2023-08-24: Heading Home

It is the end of our vacation unfortunately. We woke up at 8:00am to a notification that our flight home has been delayed by almost an hour. We got ourselves showered and dressed before finishing packing our luggage. We headed down to the hotel restaurant for our last breakfast away from home.

After breakfast we returned to the room to do one last check that we weren’t leaving anything behind. At 9:45am we took our bags down to reception and checked out of the hotel. We had booked a taxi to take us to the airport at 10:00am. We headed outside to wait for the taxi. The taxi was about five minutes late which isn’t a big deal, but the driver apologized profusely.

About 15 minutes later we arrived at the airport. After giving the driver a tip that made him smile, we loaded our bags onto a cart and headed to the check-in desk. We were flying business class on this flight so had a dedicated check-in desk which was nice. I had completed online check-in for our flight the night before so already had our boarding passes printed. The boarding passes also included baggage tags to print off which I thought was odd. When we checked in at the desk, they asked for the baggage tag printouts. They folded them and put them in a plastic holder that can be re-used for future flights. An interesting system that we haven’t seen before.

After checking our bags, we headed through security. There was a dedicated line for business class here as well, but the business class line was longer than the economy line. One of the airport staff ushered us to the economy line since it would be faster. The line was quite short so we were through security within minutes. Next we were off to passport control. They reviewed our passports and gave us another stamp. The passports have gotten quite a few stamps on this trip. We were through passport control and in the departures terminal quickly.

Our boarding passes said our flight was in terminal E. We made our way to the train that takes you to terminal E. We got off and headed through another security screening to enter the terminal. There was only one station open so this one took a little longer to get through. We got through security and double-checked the departures board to see if our gate had been assigned yet. No gate yet, but it turns out they have moved our flight to terminal D. Dagnabbit! That’s where we just came from.

We turned around and headed back to the train. There are only two stations for the train. Terminals A, B, and D is one station and terminal E is the other. We chuckled because every time the train enters the station an announcement comes on stating “The train is arriving at the final station. Please disembark here”.

We got off the train and followed the signs to terminal D. We walked into another security area with a HUGE line that it looked like we’d have to go through. Luckily, it was only if you were going to terminals A or B. We passed the line and continued into terminal D. We still had a couple of hours to kill until our flight was scheduled for boarding due to the delay, so we made our way to the Swiss Airlines lounge.

We enjoyed some food and comfortable chairs in the lounge until about 1:00pm. The departures board updated with our gate number and showed “head to gate”. Our flight was delayed by another five minutes as well. We made our way to gate D43. The gate was packed with people. There were a couple of kiosks set up to check passports before boarding. We got the passports checked and then waited for boarding to start. As we were waiting, another 5 minute delay was added to the departure time. We were now officially an hour behind schedule.

Around 1:30pm, they started boarding the plane. We ended up being the first people onboard. We got ourselves settled in for the 10 hour flight back home. After everyone was onboard the captain apologized for the late departure. The plane came from Tampa and was late leaving Tampa due to weather. He said they would try to make up some time in the air and had already requested a faster routing.

The flight was fairly uneventful. We enjoyed a meal and watched a few movies. The clouds cleared as we were flying over Greenland and we could see icebergs floating in the ocean below which was pretty cool. We flew over the general vicinity of Iqaluit where Amanda’s parents were on a vacation of their own.

They did make up some time in the air and we landed at 4:05pm which was about 40 minutes late. We were the first ones off the plane and made our way to customs. Customs was empty which was surprising. We walked up to one of the automated kiosks and completed our customs declaration. After a quick review by the border agent, we made our way to the luggage carousel to collect our bags. We had to wait for a while for the bags to arrive. We decided Calgary needs to work on their baggage handling. Flying business class in Europe gives you priority which includes your bags being the first ones to arrive on the carousel. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Calgary.

We collected our bags and made our way to the exit. Darrell’s Dad was in the cellphone lot waiting for us. We gave him a call and he came to pick us up. Another frustration we have with the Calgary airport is the pickup area. It is a “no waiting” zone, but they don’t have anyone enforcing that. The curb is full of cars with people waiting making it hard for others to find a spot. Darrell’s Dad grabbed the last spot we could see thankfully and we were quickly on our way home. That marks the end of an amazing vacation.