PEI Island Walk - Travel Day

Just chilling in the Maple 🍁 Leaf Lounge…flight leaves in 2.5 hours…no worries! Not as fancy as the Madrid lounge but still fancy for me. This simply amazes me…I have 4 passes just because I have a credit card AND I remembered that I had this option 😊

I did wander up to the 4th floor which seemed like a real fancy lounge…no matter I placed the barcode in the scanner and was promptly told “See attendant”. So I dutifully go over…turns out my privileges are of a lower class…down to 3rd floor 😂 Found that so funny!

Note fancy HOKAs - they drew a laugh from Dawn 

Domestic flight 4 hours early seems perfect to me…international 8 hours or so…if I am travelling alone…otherwise should temper this to maybe 3 and 6 hours.

A few things that fascinated me…

 - Kiosk automated checkin…no problem done this many times. First two machines nada go to 3rd machine and voila it works. AC service person must have noticed my initial foibles or thought I looked pitiful as he came over and hovered over me…telling me to hit enter (I can read…learned at University!) at EVERY step! Then he put the baggage tag on my bag…that I appreciated as those dumb paper sticky tags are impossible for me to figure out…truth!

 - Next on to automated baggage drop off! Geez place your bag and hope 🙏 glad to get a message that said “passenger Arbez….”. Darn missed a chance to get a photo of this. However did get this message a few minutes later…at first glance I thought oh no …my bag is lost…🤣 then I remembered Air Tags…phew!

 - On to security line which had thousands of people and looked 5 kms long (an hours walk). Thankfully it was only 20 minutes or so…but somehow ended up getting my carryon rummaged through and first mini problem…confiscated my sunscreen 127 ml…geez was thinking of liquids…oh well!

 - Asked to show my boarding pass in security area…proudly show my pass which I had figured out how to save in my Apple Wallet (also have 2 printed copies and a photo just in case ✅). Attendant says “sir if I could ask you to pull your phone screen down”. Geez I am showing a picture with my credit card (no actual numbers)…my boarding pass etc. Note to others…you must tap your boarding pass to display QR code…this is what the reading device needs to see 😉

 - Just received two great videos wishing me a great trip Rose (8) and Elodie (5) at the bus stop going to school. Yesterday afternoon after picking them up at bus stop after school Elodie was peppering me with questions…clearly she was concerned…primary concerns “where will you sleep and will you have something for us when you return?” No pressure here 😊. Then a short video from Rishi (1)…he needed a little prompting as he took a swipe at the recording phone…but the message  Bon Voyage was clear!

 - Received messages from other family members as well…this one from Claire youngest daughter sums up the overall feeling…🤣 is the key!

“Bon voyage papa! I’ll miss you a lot 🤣”

 - Ok at my boarding gate…how can there be a flight to Calgary at D20? Don’t they know I am off to…?

On to Charlottetown and the long walk which starts tomorrow…no promises on blogging improving…consider this a warmup exercise 😊

P.s. big decision pending…at the last minute threw my Packa rain gear in bag with other rain gear. One of these must stay behind with the blue bag at the Charlottetown hotel 🤔