Thursday Oct 6
We left Sydney on AC to Vancouver connecting to Toronto via Calgary. The trip was uneventful with the exception of the food which a new low in international airlines pointy-end meals. We arrived at the Park Hyatt (Toronot) around 8:30pm totally whacked. We hit their roof top terrace bar for a snack and some wine. Then it was off to bed.
The day before we left Sydney we were notified by Westjet that our Toronto-Nassau flight scheduled for Friday morning was cancelled due to Hurricane Matthew. We called and had it re-scheduled for Saturday. In the mean time we continued to monitor the hurricane - the most severe in many years. As a result of now needing to stay 2 nights in Toronto we cancelled our booking at the Airport Sheraton and booked the Park Hyatt in Yorkville - one of our favourites.
We got up a bit late on Friday morning (as we were not flying out that day) and had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel then walked around Yorkville still pretty jet-lagged. Upon returning to the hotel we found we had received another e-mail from Westjet moving our flight to Nassau to Monday - cripes. They claimed the airport was closed but we found Air Canada were still scheduled to fly Saturday afternoon. So we booked that flight and cancelled the Westjet flight for a full refund.
We had five’es at Hemmingways, one of Ernst’s haunts then dinner at EVOO - a restaurant where we had previously eaten with E&H and other friends After dinner we returned to Hemmingways for a nightcap and “bumped” into Martin (the owner and friend of Ernest’s and his partner LizAnn. We had a good time chatting while Martin shouted us a drink. We had previously met Martin in Queenstown, NZ where he has a beautiful house - we were touring with E&H at the time.
Saturday Oct 8
We both started out very zonked due to not sleeping at all well. We had some fruit and yoghurt in our room for breakfast then an early lunch before heading to YYZ for our flight to Nassau. It was uneventful except the flight left an hour late, so we only arrived at the Hilton in Nassau after 9pm. We were tired and hungry as no food was served on the plane as turbulence meant that all service was suspended. Clearly the Bahamas had been hit hard by the hurricane - trees down everywhere.
Even though it was 9pm our room was not ready (due to the hurricane) so they comped us dinner in the main restaurant - buffet only, served on plastic plates with plastic cutlery - not sure if this is normal or due to the hurricane. We finished off with a couple of Mai Tai’s in the bar then got our room and crashed out.