Virgin America... Wha?

Tamar here again. Jon's off studying for his final final exam ever, but will post shortly thereafter.

Way, way back in 1995, my family and I traveled to Europe to attend my cousin Jon's Bar Mitzvah. Jon's family was living in London at the time, but had been living in Paris for a while prior (a lot of my dad's side of the family lives in/around Paris) so they held the Bar Mitzvah in France. My family decided to go to the festivities and then Eurostar it over to London to spend some more time with the fam.

And among the top 5 memories of the trip? Flying home on Virgin Atlantic. I kid you not - my brothers and I talked about this epic flight home for years to come. No crazy Snakes on the Plane or anything like that. Just that they had goody bags (yes, this was before everything was "no frills") and nice flight attendants and everything was so chic.

Since then, I've been quite disillusioned with air travel. Air Canada + Me = Water + Oil. I think that Air Canada sees my name on the passenger's list and then proceeds to cancel that flight. Maybe not that bad. But I have been rather unlucky when it's come to flying to Toronto in December. Air Canada definitely has the most flights from the States to Toronto, but I just get testy with the airline.

But wait! What did I just learn yesterday? Virgin America is expanding service to Toronto. Just in time for our wedding! Starting in June, you can book non-stop flights from LAX to YYZ (Toronto Pearson). And right now the airfare is cheaper than Air Canada (though both are still higher than usual, so wait a bit to book).

A couple of drawbacks...
1. They'll fly LA--> Toronto and back - but not between New York/Toronto or Boston/Toronto. Sorry East Coast family and friends.

2. Only one non-stop flight and one connecting flight per day. So you've gotta have faith that there won't be cancellations.

But otherwise - sweet! I'd recommend using Kayak to check for the lowest priced airfare when booking your flight to Toronto, but definitely check out Virgin America. Toronto

Toronto: How to Get There

We realize that a lot of you will be coming to our wedding from outside of Toronto, so we wanted to provide some information about how to get to the City. Luckily, Toronto is a major Canadian city, so there are many transportation options.

There are 2 airports in Toronto - Toronto Pearson International Airport and Toronto Centre City Airport.

Pearson Airport is the major airport in Toronto, and is located a little west of the City in Mississauga. Most large airlines (Air Canada, American, Delta, United, etc.) fly into Pearson. A flight from New York is about an hour long, and a flight from California is about 4-5 hours long. Customs is done at Pearson. There is public transportation (a bus to the subway) from the airport and a cab would cost about $50CAD to the downtown hotels. There are car rentals available at Pearson.

City Centre Airport is a small airport located just south of downtown Toronto on one of the islands. Porter Air is the only commercial airline that flies into City Centre - there are flights from Boston, Montreal, New York, and other regional locations. From the airport, Porter supplies a free ferry every 15 minutes that will drop you off near Union Station in downtown. Union Station has a subway stop, and a cab would cost about $10-15 to the host hotels.

If you insist on flying Jet Blue or Southwest, you can fly into Buffalo International Airport, which is about 2 hours from Toronto - not including time spent at the border. You can rent cars there, but we're not sure whether you can take the car up to Canada (we'll investigate that further). 

Generally speaking, if you book a month or more in advance, you can get pretty good fares to Canada. If you're coming from New York City or upstate New York and don't want to fly, there is an Amtrak train that travels between Penn Station and Toronto Union Station with several stops in upstate. The train usually costs $80-90 each way and takes about 13 hours between NYC and Toronto. 

VIA rail provides service throughout Canada. A train between Montreal and Toronto will take about 5 hours.

If you have any questions about travelling to Toronto, please feel free to contact us and we'll do our best to help!