AC756 ~ 12/29/2018
Boeing 787 Dreamliner SFO-YYZ
Our little family of four is in the middle of a big winter fun trip, currently in Quebec City, and our first step on the trip was Air Canada Dreamliner business class from SFO to Toronto. My 3 year old son is turning into quite the airplane aficionado, and he was VERY excited to take his first Dreamliner flight (he laments the fact that he hasn’t been on an A380 yet). We needed to get to Quebec City from San Francisco, and originally, I was planning on just paying for an economy ticket with cash, but when I saw that there were 3 award tickets available in business class in a freshly configured 787, I jumped at the opportunity. Little Vivian is still a lap child, as she’s only 11 months old.
The suites were arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration. In the past when we’ve flown this type of configuration, we typically put my son in the aisle right across from me so I can easily reach over and help him with something if the seatbelt sign is on, but for whatever reason, the flight attendants wanted him in the forwardmost seat for takeoff and landing. The crew on this flight really as fantastic, though. The flight attendants took extra care to make sure that my son understood the seatbelt, the in-flight entertainment, and everything that was going to happen (i.e. take off, mommy and daddy are right behind him, etc).
I started settling in, and I really liked the seat. The video display was very large, and I much prefer the displays that are mounted in a fixed position, rather than having them swing in on an arm. Those need to be stowed for takeoff and landing, whereas you can start watching programming from the moment you sit down on these. There was ample storage, and it had both a USB and a 120V plug. I’m looking forward to the first airline to have USB-C ports built in.
I will say that the actual user interface of the in-flight entertainment slightly confused me. I was always able to navigate to what I wanted eventually, but the remote control has its own display, and sometimes I’d want something like an airplane map, and it would start displaying on the device screen rather than the primary display. My daughter enjoyed climbing around my seat before departure. While traveling with an 11 month old is never easy, everything with babies is easier when you have more space!
I was offered a pre-departure beverage choice of orange juice or water. C’mon… no champagne? I asked about sparkling wine and was turned down. Booooo. Menus were passed out.
The chicken and the tortellini sounded pretty good to me. I ordered the chicken, my son ordered the chicken, and my wife ordered the tortellini. The flight began to take off, and all was well. Vivian drifted to sleep on my wife’s chest, I fired up a game on my Switch, and my son was completely into Space Jam. The noise canceling headphones on the plane are great. It was utterly impossible to get my son’s attention unless I pulled them off his head.
We were quickly in the sky, and the flight attendant came around with hot nuts and drinks. I found the beer selection pretty underwhelming so I decided to just go with a Molson, cuz eh we’re headed to Canada! Also, is there anything that tastes better than hot nuts on an airplane? Back in my days of flying 100,000+ miles per year with United and getting upgraded most of the time, the hot nuts were my favorite part, and years later, it turns out that they still are!
The flight attendants were also quick to top off anyone who needed more nuts. My son ate all his nuts as well. Meanwhile, Vivian was still asleep, and my wife was able to watch a movie. So far so good! The appetizer was a tasty shrimp cocktail and some warm bread.
After the appetizer, we got our main courses. The chicken was awesome! I really didn’t expect the sauce to be so flavorful. My son loved his as well.
I forgot to take a picture of my wife’s tortellini, but she seemed less excited about it than we were about our chicken. Dessert was “baked on board’ chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream.
Just like it’s hard to screw up hot mixed nuts, it’s tough to screw up gooey, warm chocolate chip cookies. Air Canada did their duty of not messing up such a basic and delicious dessert. The cookies tasted like they should, and for whatever reason, my crazy son didn’t want his cookie, just his ice cream. Don’t worry – his cookie didn’t go uneaten.
My son finished nearly two movies, I did some school work and played some games, my daughter slept for nearly three hours, my wife watched a movie, and we all ate well in good comfort. We had just about an hour left in the flight, and my daughter woke up to hang out for a bit. We played with some of her toys on the floor. It was good to have so much space with her. My son popped around to say hello as well.
I haven’t ever had a bad flight on Air Canada, and this day was no different. I really enjoyed the flight, and I found the seat to be great. It would have been great even if this were a 12 hour flight, instead of the 2300ish mile flight we had on SFO-YYZ. We stayed at the Sheraton built into the Toronto airport, and the next morning, we were off to Quebec City!
