As we enjoyed a couple of last relaxing days in Zagreb, we started getting anxious about the logistics of making our way to the Zagreb airport with our bicycle box and transport bags. Ultimately, our biggest weary was our airline transfer at the Pearson’s international airport in Toronto – an airport dubbed in the past few months as the world’s worst airport according to some newspaper and magazine reporters. Based on our experience, its disgraceful title was well justified!

2022.08.07 – [HR] Zagreb ==> Zagreb (0 kms | Total: 4249 kms)

Today was a moving day between accommodations. We checked out of our hotel at 11am and took a tram to a park on the south side of town. We realized along the way that the tram service was free since Friday for it was Croatia’s statutory holiday long weekend. After a long walk in the park under much more enjoyable temperature than in the past few days, we stopped at a nice cafe for some coffee and snacks before returning to our hotel. Around 1:00pm we called our apartment owner to see if it was ready for us to check-in. We finally managed to get an early check-in at 1:30pm instead of the posted 3:00pm time. We took the tram with our bicycle box for two stops and dropped off the box in the apartment. We returned to the hotel and cycled back with the tandem fully loaded. Before settling in, we cycled to a large grocery store that was still opened on late Sunday afternoon. Jenny prepared a nice evening meal while I was dissembling the tandem.

2022.08.08 – [HR] Zagreb ==> Zagreb (0 kms | Total: 4249 kms)

After a nice breakfast prepared by Jenny, I wrapped and padded tandem before boxing it. Later we went out in search of a hair salon for Jenny. The best she could get was an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. I had much better luck getting a hair cut within only a 20 minutes wait. The temperature was again very comfortable. We stopped at McDonald’s for coffee and snack before returning to our apartment. In the evening we walked over to our previous hotel to seek a small refund for an invoicing mistake. We picked up some groceries nearby before walking back to our apartment.

2022.08.09 – [HR] Zagreb ==> Zagreb (0 kms | Total: 4249 kms)

After Jenny’s home made breakfast, we did our final taping of our bicycle box. Early afternoon we took the tram to Jenny’s hair salon appointment. On our way back to our apartment, we stopped at a grocery store. We spent the remainder of the day relaxing in our apartment. In the evening, we walked over to the central train station as a last stroll through one of Zagreb’s popular hangout.

2022.08.10 – [CA] Zagreb ==> Kanata (0 kms | Total: 4249 kms)

Upon our wake-up, we learned that our flight out of Zagreb was already delayed by 45min and that our original connecting flight from Toronto to Ottawa had been canceled and replaced with a later flight with now a 5+ hours lay over. At 8:45am, we brought our bicycle box down the stairs from our 2nd floor apartment. We ordered a Uber 7-passenger vehicle which we were hoping would be adequate to transport our bicycle box. For some reasons according to the Uber app tracking, the driver made a 10km detour before picking us up. In the end the commute to the airport was trouble free including the bicycle box transport. Although we were more than 4 hours ahead of our scheduled flight, a couple of other families were already ahead of us at the check-in counter. The first sign of complication started when we noticed that our two transport bags were tagged to our final destination airport in Ottawa while the bicycle box was only tagged to Toronto’s airport. We had to scramble to pay the $100 USD (or equivalent in local currency) fee in cash for AirTransat’s bicycle box handling. The 9.5 hours flight to Toronto appeared long to us (although still much shorter than flight to China), but thankfully we had some great seats. Upon our arrival at Pearson’s airport, we learned that our transport bags would continue on to Ottawa, but we had to pick-up our bicycle box and re-check it at the WestJet counter. Sadly, it took us almost 3 hours at the WestJet counter to get agents to deal with the situation. The four counter agents which all appeared to be on their first week on the job were confronted, we must admit, with so many unique passenger challenges/situations. Thankfully, one experienced counter agent kept on assisting the in-training agents. In the end, due to some funky baggage check-in by AirTransat in Zagreb, the WestJet counter agent had to request assistance from their internal front-line phone support to make the proper database corrections to our flight booking. Just when we thought we were in the clear of issue after paying an extra $50 for bicycle box handling, we had an unprecedented encounter with a zealous CATSA security agent while checking our bicycle box in the oversize drop-off area. The agent was adamant that we needed to empty our bicycle box in order for her to properly inspect to box. As we insisted this was not necessary and/or possible due to intricate padding used in packaging the tandem in the box, she reverted to calling her manager. The CATSA duty manager was slightly more understanding but still requested that we got WestJet staff to transport the bicycle box to the baggage handling area instead of using the oversize carousel. We could hardly understand how the biggest airport in Canada could barely handle a simple bicycle box. Avoiding Toronto’s Pearson Internal Airport in the future will be among our top travel priority. The flight from Toronto to Ottawa was thankfully trouble free. We were relieved when we recovered our transport bags and bicycle box at the airport. We were doubly relieved when at 1am, some 24 hours after our wake-up in Zagreb, we easily re-united with our 14 year old Mazda 3 in the airport parking lot. Gang and Sharon had kindly dropped off the car earlier in the evening for our return home. On a side note, our 18 month old Outback’s battery had completely depleted itself during our 4 month absence – an apparent “feature” of the latest car technology.