I arrived in Ajax the night before to meet up with the kids and talk about the trip and stress that we are packing light and using backpacks for this trip. I brought my tent and camped “stealth” in Ajax and the “Mom” brought them to the Go Train with their passports. Noah broke his arm a couple of weeks before the trip. Days before the trip he got a new swimmable cast. So with that and some travel insurance we were off to the Airport with our 3 backpacks.
Day 1: July 28th Plan
- Get ourselves to the airport in time so we are not rushed for our flights
- Fit the 3 of us on one of two different flight options
- Try and get some “real” sleep on the flight
- Arrive in Prague the next morning and book somewhere to stay the night
We took off on the GO Train from Ajax to Union Station in Toronto. We got out of Union and walked across the road to Movenpick Marche at Brookfield Place for some lunch. $50 later we were on our way on the UP Express that runs from Union Station to Toronto Pearson Airport that is always a reliable 25min trip. Kids are excited and so am I to finally be able to take them to Europe. On our way to the airport, I started to shoot some video on my iPhone to make a little travel vlog of the trip, since I’m sure it will give me something to do on the flight and late at night not sleeping due to the JetLag that was coming.
With my flight benefits at work, I decided to book us on Air Canada since the direct flight with Air Canada Rouge leaves Toronto close to 5PM. As a back-up, we booked on a credit card the 8:20PM Toronto to Munich flight with Lufthansa. I’ve been checking the flight load all week leading up to departure and LH471 to Frankfurt was at capacity and it looked like LH495 to Munich would fill up also. The space on AC1922 with Air Canada looked good all week. A night before the Air Canada app will show you how many people are on the plane for those who are flying “Standby” and it had about 80 open spots… so I knew we would be leaving on the direct flight at 5PM. Once we land, I would refund the Lufthansa ticket.
The configuration of the flight is a 2-3-2 for economy and we were put in the middle 3 seats with Noah riding in the middle. With the early departure of 5pm and us landing in Prague at 7AM local time… I knew it would be tough on the kids since it was only 1AM Toronto time and we had our whole day ahead of us so trying to get some sleep on the flight was important so after dinner I would force them to use the eye-mask and ear plugs I packed to try and get some sleep. At the airport we went through security with no issues. A bit of juggling since we took some stuff out of our main packs and had little bags for our personal items to distribute the weight. They didn’t weigh or measure any of our bags. We also asked the gate if we could get on first with Noah’s arm and that helped secure space in the overhead bin for our backpacks all together.
Below is the first episode of our travel vlog:
I’ve never flown Air Canada Rouge before. I’ve heard stories that the cabin in economy is tight. I also heard that there are no screens on the back of the seat and you have to download the AC App and you can stream movies on your device. I knew were would get food. I was hoping to fly with Lufthansa so the kids could experience our airline on a long haul flight. Maybe on the way back we will fly Lufty.
On the flight, I was really pleased with the food and the room. My legs fit… so I was happy. I just couldn’t enjoy a cold beer on the flight like LH471. The boarding and gate staff were great. Noah and Chantal tried to sleep and I think they drifted off for about two hours.