Thursday 8th September 2022
Sydney Airport was still chaotic when we checked in this morning, with not a lot of waiting at the Air Canada check in, but a nightmare once you got to security checks. The queues went on forever and security staff seemed to be struggling. Getting through the automated immigration processing also still leaves a lot to be desired with passport scanning machines playing up, and some passengers seemly unable to read the simple directions required to get through.
Finally, we arrived in Toronto after a very long day that commenced with leaving home at 5.45 am. Our flight to Vancouver was delayed by an hour due to the late arrival of the incoming aircraft, and we then had a 14 hr flight arriving in Vancouver at 8 am.
Clearing immigration and customs was surprisingly smooth, as most of the necessary work was done online in Sydney prior to departure. Our Visa to enter Canada was still current, so we didn’t need to do anything about that. The ArriveCAN website declaration covers all Covid related info including uploading Vaccination Certificates and also allows you to prefill the customs declaration forms.
Once we arrived, all we had to do was go to a kiosk, scan our passports and tick a box verifying the information we had supplied was still current. It was then an easy stroll through the terminal on the departures side to go to our departure gate for our flight to Toronto. There was no need to go through security once again.
It was a 2 hour stopover for the connection to Toronto, which was still scheduled to leave on time. The big surprise was that when we arrived at the departure gate, they continued to make announcements that the flight was very full and they would be unable to take all of the cabin baggage unless some of it was booked in as checked baggage. They called for volunteers to check in their carry on at the gate and it seems enough people volunteered as we managed to get ours on without issue.
It was a 4.5 hour flight to Toronto and we arrived at a very busy airport so baggage retrieval was slow, once again we came off a very full flight. Taxi queues were also very long, but there was a good number of large SUV taxis available, so getting a suitable cab for the 4 of us was easy. We arrived during peak hour so it took forever to get into downtown to our hotel.
By the time we got to our hotel it was 8pm Toronto time. Having not slept for over 20 hrs, we were keen to grab a quick bite in the hotel restaurant, and retire for a good nights sleep before flying to Halifax tomorrow morning at 10 am.
From then on our program should be pretty relaxed.
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