A Quick Trip to Quebec: Air Travel Advice for the Aging and Other Travel Woes

Bob and I are again visiting our neighbor to the north (Canada) to experience both the charm and optimal fall foliage of beautiful Quebec City.  It is a wonderful place to go for the aging traveler: It’s beautiful, you’re in another country but not too far from home, another language is spoken and all of your chargers fit into the electrical outlets so you don’t have to worry about adaptors! Our traveling partners, Mark and Judy, met us there to enjoy four days in this lovely city. Of course, we have to get there first…

The grueling work (and aggravation) it often takes to board a plane now a-days, can be tough on our aging bodies. We have decided, after one too-many times of being herded into seemingly never-ending security lines and removing our luggages’ liquids, shoes, belts and laptops while going through Security and then worrying that we’ve picked up everything, to take the “LFTK” (“Less for the Kids”) approach to travel and just pay for TSA Pre Check and “Clear.” While it is not guaranteed, the lines are usually shorter or non-existent and the staff seem to be always smiling, friendly and helpful. When, after only two minutes, we arrived at Security, Bob turned and said to me, “This was the best $334 we ever spent!” While true, he is prone to exaggeration. 

I had been watching the Quebec temperature for the last week and saw that it was going to be similar to temperatures in the northeast—in the 60s and one day hitting 70 degrees and I packed accordingly. We walked out of the airport and I immediately thought that an American 63 degrees appears to be different than a Canadian 63 degrees. It was damp, cold and the wind was a bit formidable for a supposed mild temperature.  Judy and Mark picked us up and Judy at the airport and Judy informed me that she had been cold since she arrived. Great—my mind frame while packing clearly reflected the American version of a temperate climate.

Without getting political, it is not an overreaction to say that current relations between the US and our Canadian neighbors has been, shall we say, not good.  We were not very worried about traveling in Canada because Bob and I had been to Newfoundland in June and the people couldn’t have been kinder.  When we arrived at the hotel, the staff was just as lovely as in Newfoundland, but there was a 90 minute period later in the day that I thought that we were experiencing diplomatic “gaslighting.” 

When we arrived, only Mark and Judy’s room was ready and while the two-room reservation was made under Mark’s name, he and Bob distinctly told the clerk to make two reservations for payment purposes.  We then placed all our luggage in Mark and Judy’s room and went exploring. When our room was ready, there was a bit of confusion because they had run Mark’s credit card for both rooms.  The “negotiations” that then transpired in explaining why we wanted two reservations lasted longer than any discussions currently taking place between our two countries.  

And then there were the room keys.  After we got the reservations settled (we will see what happens when we check out…), we were given our keys. I am all for safety as is this chic, boutique hotel, because you need your key to go up in the elevator.  We all got into an elevator and while using our new key, pushed Mark and Judy’s floor to retrieve our luggage.  Our key didn’t  work. After a few attempts with the doors opening and closing, Bob left the elevator to get new keys. Mark then used his key and we arrived safely to their floor.  Mark then said he would help me with the luggage to our floor, thinking Bob would obtain a working key and meet us there. When Mark and I—with all our luggage— got back in the elevator to go to our floor, his key would not work.  We were then sent to the lobby where a lovely woman took out her card and told Mark that he was not holding his key correctly and that’s why it was not working. She asked for our floor number, took out her key, demonstrated to us both how to correctly hold the key. Hers didn’t work either. She then said, “F***,” walked off the elevator, and we haven’t seen her since. As the doors kept opening and closing with Mark slamming his key against the elevator panel, he turned to me and said, “Well this blog is writing itself.” 

Somehow, we were able to meet up with Bob, who told us that he learned that the person at the desk neglected to tell us that our keys only worked for our individual floors and that if we needed to go to other floors other than our own, our keys would have to be reprogrammed.  As we are not mind-readers, we did not request this. The keys were finally reprogrammed and for now, everything seems to be working—but only time will tell. 

Lastly, finding the lights in our room was a nightmare.  After our Yalta-like negotiations at the front desk, we were told that there was a “diamond” hidden in each of our rooms and that if we found it, we would receive something special at the bar.  As an aside, this has never happened to us while staying at a Marriott. When we finally got to our room, our minds were not focused on our diamond scavenger hunt because we were too busy trying to figure out how to put on the lights.  Even with such lack of focus, I found the diamond BEFORE we figured out the lights. 

We tried not to show our growing frustration (and not take all these problems personally) because we are Americans in a country that frankly is mad at us. As nice as we could muster, we called the front desk and asked if someone could come to our room and show us how to illuminate the lights. Someone did and even she had some difficulty figuring it out. In retrospect now, because the staff has really been quite kind, I no longer  think that they are trying to gaslight us Americans. They may however, need some additional professional development on more effective patron communications, particularly regarding hotel necessities like using the elevators and turning on some lights. They can ditch the whole diamond hunt, as far as I’m concerned  

Today, we have a walking tour (of course) of this beautiful but very hilly city.  I am beginning the day by preemptively taking Tylenol for my knees.  These hills are killers!