2023.09 San Francisco (Part 1)

2023.09 San Francisco (Part 1)

Little Miss had relatives who moved out to the Bay area.  Not missing a chance (or excuse?) to explore a new spot in the USA, we were happy to spend an extra long weekend to fly out to the area.  Now due to their young one, and only being in the area for a few days we didn’t cover everything in the area.  But we did enjoy our time visiting with them and what we got to see.

Alt Hotel, Toronto International Airport

Our westbound flight was early and I didn’t want to be up even earlier for the drive to the airport.  So we elected to stay at a nearby hotel, the Alt Hotel.  Unlike the Sheraton, that is across the pick-up/drop-off lanes at terminal 3, this hotel is right beside the airport terminal train station for the offsite parking garage.  The train connects the parking garage with terminals 1 and 3 .  This hotel is 100 ft away from the station.

It was easy to find the hotel as the only other structures are a massive multi-level parking garage, and a station for the elevated train that connects it with terminals 1 and 3.  Given the short duration of our trip, we drove to the airport.  After we checked-in, I parked our vehicle and used the terminal train to return to the hotel.  It is well signed and easy to find.

The hotel’s location has no formal parking, however that’s not surprising as most guests would be using nearby parking before or after their flights, before continuing their journey.  Check-in was quick and effortless, and soon after we took the elevator up to our floor.  The colour scheme of the elevator lobby on each floor was definitely not conservative, nor muted!

Fortunately the rest of the hallway was not the same bright colour, instead it was somewhat dark in comparison as there was no main overhead lighting in the hallways.  We found our room easily, and it’s always a good touch that there are windows so that natural light (when there is daylight out) can help light the space.

Room

Once in the room, like the building itself, it was an overall cube shape.  Immediately upon entry was the bathroom.  The rest of the room was simple, and functional with the table & tv stand having plenty of plugs and charging options.  The one odd functional component was that there was an open closet, however it was on the far side of the room.  If you needed to hang up any items you’d have to move your suitcase around the bed to the far corner of the room in order to access that area.

One other odd design feature was that there was a glass partition between the shower and this closet/coffee & tea area.  For us, it didn’t matter, however this could be distracting as the bathroom light would illuminate this corner of the room — and that might be distracting if one person is trying to sleep while the other is up and moving about.

Bathroom

The bathroom was straight forward, and the bench, along with a few shelves for extra towels helped to provide plenty of space to put your toiletries, instead of having them hang out on the ledge overlooking the sink and the toilet.

The water pressure and temperature of the water in the shower was good, and I don’t recall the wall-mounted soap, and shampoo dispensers encroaching much, if at all, into the shower when I used it.

Airport Terminal Train & Maple Leaf Lounge

After our short sleep it was time to head to the terminal the following morning.  We checked out quickly, and made the short walk to the station to board the next train to terminal 1.  The fixed route of this elevated train is terminal 1, 3, and then this stop.  At terminal 1 the station is close to the Pearson UP express train station.  The Pearson UP, is the express train that makes two intermediate stops before arriving downtown at Union station.  This is a great option if you’re not renting a car and want to explore the city starting downtown.

I didn’t take any pictures while on the train as it was fairly full given the early hour, and it appeared that a significant quantity of airport staff use the train to get from the parking lots to work.

Once at our destination it was an escalator ride down and then using the parking garage route and covered walkway to the terminal.  Given the early hour it’s busy as there is a bank of flights leaving for almost all parts of the USA starting at 6am.

This trip was also our first trip using Nexus.  This is an expedited border crossing program between the US and Canada.  For us, it resulted in us walking up to security and having no people in front of us.  Then at US border pre-clearance there were 7 people in front of us at our dedicated line, and we were through quickly.

Once past US customs pre-clearance is the elevator that takes you to Air Canada’s Maple Leaf Lounge.  Being a Saturday, and at the early hour we arrived to a nearly deserted lounge.  This was great to be able to take a few pictures without issue.  Compared to our visit in January I noticed that the business area has been reconfigured with increased seating, and there was the addition of other communal tables in the main parts of the lounge as well.

Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge

Above is the view of the lounge after entering and turning left.  The business centre is at the far end.  Off to the right is a kid’s room, and bathrooms.

Here’s a slideshow of more pictures of the lounge:

It felt like we were the first few people in the lounge as the initial trays of hot food was being put out when we walked to the buffet area.  Here is a slideshow of pictures of the food available during breakfast hours at the lounge:

I did try and make my breakfast somewhat healthy, however whenever pancakes are available, it’s hard for me not to have at least one.

Sadly, while we had something to eat I got a message informing me that there was a minor delay in our flight due to maintenance on the plane.  After the sun appeared, there is a modest view of the apron from the lounge.  From this distance I guessed that the delay was valid as our gate (somewhere on the left side of the picture) was empty and missing our aircraft.

Now the unfortunate part was the delay increased.  From the initial “it’ll be 30 minutes late”, it turned into “add another 2 hours”.  When the longer delay message appeared Little Miss joked “I could have been sleeping for an extra couple hours!” as she is not a morning person, and we are definitely not early people that would match the original departure time of the flight.

So we waited.  More people appeared in the lounge, however they didn’t stay as long as us and continued onto their flights. [what was the trigger to head to the gate?]

Finally we headed to the gate and saw the crew being allowed on board.  Shortly afterward we were allowed to board.

Flight, Air Canada toronto to San Francisco, AC737

Scheduled Departure: 08:00
Scheduled Arrival: 10:22
Seats: 1K & 2K (Business class)
Boeing 787-8

We happily found our seats and quickly settled in.

When we boarded the Boeing 787, it was apparent that ground crew were still playing catch-up, because catering was at the plane delivering all the food and beverages for the plane.  This was a first for me, as the caterer needed to deliver items not only to the front galley, but also to the galley at door 2, and so we made sure to quickly get out of catering’s way for them to wheel the many carts onto the plane.

Here’s a slideshow of catering, and cargo working hard after we were on board:

Catering was efficient and was done in less than a few minutes.  From there the rest of the passengers made their way on board.  This flight was not completely full in business class as I overheard one of the flight attendants remarking “it should be a light flight as it’s only about 50% today”.  Then the never-fun message was announced “maintenance is on board and we’ll keep you posted when we’re ready to depart.”  After an hour being on board the captain updated us that now fluid under a wheel well was being investigated.  At least that gave an indication that the original reason maintenance was on board had been resolved and a new issue had appeared during the walk-around of the aircraft.  Another half hour past before the good news was announced “issues have been identified and should be fixed by noon.”  For this flight the Captain was Matt, Julian was the first officer with Emmerson the service director.  During the welcome message by the Service Director she highlighted that “we too arrived at the airport on the expectation that this flight would be operating on time today.  We too are sorry for the delay.”

Sure enough right around noon the aircraft door was closed and the procedures for push-back, engines on, and taxi could begin.  The plane taxied to the northern side of the airport for a westerly departure.  There were a few aircraft in front of us:

Take-off was smooth, and soon we were above the clouds heading west to San Francisco.  Here’s a picture of the Detroit area:

And then another the clouds quickly rolled in over the mid-west for most of the journey.

I don’t recall seeing a menu.  I found the meal service to be fine for our almost 5 hour flight to the west coast.  Here is a slideshow of what was on offer:

The meal was good, and I enjoyed watching movies along the way and glancing out the window to see if the clouds cleared for views along the way.

Soon enough our descent and approach into SFO arrived.  Now, many years ago I had flown through SFO, and I was captivated by the airport regularly using their parallel runways for arrivals and departures.  My first flight to SFO had me glued to the window watching a United flight just to the left of my aircraft seemingly flying at the same speed to almost make a synchronized landing on our respective runways.

Today though, I was on the wrong side to see any parallel landing.  Here is a slideshow of pictures I took while we came into SFO:

Once on the ground it was a short taxi to our gate.  To make sure we didn’t have enough delays, the attempt to connect to the first door didn’t work, and after 30 minutes the ground crew tried door 2.  Initially, ground crew stated the air bridge wouldn’t reach.  Guess what?  It did.  Door was opened quickly and we were finally off the plane.  The upside of that delay was that all the luggage had already arrived, so we quickly picked ours up and were off to get our rental car.

Explore other parts of this trip:

Part 1 – Air Canada lounge and Flight Toronto to San Francisco (this post!)

Part 2 – Hampton Inn San Jose

Part 3 – Sightseeing in San Francisco

Part 4 – Monterey Aquarium

Part 5 – Air Canada SFO Lounge and flight San Francisco to Toronto