Trip Report : Quebec and New England
It's March 2012 and Silversand (AKA Derek) and Silverdunes (AKA Nikki) are sharing a beer with me in a heatwave in Bromont, Quebec. It's 24 celcius and I'm starting to doubt Derek's descriptions of ic...
Forum Discussion
Friday 4th September : London to Montreal
It is a strange time for a day-time flight. 6:30 in the evening. We get up late and the taxi drops us off at Terminal 5, Heathrow airport. I get to use stuff like the first class check-in, priority security and first class lounge. These things are starting to convince Sally that flying can be a bit better than the charter flights she remembered from years ago (the free champagne helped).
3 films and a short doze later and we are in Montreal. Well, that was my experience. Sally was less enamoured sitting next to a guy with halitosis behind first time flyers who kept reclining their seats all the way back into Sally's lunch.
One thing I wasn't looking forward to was working out what to do in the morning before collecting the rental RV. The earliest collection time is 1PM, and with jet lag that will feel like 6pm to our body clocks. A call to the rental agency before our flight has a pleasant outcome - "Any chance you could do me a favour?" asks the rental guy. "Your RV is already prepared; would you be able to collect it in the morning instead of the afternoon?" he pleaded - eyeing up the possibility of being able to knock off work early. Well, I wasn't going to argue with that :B
Immigration at Montreal was straight-forward and earlier research meant I knew exactly where to go to get the free hotel shuttle bus. And that was an easy 10 minute or less journey to the Holiday Inn - the first in Canada apparently - just outside the airport. Many nights in Intercontinental Group hotels mean plenty of points for purchasing ad-hoc nights like this, and as a bonus my platinum status means I tend to get a free upgrade too:
Went to bed exhausted - well, it was 3am UK time.
Off to collect the RV tomorrow...
It is a strange time for a day-time flight. 6:30 in the evening. We get up late and the taxi drops us off at Terminal 5, Heathrow airport. I get to use stuff like the first class check-in, priority security and first class lounge. These things are starting to convince Sally that flying can be a bit better than the charter flights she remembered from years ago (the free champagne helped).
3 films and a short doze later and we are in Montreal. Well, that was my experience. Sally was less enamoured sitting next to a guy with halitosis behind first time flyers who kept reclining their seats all the way back into Sally's lunch.
One thing I wasn't looking forward to was working out what to do in the morning before collecting the rental RV. The earliest collection time is 1PM, and with jet lag that will feel like 6pm to our body clocks. A call to the rental agency before our flight has a pleasant outcome - "Any chance you could do me a favour?" asks the rental guy. "Your RV is already prepared; would you be able to collect it in the morning instead of the afternoon?" he pleaded - eyeing up the possibility of being able to knock off work early. Well, I wasn't going to argue with that :B
Immigration at Montreal was straight-forward and earlier research meant I knew exactly where to go to get the free hotel shuttle bus. And that was an easy 10 minute or less journey to the Holiday Inn - the first in Canada apparently - just outside the airport. Many nights in Intercontinental Group hotels mean plenty of points for purchasing ad-hoc nights like this, and as a bonus my platinum status means I tend to get a free upgrade too:
Went to bed exhausted - well, it was 3am UK time.
Off to collect the RV tomorrow...
