NEW YORK NEW YORK 24 to 29 April 2013

24 April 2013

We stayed at Todd's ( in Okotoks ) last night so we could catch our 8:30 AM WestJet flight to Toronto with connections to La Guarda which we had to get up at % AM as it takes about an hour to get the Calgary Airport from Todd's. All went well with the check-in and the Flight until we were about 10 minutes out of Toronto, at which time we get an announcement " All passengers connecting with Flight 1210 going La Guarda please check-in with the first WestJet Kosik inside the terminal ". We knew right away that this was not good news and we were right.

Inside the terminal we met Ms. "Congeniality" who advised us that our connecting flight was cancelled  ( no explanation) , ask us for our old boarding pass and replaced it with another one, and handed us a 10.00 voucher toward the price of  a meal and told us to get our luggage , go thru customs and report to Gate 10 A.

The boarding pass said we would be leaving on another flight at 3:30 but by 3:00 there was no body at the loading gate so we all started asking question. Finally , we were advise there would be a slight delay due to weather in toronto and in La Guarda but we all knew it was a result of the USA gov't forcing the Air Traffic controller to reduce manpower ( it is called Furlough )  due to reduced  Gov't funding. After waiting an hour another announcement advised us it would be loading around 5:30. Finally around 7:00 PM we loaded.

The bad part was that Todd and Clark had ordered a Limo to meet and surprise us at La Guarda at 5:30 so they had to pay all the waiting time until we arrive at 10:30.
However, back to the flight. The flight from Toronto to New York takes one hour but about 25 mintues out of Toronto the Captain advised us that we were in a holding pattern for the next 45 minutes due to weather in La Guarrda which was B.S. and that we might notice him flying in a circle. "No Shit". Finally we got clearance to procede but once we got to the La Guarda air space we were again put into a holding pattern for another 1/2 hour or so. Finally we got clearance to land about 10:00 PM.

The Limo company had a Greeter met us with a sign the read " Eslers... 50 th Anniversay ".  We had a 20 minute ride in this  brand new Limo to our hotel and it was great. The driver gave a few tips about Taxi in New York,  which ones to avoid and other tid bits about New York.
After we checked in the clerk said, just a minute and handed Carroll a plant which the had purchased for us. By this time it was after 11:00  so we dumped our luggage and went to a Pizza Joint around the corner from the hotel because we had not eaten since about 2:30 in Toronto. Finally we called it a day; albeit quite hectic

Eslers in NYC

Sorry about the Blog but I can't get enough WiFi to complete a proper blog as there is so much to cover. I will do a daily blog once I return home on 30 Apr. suffice to say NYC city is unbelievable and expensive