No, we didn't ride our bikes but we were sure exhausted by the end!  Warning--this post is a bit of a rant.

One of the amenities offered by the Crowne Plaza is a free shuttle to Marco Polo Airport.  The shuttle operates on a schedule, however, and the one to get us to the airport four hours in advance of our flight, as recommended by Air Canada in an email a couple of days ago, departed the hotel at 7:15.  The breakfast buffet, included in our room price, started at 6:30.  So we ate, brushed our teeth, and ran.

We were at the airport by 8 for a flight that wasn't scheduled to depart until 1 p.m.  And in spite of Air Canada's email, they didn't open the check-in desk until 3 hours before departure.  I suppose we could have checked in online, but I don't think we could have dropped off our baggage any earlier.  Once we'd done that, security and passport control were reasonably quick and we bought some limoncello at the duty free and found our gate.

It was a weird gate, on a different level than the others.  There were a few lounge chairs and we snagged a couple of those and relaxed with our books.  As our boarding time neared and nothing much was happening, we suspected our flight would be late and it was.  Finally the passengers were bussed out to the plane and loaded aboard.  Then we waited some more.  The pilot made a few announcements--the incoming flight had been late, then it had been discovered that one of the toilets was out of order.  It wasn't possible to fix and it was on the same circuit as another so it required a lengthy procedure to disconnect it and restore the circuitry.  Then permission to fly the full airplane with one less toilet had to be obtained from the Canadian Transportation Agency.  When finally the plane was ready to go, we had lost our spot in the departure order and had to wait some more.

Arriving late into Toronto, we had to wait again for a gate to be available.  Of course, we missed our connecting flight--by about 10 minutes since our original itinerary had us hanging out at Pearson for over 4 hours.  We were put on another flight to Vancouver which was also delayed, but in my search for an open washroom without a queue out the door, I noticed that three-quarters of the flights on the departure board were listed as delayed or cancelled.  Those that weren't were actually scheduled for the next day, so plenty of time to become delayed or cancelled.

At YVR, we were shocked to see all the abandoned suitcases, carseats, and other luggage in the baggage area.  The floor surrounding the baggage information counter was covered with unclaimed bags and there were several more near the oversized baggage window.  Luckily for us, our bike cases arrived on the same flight as we did.

All the delays meant that by the time we collected our bike cases, Canada Line would be shut down for the night.  We were very happy when our son volunteered to come and collect us as we didn't really want to ask anyone to come to the airport at midnight.  We finally fell into our own bed after a very long day.