Roll with it….

Day 1, 2, 3 Tampa, Florida to Toronto, Canada to Paris, France, to Barcelona, Spain. 4 flights out of 12 flown so far!

Our departure from our home in Plant City, Florida on Tuesday was fairly uneventful. Our wonderful neighbour Ray rode with us to the airport, to drop us off, so he could bring our trusty old Mazda MPV back to our garage to await our return. Traffic was horrible going into TPA but we leave lots of time so we do not stress when we travel. We thought we would have lots of time for the Delta Lounge at TPA when we made it fairly quickly through TSA. We were a little worried about the partial government shutdown affecting the security lines at Tampa International, but we breezed through with our Nexus cards and were ready for the Delta Lounge.

We are flying most of our flights in Business or First Class so we automatically thought we would have lounge access at TPA. WRONG! We apparently need to have an AMEX card for Delta lounge access even though we were flying ‘up front’ to Laguardia, NY and then to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. DENIED! Richard even tried to speak to a ‘red coat’ but they are pretty firm and fast on their policies so we patiently waited in the terminal which wasn’t busy at all.

Our flight out of Tampa left a few minutes late and we were notified through the Delta app that our luggage had made it on board! Yeah! That’s always the big worry with connections and going on a long journey and wondering “Will my luggage make it?” Having done an entire 7 nightcruise in 2024 on MSC in Norway without my luggage or clothes and toiletries, I never want to go through that again!

We had pre-ordered our dinner selection on Delta and the meal was fabulous. Beef short ribs with polenta and carrots in a wine reduction. Truly amazing airplane food!

We had about an hour connection time in Laguardia and were we ever ‘wowed’ by how beautiful that terminal is now! I had flown into Laguardia on business a few times and it was always the worst possible place to fly into. Now I would say Laguardia is one of the nicest airports next to Singapore, that I have ever flown through.

We made it to our gate to board our RJ to Toronto with minutes to spare. With priority boarding and up front seats we didn’t have to worry about our carry on rollerboards and our flight to Toronto was very uneventful.

Our bags were the first off the carousel in Toronto and we walked through Terminal 3 to find the elevator to take us to the train, that goes to the ALT hotel at the Viscount station. I had travelled the entire trip from Tampa without a coat on the plane, but I had to open up my roller board and find my goretex jacket since Toronto was 3C or 37F and windy. We walked from the Viscount train station to the ALT hotel checking in just before midnight.

The ALT hotel is pretty basic, but it is a ‘hipsters’ basic and it had everything we needed for the evening.

We had all day Wednesday to figure out what to do in and around Toronto for the day before our flight left for Paris, France around 7:55pm. When I saw how quickly my old IPAD was losing battery life as I tried to write the blog the other day, I thought maybe we should get to an Apple Store in Toronto and either see what was wrong with IPAD or just purchase a new IPAD. As it turned out March 11th was the day the new IPAD AIR was released in Canada, so my timing was excellent. I actually got the new IPhone 17 Pro Max last September right before we left for Cambodia and Vietnam. Technology is an enabler and having tools that speed up life and make me more efficient are sure welcomed!

We took an Uber from the ALT to Sherway Gardens in Etobicoke (a suburb of Toronto near Pearson Airport) Jeff the Manager of the Apple Store came and served me as I gave him my preferences for the new IPAD. As I was with Jeff, Richard wandered off and the next thing I know he is back telling me that he knows what he wants for his birthday in August - a new Apple Watch!

Apparently on the latest trip directing program Richard worked in Antigua last week he saw one of his colleagues using the Apple Watch with voice commands to send quick messages to colleagues she was working with, instead of having to pull out her phone and text in front of clients. Richard’s Picto watch is a few years old and while it is nice it is quirky and continues to lose time despite having been sent a new one by the Manufacturer. I told Jeff to box up a watch for Richard while I worked on transferring my data from my old IPAD to my new IPAD.

After about an hour my IPAD was good to go with all APPS downloaded. Richard on the other hand was having difficulty getting his watch set up. After a further 30 minutes Richard was all set and we left the Apple Store with new gadgets to make our lives simpler.

We took an UBER pack to the ALT hotel in the pouring rain on a very grey day in Toronto. I remembered why I do not like these end of winter days in Toronto! I do not like days where the sun doesn’t shine. In Florida we take the sun for granted because it pretty much shines every day!

We had gotten a 3pm late checkout at the ALT hotel so when we arrived back to the ALT we organized our suitcases and roller board carryons once again to balance the load of a 5 week vacation and headed back to the Viscount train station. The train was so convenient to go to the ALT hotel and back to Pearson for our flight.

We quickly found the Air France check in counter and with no lineup at Delta SKY PRIORITY Preferred checkin, we made our way through the Priority Security line in the International area of Terminal 3. This time we knew we would be able to visit the lounge and we were able to spend close to 3 hours in the KLM Business Class Lounge at Pearson.

The Terminal 3 KLM lounge was nice. Not over the top, or very big, but the food was excellent and our window view of the taxi way to watch our Air France plane arrive, was kind of neat!

Boarding commenced on time and we made our way to seats 2A and 3A on Air France’s Airbus A350-900. The PODs were nice, the plan was new (2024) and Air France even offered selections of TV series from Apple TV instead of just regular movies and network TV shows!

Our meal selection on Air France was ‘beef cheeks’. Richard rated his meal the best he has ever had on an airplane! I enjoyed my meal too, although I did like the meals we had on Turkish Airlines last year in Business Class and I do prefer the selection of fresh squeezed juices and specialty teas that Turkish Airlines offers over Delta or Air France business class.

We had a very tight 1 hour connection in Paris at CDG and I was stressing about whether our bags would make the flight to Barcelona and would we physically make the connection since we had to go from Terminal 2E to 2F, passing through passport control and the washrooms along the way! Luckily we had the jet stream with us on our way to Paris from Toronto and we made up a lot of time, arriving 30 minutes early into Paris! PHEW!

For some reason our Air Tags were not giving us updates on whether our bags made it on the flight to Barcelona so we crossed our fingers and sat back and relaxed on our last flight which was the 1 hour and 25 minute flight from Paris to Barcelona.

I have to say that if you ever need to use a washroom when deboarding in CDG in Paris, do it before you get off the plane! The walk to find a bathroom after disemarkation was unbelievably long! We found an indoor smoking area long before we ever found a hidden bathroom down a moving sidewalk in a food court area!

We made it through the long walk of retail shopping in Barcelona Airport looking for the baggage carousel and our bags. Once the bags did start to come out I saw someone grab my suitcase off the carousel. I said to Richard “Run over there please and get my bag!” Richard was trying to get his bag off the carousel, but I was more worried that the lady that took mine off the carousel would leave with it and Richard would have to chase after her! Richard walked over and showed the lady my luggage tags with my name on them and how they matched our red Viking luggage tags that had my name on them, PHEW! Crisis averted!

Richard eventually grabbed his large AWAY suitcase and rolled it over to where I was sitting with our 2 AWAY rollerboards, Richard’s knapsack and cPAP machine and my purse. We do not travel light and having done so many business trips with carry on, I find I just do not enjoy packing light for a vacation!

Richard started trying to figure out where we could get an UBER to take us to the hotel and as he was grabbing his large suitcase to start rolling my Samsonite with his, he found that the handle on his suitcase was stuck. The handle had been working when we dropped his bag at Pearson. Yikes! Now what???

Richard needs a lot of sleep and after not getting a full night’s sleep on the flight to Paris he was getting pretty grumpy about the situation. I told him I would wait with the rest of the luggage if he went and found the Lost or Damaged Luggage counter. Off he went to try and find the counter, pushing the bag from the backside as he couldn’t roll it or pull it without the handle extending. It appeared as if somehow the handle had twisted inside its compartment and it would not extend out for use.

After waiting with 7 other people in line ahead of him Richard finally got a claim started and was advised that a company located in Barcelona would replace our suitcase today! After getting a copy of the claim form we found some luggage carts and rolled all of our luggage on 2 carts. We found the UBER waiting area which is not signed that well and ordered a UBER Van to ride into our hotel located in Central Barcelona.

Richard was beyond tired at this point and needed to have a PON (Pants off Nap” as he coins his naps)! A restorative 30 minute nap gave us both time for showers and a fresh change of clothes and attitude as we determined where we had to take our old AWAY suitcase to exchange it for a new one.

We looked at all options to get to ‘Petit Travel’ a luggage repair and replacement shop and reasoned that since we couldn’t pull or roll the AWAY suitcase even though I had emptied all of the packing cubes out of it in our hotel room, we should just take an UBER to the luggage store and then we could Metro back to the hotel with the new, empty suitcase.

Some taxis in Barcelona are also UBERs and after Richard hailed an UBER he found that the taxi sitting beside our hotel was actually our UBER. That was quick!

We had called the luggage repair shop from the airport to find out they were closed until 3:30pm for siesta. We arrived at exactly 3:35pm to exchange our suitcase and the doors were locked but we rang the bell and the owner let us in to his beautiful Samsonite/American Tourister luggage store.

The owner brought out a hard shell navy blue American Tourister suitcase which looked quite a bit smaller than our large AWAY suitcase. I said that our AWAY suitcase was a very expensive suitcase and that I wanted a Samsonite please which I saw he sold as well as American Tourister. He went to the back and brought out a navy Samsonite hard shell expandable suitcase and I checked the capacity of our AWAY suitcase and dimensions of same on the AWAY website while he showed me the dimensions of the new proposed Samsonite. He also said that Air France only gives him 200 Euros for our new suitcase and the price on the Samsonite was 270 Euros. I knew our AWAY suitcase was over 8 years old and with depreciation and how much use it has had we couldn’t kick a gift horse in the mouth, so we took the new lighter Samsonite suitcase and left our AWAY behind and we rolled with it right out the store and a block south to the Padua Metro station.

Sometimes in life as in travel, we have to “roll with it” and we are pretty flexible travellers and were happy we had arrived a day earlier than our cruise to deal with this suitcase issue. Imagine if we had arrived tomorrow when we were supposed to be leaving the Barcelona airport and going directly to the Viking Vesta for our 16 day Mediterranean cruise? Yikes! It was very good planning to arrive a day early just because things like this happen and with time to fix them, the entire vacation isn’t messed up dealing with a malfunctioning suitcase.

I stopped and looked in Zara and H&M as we wandered back to our hotel on a very pleasant sunny day in Barcelona. We weren’t in the mood for any sightseeing today as we knew we have 2 days after our cruise to meander through the streets of Barcelona seeing the sights.

We were both a little hungry as we really hadn’t eaten since the Air France flight from Toronto to Paris. The breakfast on Air France from Paris to Barcelona looked like a dog had thrown up on a platter with cheese added on top, and smoked halibut as a side. GROSS! Neither one of us could manage a bite of that mess, and we had been so busy with the suitcase issue we just didn’t eat lunch!

Richard felt like Italian food for dinner. I wanted something a little healthier and felt like some Lebanese food. Richard agreed he could go for some Lebanese food and after looking and looking for a restaurant that was walkable from our hotel, I found the best Lebanese place we’ve ever eaten at! “MAZAH’ located at Gran Via de les Cortes Catalanes, Eixample, 08007 Barcelona.

Dates were offered to us at 7pm as that is the first food eaten at sundown during Ramadan

Charcoal BBQ in the back of the restaurant with great ventilation since we never smelled the food cooking at all in the restaurant

Garlic sauce, the tenderest and moistest chicken shistawook

Hummus with chick peas, Tabbouli salad, freshly made pita bread and pickles.

The restaurant was funky, had nice decor and amazing food and peppermint tea with real mint leaves in it! So good!

After dinner we walked back to our hotel finding an ALDI’s grocery store on our way. I like to bring certain things on a Viking Cruise that they do not offer like Almond or Peanut Butter and Coconut Milk Yogurt. We stocked up on both of these items and found Richard a bottle of Australian Chardonnay to enjoy onboard for 3.99 euros! We do not have the Silver Spirits package for this trip as the cost is ridiculous if one person (me) does not drink. Richard also picked up a bottle of Jamiesons and a bottle of Vodka for the cabin. Wine and beer are included at lunch and dinner, but Richard likes to have a pre-dinner drink while we get ready for dinner onboard. Richard trains our cabin steward to bring him an ice bucket every day at 4pm and then he can enjoy a drink in the cabin at his convenience.

Tomorrow we finally board the Viking Vesta! We have been anticipating this trip for over 2 years since we first booked it! We will have an included breakfast at our hotel (the Gran Hotel Havana) before we finish up our packing once again and take an UBER to the ship! I’m so glad we everything worked out in getting to Toronto and Barcelona with our luggage and now we even have a brand new large Samsonite suitcase which should last us for any future big trips we want to take around the world!

#barcelona

#toronto

#luggagewoes

#Samsonite

#AWAY

#Vikingoceancruises