May 21, 2014

Toronto for the Weekend

We just returned from our weekend in Toronto.  The weekend was awesome and we had a great time exploring the city.  Here's my consolidated (flights, hotel, city, concert, lounge) review of the weekend.  Enjoy!

We left downtown Denver around 3:15PM for our 5:40PM departure.  Traffic was light and thanks to TSA Precheck we were at lounge 5280 (the best spot for a drink at DEN - located in terminal B) enjoying a pre-flight cocktail.  We made our way to the gate and were quickly on our way to Toronto. If you are ever on a United CRJ-700 and have access to Economy Plus, definitely pick row 7.  The "bulkhead" separating the seat from first class is a "curtain" so you have essentially unlimited leg room.

Mayor Ford welcomes you!

Sorry not Sorry

We landed in Toronto around 11PM and parked at a remote gate.  So we had quite the hike (seriously it took us almost 20 minutes) to get to immigration.  I've always found entering Canada to be pretty comical.  I have made over a dozen trips over the last seven years yet always get interrogated upon arrival.  I think that is the standard treatment but who knows...maybe they think I'm super dangerous.



We grabbed a cab and arrived at the Westin Harbour Castle around midnight.  Earlier in the day, my SPG app was showing that we had been upgraded to a Suite but given our late arrival, they had given them all away.  The front desk agent couldn't have been nicer (she was also going to Avicii on Saturday) and put us in a standard room with an awesome view of the harbor on the 31st floor.  The room was fine - your standard Westin.  No frills but it was perfect since we didn't spend much time in the room.

Pretty standard Westin bathroom
Small and bland Westin guest room

We woke up Saturday morning and set out to explore the city.  Toronto has some really cool architecture and we enjoyed walking around staring up at the buildings.  We made our way over to St. Lawrence Market which is a must see if you visit Toronto as it is consistently rated one of the best food markets in the world.

Walking around Toronto
Yumm...carrots

We then headed over to The Distillery Historic District and were really impressed.  The pedestrian friendly (outdoor) marketplace has a ton of shops, bars, and restaurants and after walking around and visiting a few shops we had an outstanding lunch at Pure Spirits Oyster House & Grill where I had one of the best burgers of my life.



After cleaning up at the hotel, we headed out to grab some dinner before the show.  We had a fantastic dinner at Aroma which we literally stumbled into since our original destination had a huge line.  I was shocked at how inexpensive dinner was.  We were in the theater district on a Saturday night (where you would think they would gouge you) and a huge dinner for two with drinks was $60 USD!

After dinner, we walked a few blocks to the Rogers Centre for the Avicii showThe show was unreal.  While we certainly enjoyed everything else we did/saw in Toronto, this was the highlight: 





We woke up late Sunday morning, packed, and headed to the airport.  Traffic was really heavy (it was Memorial Day Weekend in Canada) and the drive took 45 minutes.  We were carrying so check-in was quick and we were soon through immigration (the US does pre-clearance in Canada for transborder flights) and security.  One thing to note is that we were asked for our physical Global Entry cards to go through the Nexus security line making our experience basically TSA Precheck.  So always remember to bring your Global Entry card to Canada.  I always bring mine in my travel wallet just in case.

Emily and I are both Star Alliance Gold members by way of United Premier Gold so we made our way over to the Air Canada lounge before the flight.  The lounge was awesome - bright with a ton of windows, great views of the tarmac, lots of seating, and decent food and drink.  And the wifi was super fast.  The hour we were in the lounge flew by and we made our way to the gate.  I had been upgraded (thanks again Premier Gold) on the way to the airport and Emily got upgraded at the gate.  A great end to an awesome weekend.

Lots of seating and windows
Toronto Terminal 1 Maple Leaf Lounge

We had an awesome time in Toronto.  It was a perfect weekend away and pretty cool that we were actually in a different country!  If Avicii comes back to Toronto, we will definitely be there.

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