and headed to the departure gates. We did make one stop at the Air Canada Cafe. This is not a full fledged lounge but it does have prepackaged snacks and drinks that you can take with you. We each grabbed a bag and I filled mine up with fresh fruit and a cranberry cocktail. Nana got cheese and crackers, some kind of salad and a drink. While we were in the cafe, I received a call from Pat at Whispering Wind Cove Cottages. I explained to her the situation and she says that it is best to have dinner in Gander since most places will be closed in Twillingate. She also said that she will leave our cottage unlocked and the keys on the table. That is so sweet of her to do that. Once I finished the phone call, we loaded up the snacks in our backpacks and made the five minute walk to gate D42.
We still had a few minutes before boarding and I was asking Nana if she was going to have a full lobster dinner. You see because of this delay, it is screwing up our dinner plans. As we were talking, the lady next to me says some about how lovely the lobster will be. It turns out that she is staying in Twillingate and recommends Doyle Sansome & Sons which is where I wanted to go. She then asks us where we are staying and I say Whispering Wind Cove Cottages. She tells us that her daughter got married on the beach there and that her dad who is travelling with her is Pat’s brother. What a small world. We had a good chuckle and they gave us some restaurant recommendations.
At 12:05pm, boarding began. The gate agents kept making announcements saying that it was a full flight and asking people to check their carry-on bags. I was hoping that we would have some room to stretch out since this is an Air Canada Rouge flight. Once we got onboard, we got settled into our seats. I spent the flight watching Jersey Shore Family Vacation and working on the blog since there was free WiFi for Aeroplan members. Nana tried her best to get some sleep but was not too successful.
Two hours and forty-five minutes later, we arrived in Gander. While we were taxing to the terminal, I receive a voicemail notification. The message is from the gentleman from Enterprise saying that he would be open and that I could pick up my rental car. Now what I am going to do with two reservations. After walking off of the plane onto the tarmac, we headed straight to Enterprise ($663.76 CAD including taxes and fees, 1208 kms driven). The Gander airport is so small that you can be standing in line waiting for your rental car and behind you is the baggage claim. We got the keys to our 2023 Chevy Trailblazer and then I went over to Budget. I told Dave that I no longer needed a vehicle from him. I felt really bad cancelling at the last second but Dave said it was all good.
We got our stuff into the car and since it was almost 6:00pm, we thought it was best to get some supper. We drove to Rosie’s Restaurant & Bakery but they could not seat us until 7:30pm due to there being a party. So we headed over to our next choice, Jungle Jim’s Eatery. Once we finished supper, we headed over to Dominion to get some groceries. Now it was 7:30pm and we still had 1-1/2 hours of driving.
We finally arrived at Whispering Wind Cove Cottage ($165 CAD / night, before taxes) just after 9:00pm in total darkness. We are staying in the Red Lobster cottage which is really cute. It has been a really long day so we did not stay up too long before going to bed.
I promise that there will be more pictures tomorrow.
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