starvenger

On 5/3/2024 at 6:36 AM, rebeccalouiseagain said:

I tried "Swirls" the first day and it's not really soft serve "ice cream".  I'm not sure what it is- but it tasted weird.  

It's probably the same frozen dairy product you get from the ice cream truck or in a Frosty.

Glad you liked the review. I didn't do any specialty restaurants, but I agree with you about the MDR.

3 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

For those in the know, we have a HWY 407 Transponder but might only use it once a month.  However, if we can get there via the 407 over the 401 you bet I am going to pay the toll.

I hear you. I used to work near the airport and I live on the east side of Markham. Long, frustrating drive.

Honestly it was a steal at $50usd / 5 years, even without a credit card rebate.

$120usd / 5 years isn't a steal, but it is enough to give some people pause about it. And perhaps that's the point - maybe the governments want to curb the number of users.

Regardless, wife and kids aren't up for renewal until 2027, so hopefully the price won't go up further by then.

Used EZAir for our New Year's cruise as the prices worked out to around $600 less than AC. We were flying to Houston so you can guess what airline we were on. Even so, the flights were uneventful apart from having to go to the farthest reaches of T1, which may actually be the vestiges of T2.

Overall I think EZAir was good, but always check your options before locking it in.

On 4/7/2024 at 12:50 PM, crewsweeper said:

In Australia the saying is "Friends don't let friends drink Foster". 😝

Australians drinking Fosters is akin to Canadians drinking Labatt Blue or Blue Light.

44 minutes ago, mabba18 said:

 

I don't want to sound like a Freedom Mobile ad, but another thing I really like is that I can turn off overseas roaming at the carrier level, in my account online. That way it is 100% off, even if I don't do anything with my phone or SIM. Which is good, because it would drain my pre-paid balance in seconds, haha. Not sure if other carriers offer similar options.

 

That's a good thing. Virgin, at some point, removed that option from their online service so I had to call them to make the change. Not a huge deal, but it's annoying. 

4 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

The challenge is that if you do forget to turn your home SIM off, you will connect and have charges.

Yeah I did get dinged for that once because I do leave my home SIM in case I get an emergency call. Costly lesson.

What I learned from this - make sure that you do not have any sort of "Roam like home" packages active. With the eSIM you really don't need to have this, so turn this off and you won't get dinged the minute you connect to a non-Canadian provider. 

2 hours ago, poffles said:

Interesting that the one I submitted first is the one still pending; clearly it's so random you can't rely on any experiences reported by others.

I think the time for approval is indeed dependent on the case officer assigned to the application. But still, it is good to see what everyone's experiences are, because it at least gives people an expectation as to how long the process takes.

I just checked my TTP Dashboard and my renewal was approved, no interview required. So 10 weeks and a day for the approval.

Let's see how long the card takes to get here. I don't travel until August, and my current card does not expire until EOY (December baby) so I can afford to be patient.

Airalo looks for specific carriers in each country so I don't think that you'll ever pick up the ship signal. I remember getting local 3G on Regal Princess in Belize while on the ship and we weren't that close to shore.

48 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

The only thing with Nexus and arriving back into Toronto, is there really is no time saving because Toronto is so SLOW at bringing luggage, by the time the luggage shows the whole aircraft has come through customs/immigration.

I hear you. Seems like T3 is faster than T1 in that regard. We’ve done carryon only for our last couple of trips so we avoided all that. 

NEXUS gets you Global Entry and TSA PreCheck, and is cheaper than the other two. I got it early on and still seems like the one to get for us Canadians. 

Thanks for the links!

Thanks for the review.

Try and use seatguru if you can to get an idea of any limitations on seats and such, like the armrest trays in the bulkhead seats.

The one caveat with the Island Hopper is that it doesn't cover places like Mexico, Belize and Roatan - you need a Latin America eSim for that.

However, there is a 365 day global eSim from Airalo that might be worth it if you're doing a lot of travelling.

So a very late update to this. We got on the second tender but the process was maddeningly slow.

Regardless, the tour guide was patiently waiting for us at the terminal and the tour was very good. Our guide (I believe his name was Vel) was excellent and got us to parts of the ruins that the bigger tours were skipping. Lunch was included for us, at a local place that seemed to just have "Diner" on the sign. Very simple food (stewed chicken, rice and beans, coleslaw) but very flavourful. Probably not something you'd normally get, but it really hit the spot for us.

At the end of the day, big thumbs up for King David tours. Might try them for a Xunantunich tour next time we're in Belize.

Day before (or more) is a must for overseas. I don't even risk day of for North American departures, but that's a different story. Besides which, you may not get a chance to tour the departure city unless you're there a day or two early.

On 2/7/2024 at 5:46 PM, CDNPolar said:

I thought Porter were the Bees Knees when they first came on the scene but now I have not flown them in probably a decade.  They just seemed to continue to decline in my eyes.

I've only flown Porter 2 or 3 times, out of Billy Bishop (to YUL and Chicago Midway). I haven't had any problems, and really enjoyed the flights, so I'm wondering if their issues are flying in and out of smaller cities with less flights like Ottawa.

Would agree that if you walk off there should be fine getting to FLL. Back before... you know, we caught an 11am WestJet flight off of Royal. We had an early debarkation number and Global Entry (Port Everglades being the only port with Global Entry back then), so we breezed through.

But I would recommend just grabbing a taxi or preordering Uber/Lyft. That way you can get out of the terminal, get in, and go.

47 minutes ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

$55 CAD for a sim with only 10gbs, is pricey, never paid that much 

used Tim, Vodafone, Movistar  and simcorner in the past in the EU 

Yeah that's a big layout for 30 days. You're better off going to the 20GB global or a different provider at that point.

22 hours ago, paulajj said:

Airbnb can sometimes be cheaper. We’ve  saved a ton of money this way. Tip: make sure it’s a private space. 

I think it really depends on where and how many people. If you only need one room, then it may not make sense because of "cleaning" and "service" charges. For example, I'm planning a trip to BC, and if it's just the wife, the kids and myself we could handle just a single hotel room. But my mother in law is thinking of going, meaning that vacation rentals (which tbh I prefer) are now in play because the cost of two 3* hotel rooms could end up being roughly the same as a 2-3 bedroom.

For FLL, as long as that dodgy Valuetrips site is active, that's my go to. And in general, Hyatt Place rooms say they can sleep 4 people, but they have a pull out sofa to accommodate at least two more people. Not saying you should. Just saying you could.

One pseudo hack I've seen is to "play the long game". If a room is a bit pricier, but can get you enough rewards points to get you a free night later on, then it may be beneficial to book that room.

I've been looking at some videos from YouTuber Greece Explained. He talks about hotels and stuff but also mentions the areas you probably want to stay in. I don't know how the vacation rental market is in Athens, but this would at least be a good start.

Personally I'm looking for a hotel near Monastiraki Square since it's a short walk to restaurants, should have some nice rooftop bars, and it's not far from the Parthenon

Would agree on using Airalo. I've used them in France, in the US, and for Latin America (Belize/Honduras/Mexico). I'll more than likely use it again when I'm in Europe this fall.

And I keep my voice plan on (Virgin, so basically Bell) so I can receive calls if needed. But the important thing to remember about doing this is to ensure that you do not have "Roam like home" enabled, or you'll get hit with however much the per day charge is. 

The other thing about eSIMs is that you should activate the eSIM before you arrive at your destination. Activating the eSIM does not mean you're activating your prepaid data plan - it simply means that your eSIM is ready to go when you get to your destination. The data plan will start once the eSIM connects with the local provider. 

8 hours ago, TheMichael said:

The Texans were granted to Houston by the NFL after the Oilers left town, once someone (that is, the taxpayers) put up the money for a new stadium.

It's almost always the taxpayers that foot the bill. 

2 hours ago, Crookshanks said:

The Judges told us after the show that they were afraid no one would come to the Finals because the Texans were in the playoffs at the same time, but it was still a pretty great crowd, or at least it seemed that way from all the noise. 

About that. I learned from living in Houston that the Texans are a local team, not a Texas team. Outside of the Houston area it's Cowboys country. But with that said it's a playoff game, Baltimore is a very good team and Houston are overachieving underdogs, to it was a good story.