Spotting from the Toronto Sheraton Gateway Hotel

One of the best spotting hotels at Toronto Pearson International Airport is the Sheraton Gateway Hotel. Dave Parker recently visited and gave the following report from his time there. The pictures are also taken by Dave from the hotel (see more here).

View from room 846

There Sheraton Gateway is connected to Terminal 3 and offers views across the ramps and active runways. I requested a high room with a view and was contacted by the hotel offering a club upgrade for C$30.  This guaranteed top floor and free Internet, breakfast and evening snacks. I was duly given room 846 and was not disappointed. The views were fantastic across the ramps, and with traffic landing on left and right runways towards he hotel nothing could be missed with either optics or SBS. Although Terminal 1 is not viewable, most aircraft taxi in front of Terminal 3 in transit to and from the runways.  For the photographer, the views through glass are not perfect. There is a tint and you have to search out a sweet spot for best clarity. I have updated my phanfare site so you can view a collection of photos there to get a feel for what is possible.

On the whole I would say is one of the best hotels for views at Toronto. I did check the layout and it looks like rooms in the 827-837 and 843-853 would give similar views and presumably floors 6 and 7, although I suspect level 6 might have some terminal structure blocking some of the views. I do recommend the Club floor as there is 24hr access to the lounge with Starbucks Coffee and soft drinks on tap. Evening nibbles were also good.

I stayed two nights (Saturday & Sunday). Activity was fairly constant although after a while repeats creep in. You will not get all of the Air Canada fleet as it tends to be slow to move between bases. That is especially true for the Express/Jazz fleets. You will, however, see a reasonable percentage of the A319s, A320s, E190s and E170s. Beech1900. DHC8-100/200 and DHC-400s, CRJ and CRJ700 all repeated regularly with no new ones noted after midday on the second day. Sunday was very good for Westjet, Sunwing and Canjet presumably due to weekend IT schedules.

A selection of US Airlines can be seen mainly using smaller equipment (Delta CRJs, American E170, CRJ7, USAir E170, CRJs, United E170, DHC-8). On the International front, the highlight is the Hainan 787. Others include SATA A310, LOT 787, Cubana A320 (LY-), TACA A320, Caribbean/Air Jamaica B738s, Korean B772s and the usual European heavies.

Visit the Sheraton Gateway Hotel website here: www.sheratongatewaytorontoairport.com