Restless Explorer | Travel Blog – Tips, Reviews & Destination Guides

What is it like to attend a Toronto Raptors game at the Scotiabank Arena, or hang out in front of the arena at Jurassic Park? When travelling, if possible, I like to attend a professional sports game.  So, when heading to Toronto I had to attend a Raptors game.  I went expecting a great atmosphere but ended up witnessing the wildest run I’ve ever seen!   In the past, I’ve been to two other NBA games, a Chicago Bulls game and a Minnesota Timberwolves game, so how did the Raptors game compare and was it worth it?

Toronto is Canada’s largest city and has the third biggest skyline in North America.  So, if you’re wondering what it’s actually like to visit Toronto, here’s the full experience – from downtown vibes to the food scene and getting around. 

A high-rise condominium in downtown Toronto, located next to Scotiabank Arena sounds excellent, right?  Toronto is a global city getting a nice hotel downtown can be pricey.  That’s why when we came across RivetStays on York Street, we were shocked by the price.  RivetStays are high-rise condo in the heart of downtown; and our stay only cost us $200 a night during spring break! While we booked through Hotels.com, the stay felt very similar to a modern Airbnb.

To explore far and cool places, flying is usually inevitable — but let’s be honest, flying these days can be long, painful, and uncomfortable. The whole experience gets even worse when fellow passengers act like first class jerks (even in economy).  So, don’t be a douche bag and help make everyone’s flight a little better.  No one wants to fly with someone who:

I love travelling, but dislike flying.  I get claustrophobic, antsy and bored easily.  But to travel to cool and distant places, there’s no escaping it, you need to fly, and usually for longer flights.  I’m no stranger to flying on long flights, whether it was Europe (twice), Asia and South America, I’ve been on some long flights and had some nasty layovers.  I always try to make my experience as comfortable and entertaining as possible. 

We wanted to have a fancy dinner for my wife’s 40th birthday dinner; we originally thought about one of the many beach restaurants in the hotels on Palm Beach, but most had limited reservations available or looked too expensive.  Aruba has good food, but it’s mostly westernized.  The meat is okay, but the specialty of the island is seafood; so that’s what we knew we had to get.  We decided to go with Pinchos Bar & Grill in Oranjestad.

Aruba is famous for good weather, beaches, the flamingos and the Fofoti Trees.  But Aruba is more than beaches, a lot of people don’t realize Aruba is a desert, so there are lots of cool things to do that involve exploring the island’s landscape. 

I’ve always been a fan of beaches, after visiting Flamenco Beach in Puerto Rico, I knew I wanted to visit more of the world’s best beaches.  I had always heard about Aruba and knew Eagle Beach has been rated as a top 10 beach on TripAdvisor, but Aruba was never really on my radar.  But last month we ended up heading to Aruba, and I knew we had to spend some time on Eagle Beach.  We ended up staying at Eagle Aruba Resort, so it’s safe to say we spent a lot of time on Eagle Beach.

Aruba is synonymous with Flamingos.  But it’s not actually Aruba that is known for iconic Pink Flamingos strolling along the beach, it’s Renaissance Island.  Unless you are staying at the Renaissance Hotel or book a day pass to Renaissance Island you won’t see a Flamingo on your entire trip.

When travelling to Aruba, there are a few main areas to stay in.  There’s Palm Beach, Arashi Beach, Oranjestad and Eagle Beach.  Palm Beach and Arashi are expensive, Oranjestad is nice, but I’d rather be on a beach. Then there’s Eagle Beach, a top 10 beach in the world, with more affordable low rise hotels.  It was a no brainer.  We found Eagle Aruba Resort for a good price of $250 CAD a night.  It was on sale and I thought the hotels.com sale would last forever… turns out it didn’t.  The price went up to about $350 a night, so instead I booked with my Aventura Points and saved about $800.  It was totally worth it.

I’ve always heard of Aruba and the phrase " One Happy Island" and heard about pristine beaches, Flamingos and have always thought that it was some far way and lavish destination.  So, I thought Aruba would be luxurious and super expensive; so it was never really crossed my mind as a future travel destination.  But when we decided to go somewhere for my wife’s 40th birthday, which is in November, we had to think outside of the box since most Caribbean destinations are prone to hurricanes.  That is when I found out, being so far south, and just above Venezuela, Aruba is outside of the Hurricane Belt.  I got down to planning and realized that flights and hotels weren’t too expensive.  So, I attached my 3 personal days from work to the weekend and the Remembrance Day holiday, and we booked a trip to Aruba!

We only had 3 nights in Dublin, but wanted to devote one of those days to exploring outside of the city.  We debated about going to the Cliffs of Moher, but since we were already in the Isle of Skye in Scotland, we realized it’d be better to add something a bit different;  instead we booked a day trip to Northern Ireland.  We got to add another “country” to our vacation and got to see several unique places.  We booked through Viator, which is nice because for each booking you earn dollars to use on your account in the future, and the tour operator was Irish Day Tours.  The tour included a lot of things (Belfast, with the option of a Black Cab Tour, the Dark Hedges, some viewpoints of the Atlantic and of course, The Giants Causeway), our daughter was free, and it only cost us $120 per adult, making it very affordable.