Sometimes the early bird catches the worm, and sometimes it catches heck. Mer and I always have a time tug-of-war going on about when we need to get up and leave for Toronto to get to our gate in time. I had agreed on leaving 9.5 hours before the flight, which for us today would have been leaving the house around 11:30 or 11:45. This would have let us go to a student graduation party that started at 11:00.

Then I ran across a story of how terrible Toronto airport has been over the last few weeks because of staff shortages. One story had a man waiting in a customs line for seven hours. The stories warned of long lines and delays, and urged travelers to plan on extra time. Thus, I insisted we leave at 10:30 to give us an extra hour.

You can guess how things turned out since I am writing this post two hours before boarding, and we have already had a leisurely sit-down supper here at the airport. A one-car wait at the border. A ten-minute line for check-in. No wait at security. At the gate four hours early. Needless to say, Mer has revoked my time privileges for future trips to Toronto.

For the record, for anyone who may be considering flying out of Toronto from the Akron area:
– We woke up early naturally, and used all of the time. It took us four hours to get ready, pack, and get the car ready.
– It took us five and a half hours to get to the airport parking lot, but that was with skipping lunch and having an efficient border crossing. Personally, if I hadn’t been stripped of my time powers, I’d allow six hours for the drive.
– I was aiming to get the the airport four hours early for delays that never happened. Three hours is plenty.
– So, my non-binding recommendation is to get up four hours before you need to leave and then to allow nine hours for the trip itself. A cautious traveler would maybe consider 9.5 hours, and add more if a meal is involved on the driving part of the trip.

But we are here at the gate, and at some point (probably around 8:00 pm), we will board for a 9:15 departure. We get in to Gatwick (London) around 9:00 local time, which is 4:00 am EST.