I was excited to board Monday's flight to Toronto because I've only been to Canada twice in my life and I was eager to explore some Torontonian (is that a word? It is now!) delights!
As a United Mileage Plus member, I redeemed our miles to book us a roundtrip ticket from NYC to Toronto. 80 bucks and 50k miles later, we booked a Business Class flight on Air Canada, which is part of the Star Alliance program with United Airlines. Regular readers know I love checking out new airlines, giving my two cents on them. If you haven't already, please check out my airline review on Eurowings. It truly is a luxurious flying experience on a budget airline in Europe.
So you know the Canadians are the nicest people in the world right? Upon boarding the plane, I was greeted with cheery smiles, laughter and the French language (though spoken Canadian French isn't as beautiful and fluid as French French, in my humble opinion). The ladies immediately hung up my coats and offered me my drink of choice as I got settled in my seat. Unfortunately, we were an hour late in taking off. However, we arrived only 20 minutes later than the scheduled arrival so they made up time pretty well. I've noticed this same issue taking off from LaGuardia airport. Globetrotters! Do you find that you're always in line for runway for God knows how long before actually taking off, specifically at LGA? It's gotta be their notoriously short runways.
So when we were finally up in the air, I was mesmerized by how small Manhattan looked from above. It's such a cool sight to behold. Makes you think how minuscule our "problems" really are.
Unfortunately, the entertainment wasn't working on my flight. However, it didn't bother me all that much as I much preferred to cozy up to a good book instead. God knows I'm not missing anything on film and television (don't get me started on my soap box! ;)
Gregory and I powwow'd 35,000 feet up in the air over our presentation strategy to do with an exciting, potential financial investor for our exciting television drama series, The Circus. For those who have followed our journey on this, thank you for your support. It's been a LONG road. That's show biz, folks!
We were given hot towels, a much needed instant spruce up. For a light snack, we were served roasted, salted almonds and a small salad with mangoes, bell peppers, and cilantro shrimp drizzled with a chipotle mayo type dressing. Though I'm not a huge fan of bell peppers, I ate every bite! Gregory did too, except the mangoes :) All in all, it was an appetizing dish and perfect for what became a little over an hour journey.
For drinks, we settled on the usual Coca Cola for me & Johnny Walker Red for Gregory, served in Canadian glassware. We were having so much fun chatting over drinks, before we knew it, we had already begun our descent into Toronto! We were still working on our drinks! The warm flight attendant quickly transferred our drinks to plastic cups, which is standard procedure but made the drinking more manageable just in case we needed to take it on the go.
An overall friendly and comfortable experience. My only con was their business class was outdated, my entertainment wasn't working (and on Business Class at that!), and we didn't take off in a timely manner (though Air Canada redeemed themselves by arriving only 20 minutes after the scheduled arrival!).
For any of my friends who have flown Air Canada, what was your experience like? Do you fly Air Canada to travel to Canada; do you stick with your loyalty program; or do you fly Porter Airlines, a budget airline that flies you straight into the city?
I'd love to know your thoughts.
& while I'm here, please send me your suggestions on what to do in the city! I'll have time to come up for air later this week to dive in to your recommendations.
Happy flying,
Cherie
