01 Jul 16 - Friday - Brisbane to Vanvouver toToronto

Part 1
Morning all,
We're off! Bit of a restless night for both of us but we did get an OK sleep, not enough to say we woke up refreshed. Transferred to the airport in good time and then came check-in... First up the auto check in wasn't working well so we had to get it sorted at the counter, this was where we found out we were seated 20 rows apart (not good for my nervous flyer), so much for prebooking seats. So the only available seating together was 2 rows from the back of the plane. Will let you know how that went when we get to the other end . . .
A large breakfast at the airport, a look at duty free and awaiting the call to board.   Ahead is a 13.5 hr flight to Vancouver, a dash across the terminal to catch the Toronto connection and finally a transfer to the hotel. Appears we also arrive on Canada Day (01 Jul) so might be busy. A rest up overnight before the holiday kicks up a notch and the tourist eyes go into hyperdrive...
This is a trip that ticks a few boxes; it's our 30th wedding anniversary on the 6th of this month, our first trip to Canada and a long overdue stop over to visit Samantha and Oliver. So there are a couple of luxuries along the way. The first is the accommodation for the next 3 nights, a 5 star room at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto shown below.

30 mins to boarding on the aircraft parked at gate 80 (below), so hopefully part 2 of a long day 1 to follow on from here.

Part 2
A little sooner than anticipated for part 2... our flight has been delayed due the above pictured aircraft needing a part. Expected departure is now 11:30 am so about an hour late (at the moment). For all my Defence workers, I wonder if this will be a MICAP (AOG) :-). Stay tuned for part 3 which will hopefully see us on deck in Canada.

Part 3
The flight eventually departed at 11:30 am and was a rather incident free ride, caught up on a few movies and played a few games. Assessment on the seating at the back, not too bad actually. The seats behind were for crew and empty most of the time but we stayed in allocated seats as the Dreamliner actually had enough leg room for me. I don't think people realised there were toilets this far down the back as passenger traffic was a minimum. Also there were no left or right side seats only the middle three so there was actually a bit more side room as well. A couple of downsides; there was no overhead locker space, but there was plenty not too far away, the toilets did make a bit of noise when flushed which was enough to hear through noise cancelling headphones but not too annoying but other wise a comfortable ride. The Dreamliner itself is very smooth in flight and well equipped with heaps of head room, also had some cool electronic auto dimming glass in the windows which dimmed the entire cabin, the sun looked like the moon. Was hard to believe we spent that much time in the air to be honest. More to come as we now have the connecting flight to Toronto that was delayed due to the Brisbane delay. All in all about a three hour delay in total but having no impact on our holiday as we had planned a rest evening in Toronto anyway...

Part 4
The last leg was a 4 hr 25 min flight to Toronto, Air Canada was great as they forwarded our baggage through to the connecting flight meaning no customs or lugging our bags around the airport. There was about an hour and a half stop over before we headed to Toronto. The flight was good and Pen managed to get in a few zzzz's while I tried sleep didn't come so it was time for another movie. We had pre-booked transfers to the hotel and after a couple of false starts we caught the Niagara Air Bus service to Downtown. The driver was nice enough but introduced us to the craziness on the highway :-)
We have arrived.

Booked in to the Fairmont at about 9 pm local time and had a very nice seafood chowder for a light tea before bed. While Pen caught a couple of hours sleep on the trip over I didn't and was awake for the entire trip; from Brissy to head on pillow at Toronto at about 11 pm local time with no shut eye (about 32 hours straight) so looked forward to the very comfy bed and a good night's sleep.

Photos from the point and shoot camera, through bleary eyes and on the move :-)

The Tourism begins...

Cheers
Gary and Penny.