Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Last week, we introduced our journey to Barcelona and ended the post with a cliffhanger about our return home. It was only to be a short layover at Montreal and a short flight to Minneapolis to a waiting hotel. After all, it would have been twenty hours of awake time. Weeks ago, we reserved a room near the Minneapolis airport to start fresh for the 3 1/2-hour drive home to Fargo the next morning.

I knew something was up when the folks sitting ahead of us on our way to Montreal discovered during the flight that their next flight was canceled and they were rebooked on another flight for Saturday. Saturday?!?! It was only Wednesday. I checked my own boarding pass online via the aircraft WiFi and discovered our plane was rescheduled for 11:30 PM. Then my niece, who was sitting several rows ahead of us, strolled back with the news that their flight was rescheduled as well. We were on the same plane, but their flight was rebooked. Uh oh…

When we got on the ground, we discovered that Montreal was in the midst of a major ice storm and that our flight to Minneapolis was canceled before it left Atlanta for Montreal. Lynn and I would be flying out on Saturday morning, and my niece and her husband a day earlier. At first Air Canada told us we were on our own for a hotel, but after much confusion, we were walking away from the service desk when the lady who assisted us came running to catch us. She asked where we departed from, and when told “Barcelona”, she offered us one night’s stay and meal vouchers at the airport.

The problem was that much of the city was without power due to the ice storm that had come through just before we arrived. We later learned that power was out for almost a million residents of Montreal, about half the city.

We were eventually provided a room in a downtown high-end hotel for the night, the Vogue Montreal. We had no complaints about the hotel… except for the $350 USD or so per night rate. Grateful that the airline was picking up the tab for the first night, we considered staying on given that we plan to put in a travel delay claim with our travel insurance company. We decided that we would pick something less expensive for our additional two nights in case our travel insurance balked at the costs incurred. After all, we also have a delayed luggage claim to submit as well.

As the first hotel we tried near the airport was still without power and not taking guests, we opted for another downtown hotel, the Holiday Inn Downtown. As it turned out, the hotel is across from the convention center, and adjacent to Montreal’s Chinatown area. At about $165 USD a night, we hoped the insurance company would be happy we saved them some money, and we had a decent place to stay in an interesting part of the city. The opening image features the koi pond in the lobby area of the hotel.

We pretty much stayed in the hotel for lunch and dinner given the cold weather and lack of knowledge of places to eat. We hadn’t thought there might be a large food court in the nearby mall for lunch. Meal service was made a little more interesting by the robot in the image above. I kept hearing something rolling behind me while sitting at our lunch table. Of course, I assumed it was someone pushing a food cart. Eventually, I happened to look around to see the robot pictured above roll out of the kitchen area.

The robot is programmed with a stopping point in the kitchen so that the unit stops adjacent to the table where the customer is sitting. The waiter then unloads the food and serves it. Being the techie that I am, I looked up the company on the web to learn about its products. Pudu Robotics designs are widely varied, but their main function is food and drink delivery. According to photos on their website, some units serve customers directly, while others, like the one in this Holiday Inn, deliver to the waiter for service. One could wax on about how technology is yet again displacing a worker, yet in our travels, one of the biggest problems we’ve seen in restaurants is a lack of staff. Pudu is addressing the problem with what appears to be a practical solution.

At breakfast on Friday morning, I got a phone call. It was a Delta Airlines baggage agent at our home airport in Fargo. They had our luggage and wanted to know where to deliver it. I let them know we were still in transit, but we would pick it up from the airport on Saturday or Monday when we returned home.

My niece and her husband were flying out early Friday, and we had the entire day to explore. Unfortunately, we were dressed for Barcelona, not Montreal when it came to outerwear. We had only light jackets, and as you can see in the photo above, folks were dressed much more warmly. Still, we decided to brave the chill and take a walk down the pedestrian mall and around the block.

We headed down the pedestrian walkway until we got to one of the ornate Paifang gates marking the entrance on the opposite side. Montreal’s Chinatown is small, only about a square block according to the online history I am referencing as I write this. I must say, it seems larger than that description.

We were getting quite chilly in the cold Canadian breeze so we didn’t tarry as we walked through the neighborhood. Our final destination was an indoor mall only about a half-block from the hotel if we had gone direct, instead, we walked about two and a half blocks. On the way, we passed a peaceful demonstration. In a couple of weeks, I will feature a Cellpic Sunday story regarding what I learned about Falun Gong and the reason for this small demonstration.

As we hustled around the block, we found ourselves less protected from the wind on the busy Montreal street on our way to the indoor mall. Upon entering, we quickly found the items we were looking for and headed back to the hotel. Our flight’s boarding time was 5:30 AM and we were flying courtesy of Delta, the airline that Air Canada reserved for us on Wednesday.

A call to Delta on Friday afternoon turned out to be helpful. Their counter opens at 3:30 AM, and the agent let us know that if we arrived by 3:45 AM, we’d have enough time to go through customs and International Security. As it turned out, Air Canada had one more surprise for us.

We arrived at the airport on Saturday morning just after 3:30 AM after a 25-minute taxi ride. There was no line at the Delta check-in counter, so we stepped right up to discover an issue. After checking our passports, the agent pointed out that though we have seats on the scheduled aircraft, Air Canada had only provided one e-ticket, Lynn’s. There was no e-ticket, therefore no payment was received by Delta, for the flight for me.

Back to the Air Canada counter… but they weren’t open yet. We waited patiently while one person set up the area for the day’s passengers. Finally ready to open, the ticket agent called us over and we explained the issue showing the agent documentation provided by Delta that noted the issue. It took 45 minutes and telephone support for her to work out the problem and we went back to the Delta counter with proper documentation in hand.

By now, the airport was bustling and the line through security was very long. The good news is that we arrived in the boarding area with about 10 minutes to spare and our flight to Minneapolis and drive home went without further issues.

As I noted in last week’s post, please don’t think we are complaining. Traveling the airlines these days is challenging. One needs to be flexible and not get upset over things over which one has no control. We rolled with the punches and now we’ll see how good our annual travel policy is.

It looks like our luggage made many more air miles than we did. Unfortunately, the cases don’t have frequent flyer mileage accounts or they would have probably earned a free flight after just one trip. >grin<

We are a little “burned out” from traveling for now, but you know we will soon be planning another cruise for later this year. I’ve noticed that we generally do about two cruises a year, one in the Spring and one in the fall, usually about our wedding anniversary time. We haven’t got anything booked for October yet, but we’ll start looking and dreaming soon. I suspect our next cruise won’t be quite as ambitious as this one.

All of the images above can be viewed on my Flickr site in 2K HD here.

John Steiner