Beautiful but Dangerous Bergen

by | Jun 29, 2024 | Uncategorized

For this post, I am going to tell you about our visit to Bergen right up until it became the worst day of the trip for me. It could have been much worse, but thankfully it wasn’t. We did like the city; I am just not that impressed with some of the populace.

We arrived early on Thursday. Of course, I was awake and took photos out on the deck in front of the Explorer’s Lounge.

Please excuse this editorial interruption, but I want to mention something while I am writing about the beautiful deck in front of the Explorer’s Lounge on deck seven.  About 90% of the photos I have taken while sailing into and out of someplace have been taken from that deck. It is easily accessible to every person on the ship. Anyone can go to the Explorer’s Lounge, open one of two doors and step out onto that deck for a beautiful view ahead of the ship. I point this out because on our former favorite cruise line, Celebrity, in their new E-Class ships, you can’t look forward to where the ship is going UNLESS YOU ARE IN A SUITE.

Our friends who still cruise Celebrity tell us that Viking is so much more expensive. But if I have to choose between a suite on a Celebrity ship in order to have access to the entire ship or our Penthouse verandah on Viking at just about the same price, I choose Viking. Besides treating me like I am in steerage unless I get a suite, Celebrity also gives me a “suite only” restaurant (where I can’t eat with my friends who are not in a suite) and they have all the things about cruise ships that Viking doesn’t (like kids, a casino, art auctions and more).

Viking gives every single person on the ship the exact same thing. Yes, if you get a Viking suite, you can purchase shore excursions and make dining reservations earlier than others. Still, once you are onboard, everyone is like everyone else except for the size of their stateroom. And that’s why we switched. So I could look forward as we sailed into someplace and not be treated like a second-class passenger.

Back to our sail-in. It was a gorgeous day weather-wise, and I had lots of photo opportunities. Here’s my first batch. Don’t worry; there are nowhere near as many photos today as yesterday in my post on Gearanger. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

I just remembered that I should mention that, like many Viking cruises, we were getting an overnight in Bergen before we disembarked on Friday. So today was a touring day. And we were booked on our usual, included “panoramic tour” of Bergen. We met our guide Nikolay on the pier, and we were off on our “luxury motor coach”. Even though Nikolay was from Germany and had only been in Bergen for a year, he did a very competent job. The first stop was downtown, where we could look back on the old port, then a visit to the basement of a church, which had been an old crypt but was now open to everyone for contemplation. Then, it was off to downtown, where we walked about six blocks through some old town area. All the way, Nikolay gave us a very informative talk.

Here are the photos with captions from our “Panoramic Bergen” excursion. Enjoy!

After the tour, just like usual, Kathleen and I were back on the ship for lunch while Steve and Jamie did an E-Bike tour with Viking. They really enjoyed it, so if you have a chance to do it, they endorse it.

After lunch, Kathleen went back to the stateroom to start packing for disembarkation the following day, and I headed back into town for an unexpectedly warm walk in the sunshine. I took lots of photos, so here’s another gallery.

And right after I took that last photo, it happened. My walk through beautiful Bergen took a bad turn when I was assaulted. It started with a young teen riding an electric scooter, passing me very closely while I was walking. He came so close I could feel him before I saw him out of the corner of my eye. I said Roy Kent’s favorite word. For those of you who have no idea who Roy Kent is, he is my favorite character on my favorite television show, Ted Lasso. His favorite word has four letters and starts with F. The kid (who was with another kid) turned and sneered at me, and then they went off down the road and turned a corner.

About five minutes later, I was still walking on the same residential street (looking for cool houses to photograph) when the same kid snuck up behind me again and passed me pretty quickly, but this time, he leaned toward me and pushed me out into the street. Luckily, no cars were coming, but I did take a pretty hard fall. Enough that my watch went off, asking me if I had fallen. Luckily for me, a very nice driver turned the corner just after the teens took off, and he stopped to check if I was OK. I debated calling the police but couldn’t identify the teens; there were no other witnesses, so why bother? Who knows what a pain that would have been to deal with?

I got up with a bruised knee and two bruised hands to go along with some road rash. I saved my camera—no damage, but I will be sore for a few days.

I was about two miles from the ship (on a total five-mile walk), so I got up, wiped off the blood and walked the rest of the way back to the ship. Got some ice on all of the bruises and bumps, left blood stains all over the stateroom (I felt bad about that) and limped around for the next day.

Of all the places I have walked around at crazy times taking pictures over the last 25 years, the last place I would have expected this to happen was Bergen, Norway.  I will be fine (everything except one thumb and the road rash feels a lot better two days later). And it could have been a whole lot worse. I could have broken my camera ?…or something else.

I didn’t want to spoil the cruise’s last night, so I made it up to the World Cafe for a final dinner (and a photo) with Steve, Jamie, Julie, Jamie and Kathleen. Not to mention the head waiter who managed to photo-bomb us. One of his staff members was taking the photo, so he couldn’t tell us what his boss was doing. But his boss was one of the nicest crew members we met all week, so we were OK with that.

Thanks to ice and Aleve, the next morning, I felt well enough to disembark (they wouldn’t give us a free cruise for something that happened in Bergen ?) so we grabbed an Uber and headed to our home for the night, the Moxy Hotel. It was a nice enough hotel, but when I booked it, the website said they were at the top of the port area. Well, Bergen has two (or maybe three) port areas. We wanted to be near where the ship docked in the interesting part of town. Instead we wound up a 2000 Kroner (for those who want to know, that’s about $20—transport is expensive in Bergen) Uber ride away from there (it was only 1.9 miles to walk from the ship to the hotel, but 6.4 miles to drive there due to one-way and pedestrian streets). Better planning next time. Bergen looks small on a map.

The hotel was very nice, but obviously, we were not their demographic. They are looking for 30-50-something tech professionals. Not 70+ retired people. But it was still OK. After we were off the ship (easiest disembarkation ever), at 9:00 a.m., we were at the hotel by 10:00. Of course, we didn’t expect our room to be ready. Check-in was at 3:00 p.m., but the nice person at the front desk said it should be ready by 1:00 or so. Since we knew this was going to happen, we had planned a couple of things to do in the meantime.

First up was the Bergen funicular. We decided to go there first because we had heard that by 10:30 a.m., it was a madhouse. We arrived just before 10:00 and made it up to the top in no time. We didn’t have to wait in line at all. We bought our tickets and jumped on. By the time we came back down around 11:00, the line was halfway down the street. If you go, go early! We took some great pictures while we were up there. Here’s the result.

That about covers our day. We did a little shopping, dodged a terrific rainstorm by having lunch in a nice restaurant, and then returned to the hotel. By that time, we were both just wiped out. We didn’t even go out to dinner. I canceled our reservations, and we just went down to the hotel bar and had a drink and a flatbread. If you ever stay there, know that their flatbread is really flat…it’s a flour tortilla ?. That’s OK, after the last month of eating out everywhere we went, we didn’t need any more food. It was good to skip a meal.

This morning (Saturday, June 29), we headed to the airport early and caught our first flight from Bergen to Copenhagen. It went just fine, but when we got to Copenhagen, we ran into problems. We only had about 70 minutes to change planes for our flight to London, and we figured since we were on the same airline, we would be close. First, our flight was about 15 minutes late getting in, then when we left our arrival gate, the board above the door said it was a 12-minute walk to our gate. They didn’t mention Passport Control (why do you have to go through that just to pass through a country and never leave an airport???) or the fact that the woman directing traffic at Passport Control told us we couldn’t use the ones for our D gate but had to walk past our gate to the E gates and go through Passport Control there…and then come back to our D-Gate inside security. This was not a 12-minute walk. This was about a 25-minute walk.

As we walked towards the E-gate Passport Control, we walked by our gate D-103 and we talked to someone at the gate, but he told us he could not let us in there and that we had to go to Passport Control and return on the upper level. I told them I wasn’t sure Kathleen’s knee could make it that far and back before the flight left. He said he would order us a wheelchair, which would be there in 15 minutes, and that would get us cleared right through. We waited 20 minutes until we could see them boarding our flight at the gate right above us, and we decided to walk it. We finally found the E gates Passport Control, and another couple headed for our flight was there. They helped us get through, and the folks in line were nice enough to let us go to the front of the line. Once through there, we had to hike back to our gate. I went ahead and told Kathleen I would make that plane wait if I had to hijack it ?. Luckily, I didn’t have to go that far, but we were supposed to be in the first group to board, and I think we were about the last people on board. Maybe five got on after us. I chastised the gate agent who had promised us a wheelchair and told him he had almost made us miss the flight.

When we boarded our SAS flight, one of the attendants noticed Kathleen was wearing a knee brace and limping (pretty badly by then), and she immediately got ice for her knee. She was awesome. I mean REALLY AWESOME because while we were in the air, she radioed ahead to Heathrow and had a wheelchair waiting for us. The man who they sent to push the wheelchair was AWESOME as well. He not only got us through Passport Control at Heathrow in about three minutes (the lines looked to be about a 30-minute wait), he helped us with our bags and took us all the way to the Hilton Garden Inn at Terminal 2, where we are spending the night tonight before flying home to Seattle in the morning. That’s where I am sitting, finishing up this post. Part of the day was a bust, but it turned out OK in the end.

That about covers Bergen and the day after. My plan is to sum this all up (the cruise) while we fly home tomorrow. At least, that’s my plan now. It depends on how tired I am. But we don’t fly until noon, and we will be home by 2:45 p.m., so we shall see how much I can get done in two hours and 45 minutes ?. Stick with me; we are almost done. It’s hard to believe we left our house a month ago, on May 30th and will get home tomorrow, June 30th. Home sweet home.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.  —Winston Churchill

 

 

 

We aren’t Virgin virgins anymore and we wish we were

by | Jun 1, 2024 | Air travel

This trip is our first time on Virgin Atlantic Air. I had heard good things about them, but sadly, I have to say that it’s all a lie. Well, it’s mostly a lie.

We were flying in Business Class, which is (of course) a little spendy. When you fly in business, you expect that if you pay that kind of money, you will get a product on par with other business class flights we have taken. But I knew as soon as we boarded this would not be a great flight.

First, the seats were the narrowest Business class seats I have ever seen. There was a small shelf with a can of water on it. You had to fold up the shelf for takeoff and landing. But I had to fold it up right away because there was no way I could sit in the seat with it open. There was no storage. Most Business class seats have decent storage. A place to put your phone or Kindle, but not on Virgin. There’s a tiny slot already filled with headphones, the airline magazine and the safety card. And that’s about all it would fit. That meant I had to keep my phone and pretty much anything else I wanted to have with me on my seat next to me.

One of the main reasons for choosing Business Class is the promise of lay-flat seats. In all our previous Business Class experiences, the seats began in an upright position and could be reclined to a fully flat position. This was not the case with Virgin Atlantic. The seat settings were limited to two extremes: upright or completely flat, like a dining room chair. Transitioning between these settings was cumbersome, adding to the overall dissatisfaction.

When you wanted to get some sleep, you had to stand up, move everything off the seat (hold it all while standing in the aisle) and then press a button that tilted the seat forward and flattened it. (I am so sorry I didn’t get a photo of that, but I promise to get one on the way home. The photo above is one I stole off the web.) Then, behind the seat, there was a large bag (like a cloth laundry bag) with a mattress cover, pillow and blanket inside of it. You made up your own bed (even though we had been told that the flight staff would do it), and that was that. It was almost impossible to do anything in the seat once it was flat. And you still had all the stuff you had when it was upright, except now you couldn’t put your headphones away either.

I have to admit that I got a couple of hours of sleep, but the bed part was pretty hard and not very long, so that meant sleeping on my side with my legs curled up. Speaking of the seat being…not very long…anyone over my height would have a very hard time sitting in the upright position. A tiny footstool sticks out into the aisle, and my feet barely fit on it. If my legs had been any longer, I would have had to put them over and into the aisle. Not good.

Speaking of the aisle, these were the most open seats we have ever seen. You were looking directly at the people sitting across the aisle from you. It’s one of the strangest configurations I have ever seen. My buddy Mike sent me a photo of his Virgin seat on an Airbus plane, and it looked very nice—more like the seats we are used to. Our 787 did not get those very nice seats.

There were other things even if you liked the seats (I don’t know how you could). The entertainment system had some movies, some TV, audio and game selections as well. But except for one film, they were all pretty old, and I had seen them. It was kind of sad, actually. I hope they change the movies before we go home at the end of the month.

It wasn’t all bad. The service was excellent, and the crew was very nice. Dinner was outstanding—some of the best food I have had on an airplane. But breakfast was totally inedible. I don’t get that. Some of the worst coffee I have ever had, cold fried sweet potatoes and a quiche that was as salty as the Dead Sea. The OJ they gave me came in a glass that was sticky all over. You can bet I passed on that.

Maybe the best thing about flying Virgin into Heathrow is that they land at Terminal 3. Most flights from the US land at Terminal 5, especially those from the US. But Virgin pretty much has Terminal 3 to itself. This meant getting off the plane and through passport control and customs in less than ten minutes. This is unheard of at Terminal 5. We had planned our usual time to do that and so had told our driver from Welcome Pickups to grab us at 11:00 am. We thought if we landed at 10 (as we were supposed to do), we would be an hour getting through. It took 2.5 hours on previous trips to get clear through in Terminal 5. But our flight arrived early, and by the time we got through passport control and customs, it was only 10:20. I called our driver, and he said he would be there by 10:40. That was super.

Speaking of drivers, when we went to Portugal last winter, I found a new transfer company to get us from airports to planes, planes to trains and trains to hotels. They are called Welcome Pickups. I have to give them a shout-out here because we have already used them twice on this trip, and they are superb! They are worldwide, and you can hire them easily on their website. So far, we used them at home to get to SeaTac, then another driver picked us up at Heathrow and took us across London to Kings Cross rail station to catch our train to Leeds. Both were on time or early. Both texted us to let us know where they were. Both stayed right on top of everything. This is the same way it was in Portugal. We have at least three more Welcome Pickups trips arranged on this trip. They charge a predetermined price (like Uber or Lyft), and it is right in the same ballpark price-wise. But they meet your plane (holding a sign with our name on it at Arrivals), they help you with your bags, and they get you where you are going as quickly as possible. Yesterday’s ride to King’s Cross would have been even worse in a taxi. We had horrendous traffic, and I would have been watching the meter all the way as it went off the charts. BTW: I know I have used the quote below before but it is still the truth. And to my British followers, I am NOT doing my Victor Meldrake impersonation.

Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo.  —Al Gore

I just can’t figure airports—especially this one

by | Dec 22, 2023 | Air travel

Our last two sojourns to Europe have both finished badly. It is horrid that you have a great trip, and then the day you fly home, things suck. I promised to detail this for you, so here we go. Just once, I would like to be able to get home without feeling like I was run over by a truck.

We had originally purchased seats on Air France from Seattle to Lisbon via Paris and then home from Budapest to Seattle, again via Paris. Our original flights had a four-hour layover at Charles DeGaulle Airport (CDG–above) on our way out and a three-hour layover at CDG on the way back. I liked that. I thought it was a good amount of time to transition from one plane to another.

But then Air France canceled our flight. Well, they didn’t really cancel it; they moved us via a codeshare to Delta (that means that we were flying on a Delta plane but under an Air France ticket), flight 80 on the way out and 81 on the way back. We would still be on the same Air France flights from Paris to Lisbon and Budapest to Paris. On the front end of the trip, our schedule pretty much stayed the same, but on the way home…not so much. We went from a three-hour layover to a 95-minute layover. My friend Mike had warned me that CDG was not an easy airport, and I was really worried about it. Air France offered us a complete refund, but that would mean finding another flight less than two months before the trip. And those tickets would cost us almost three times the amount we had paid for the original flight. Plus, we would lose the flights to Lisbon and from Budapest…so we took the Delta offer and knew we would just have to move our butts.

Our flights coming to Euorpe weren’t too bad, but our experience at CDG on the way to Lisbon was not. You can read the post about that by clicking here. But on the way back, things went very bad.

I had been tracking both these flights on FlightAware.com before the cruise. If you have not used FlightAware before, you can plug in a flight and see how on time that flight is each day for about a week back. I tracked them both for more than a month—checking their on-time performance every day. I felt better seeing that our flight from Budapest to Paris was usually either on time or early. As it was the first flight of the day, we felt pretty confident we would get to Paris on time. And Delta flight 81 was also pretty much on-time most days. That didn’t make me that happy. I would rather see it being a little late so we had more time to transition at the airport.

How worried were we about making the flight to Seattle? So worried that we looked at videos of how to move from the E gates (where intra-Europe flights land) to Terminal M (where flights outside of Europe originate from). We studied airport maps. We read posts on FlyerTalk. We found a bunch of contradictions about what we would have to go through, but we did understand where we would have to go. Most of these said we should be able to traverse the long walk from the E gates to Passport Control, go through that and then take a train/bus to the M gates, which should take about half an hour to 45 minutes. That would get us to our gate to go home after they had started boarding but before they closed the doors. We weren’t worried about our luggage since we were going home and knew if they didn’t make the connection, they would catch up soon after, and we have clothes at home. Our day was planned, and we went to bed knowing that we might have a stressful trip, but we could do it. Kathleen was still worried about how she would do with her knee.

We got up at 2:00 am, had our luggage ready to be picked up by Viking, loaded on the “luxury motor coach” to the airport by 2:45, and we were downstairs in the lobby, ready to board that bus at 3:00 am. We arrived at the airport at 4:00 am for a 6:20 flight, right on time. We boarded the plane on time. And then…the pilot announced that we needed to de-ice the plane, and that would take about half an hour. We freaked. But then I got a notification from Delta that our flight from Paris to Seattle had been rescheduled to one hour later. YEAH! A flight attendant onboard was great at telling us where our next gates would be, and when we mentioned we were worried about making it to the Seattle flight, she said not to worry too much. There were 24 people on that plane from Budapest going to our flight to Seattle. She said, “They aren’t going to want to rebook 24 people. They won’t fly without you.”

Our flight from Budapest finally left about 45 minutes late. So we had lost 15 minutes of that hour. We had been scheduled to get into Paris at 8:30 am. We arrived at 9:45 and had to get across the airport by 11:30. So off we went. We found our way through the E gates pretty easily, but Kathleen’s knee was already starting to hurt, and we had already walked quite a distance. And then we hit Passport Control.

We had high hopes that being in Business Class there would be a special line for us. And there was. But it wasn’t moving any faster, nor was it any shorter than the other lines. And all of them were going slow. In the meantime, a bunch of people were going up to an airport supervisor, asking to be let in early. He would scan their boarding passes, and if they had less than a certain amount of time, he would let them through. We saw him send 90% of those people back to the end of our line. Of course, they didn’t go to the back of the line; they just kind of blended into the line a few people back. We saw a number of them, who should have been 100 people behind us, get through before we did.

After 45 minutes, we got to where we could see the Passport Control booths, and of course, on a day when there were a lot of late planes due to weather (ice and cold), only four of 10 of the booths were operating. I can never figure that kind of thing out. We finally got through, and it was 11:15. We thought we had only 15 minutes to get to the gate, which was quite a ways away. But I got another text from Delta at just about that minute saying that the flight was now delayed until 11:50. We breathed another sigh of almost relief.

From there, we made our way to gate M-29, where our plane was supposed to load. Now, before I continue, I need to tell you what we are carrying between us as we went. Kathleen has her carry-on (a regular-size carry-on roller) and her personal item, a bag about one-third the size of a carry-on. She was pushing both on the roller’s wheels. I had my standard roller carry-on and my computer/camera bag as my personal item. Both our carry-ons are standard size and weight, and Kathleen’s personal item wasn’t that big or heavy. But my computer/camera bag weighs about 35 lbs. Half the reason I don’t check the roller bag is because I need it as a dolly for the computer bag. That’s how we rolled through the airport.

So now you know what we had between us, you will know why the next thing that happened really killed us (especially me). When it was time to go down the jetway to our plane, we went about halfway down, and there was a door, and we were directed to go through it and down three flights of stairs to a waiting bus. The plane at our gate, at the end of that jetway was not our jet. With Kathleen’s knees, there was no way she could carry her bags down the stairs. She needed to have her hands free to grab a rail. So I carried them all down—all four bags. No elevators, no escalators, just three flights of stairs going down.

Then, when we got to the bottom, there was a very ugly bus. Most people on it had to stand up. Luckily, Kathleen got a seat while I managed the bags and stood. We literally drove to the other side of the airport. I truly believe the bus ride was approximately 30 minutes. And when we finally arrived we saw that our plane did not have a gate or jetway, just a set of stairs next to the plane. So now I would have to carry those bags up a very long and steep set of stairs while I worried that Kathleen would be able to do it safely as well. And there was no way I could carry all four. She had to take her small one.

To make matters worse, they wouldn’t let us off the bus. They had five buses lined up with everyone on board. And since it was a cold day out, they kept the doors closed. For at least 20 minutes, they just kept us there. Eventually, people yelled so loud about the heat on the bus and the smell of diesel fuel that they opened the doors of the buses, but they still would not let us off. I was truly surprised no one passed out from the heat and fumes.

Finally, someone from Delta came to each bus and said that the food service provider was servicing the plane and we were not allowed to be onboard until he was finished, which he thought would be in about 10 minutes. All this time, most of the people on all five buses were still standing up, trying to hold up their bags. Finally, we were allowed to board the plane. By this time, it was almost 12:30 pm. Kathleen made it up with a minimum of trouble. I still have a sore shoulder from getting those bags up those stairs. The cherry on the whole crappy day was that they had changed planes, so our seats were no longer together. Not a huge deal but it meant I wasn’t right there to deal with getting the carryons up and down from the overhead bins for her. And we couldn’t communicate during the flight without getting out of our seats. We managed.

The flight itself was fine. I watched a couple of movies, worked with some photos, had a nice meal, and drank a lot of water. We landed in Seattle after 3:00 (supposed to be 12:45), got through Customs, we were met by our driver (who had monitored our flight and knew we were late), and we were home in our house before 5:00. But what a day—23 hours from waking up in Budapest to unpacking in our home. And to top it all off…it was my 71st birthday. Not one I will soon forget.

See why plane travel makes me feel old…and ruins the end of trips? When I have days like this, I totally get why my good friend Bob hates air travel. I totally understand. Oh, and when I checked this morning on FlightAware, both of those flights had been right on time (within 15 minutes) every day before and since. Our particular day was the only one that was different. That’s crazy.

I have one more post to write and this trip is toast. This is just a summary and review of the whole thing, especially the cruise. See you soon—hopefully tomorrow, but more likely the day after Christmas. Lots of cooking and shopping and wrapping to do before then.

Running through airports with pounds of luggage – that’s a good workout. —Rachel McAdams

 

Day 1—Almost There

by | Dec 1, 2023 | Air travel

I have absolutely nothing better to do right now than write this post. Plus, I have been up for 24 hours at this point, and I still have at least eight more to go before I can go to bed. We are about three and a half hours through a five-hour layover at Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris, France, where the weather is cold and foggy.

Our travel day started off well with a perfect pickup by Century Car Service. We have been using them for a while now and are very happy with them. Our forever neighbor Lisa told us about them as she books them for her group at Microsoft. They are ALWAYS early. I love that. The drivers are classy, the cars sparkle, and we get whisked off to the airport like we were on a magic carpet. (Lousy analogy—but remember, I have been up for 24 hours.)

When we got to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SeaTac), we got through check-in and TSA pre-check security pretty darn quick, and we were off on the train to the S-gates, where we could spend our time waiting in The Club, a very nice lounge we get to use courtesy of our Chase Sapphire Visa card. What was especially nice was that our old friend Seth Wayne was also flying out (on British Air) simultaneously, so he came in and spent some time talking about travel like we always do. Seth is our friend who used to be a television weather person, had a weekly travel show on the radio (that I was a guest on a few times), then worked for Holland America and now owns his own escorted travel business, Sail with Seth.

After our visit with Seth, it was time to board our Delta flight, non-stop to Paris with connections (that’s what we are waiting for right now) to Lisbon. We flew on Delta coming home from Europe in the fall of 2022, and we were really not that happy with them. The seats in Business were hard as rocks; the food was just okay. For what we pay for Business Class, we kind of expect better.

So, if that is the case, why did I book a flight on Delta? The answer is—I didn’t. I booked a flight on Air France. I booked it about eleven months, and somewhere in the middle of those eleven months, Air France decided that flying to and from Seattle was just not profitable, so they pulled out and codeshared all their flights with Delta. So I didn’t pick them out; Air France did. We weren’t happy.

We are OK with it now. We are on an older plane (in this case, it turns out that’s a good thing as the newer ones have harder seats), and the food was pretty darn good. The service was excellent, and I am actually looking forward to going home on their service from here in Paris to Seattle.

When we disembarked in Paris (we have never flown to or through DeGaulle airport—the only time we have been to Paris, we flew into a smaller airport north of the city), we had to walk about a mile to get to where we could wait for our next flight. Not only that, we had to go out of and back into security and clear passport control. Took about an hour and a half. And their security is a total pain. You have to take everything out of your bags that we haven’t had to do in ages. My laptop, my Kindle, my Phone, my belt, Kathleen’s quart bag of makeup and beauty stuff, our coats…you name it, we had to put it in a basket for scanning.

Thank goodness we didn’t have a tight connection. We were happy to see what gate our next flight would be because there was an Air France First Class lounge right next to the gate. And sure enough—there was…but it was closed for renovations and the nearest other lounge we could into was back on the other side of that security and passport control we had just cone through. There was no way we were going back.

So we have been sitting here on very hard chairs (I just checked with my butt, and it agrees with me), freezing as this is a very cold part of the terminal, and the temperature outside is barely freezing.

This morning, before we left, my buddy Bob was giving me a hard time about flying. He is not a fan. Usually, I am okay with it, especially when we are in business or first class. But this long layover in a cold terminal on a hard seat is beginning to get to me. And then I think—what the hell? You are on vacation. You are in Europe. You got to fly here in Business class. Shut the heck up and stop complaining. I think I will do that as soon as we get to our Lisbon hotel, and I can take a shower and a nap. On the West Coast, where we live, it is 3:30 am. It’s 12:30 pm here in Paris, and we won’t be at the hotel until around 4:00. I’ll let you know tomorrow if we make it ?.

What’s important is that a customer should get off the airplane feeling, ‘I didn’t just get from A to B. I had one of the most pleasant experiences I ever had, and I’ll be back for that reason.   – Herb Kelleher

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas—in Europe

by | Nov 29, 2023 | Air travel

It seems like just yesterday when we got back home from our Oceania Vista cruise from Montreal to Miami, but tomorrow morning, we are off to the airport again for an adventure that has been in the planning stages (and completely paid for) since 2018.

Way back when (doesn’t 2018 sound like a long time ago?), we booked a Viking River cruise to see the Christmas markets on the Danube River. We paid in full at the end of 2018 for a Christmas Market cruise that would sail in December 2020. Well, we all know what happened to that cruise—COVID.

At that point Viking offered us 125% future cruise credit to let them keep our money and take the cruise in 2021. We thought, “Where else could we get a 25% return on our money,” so we said YES! But then it was late November of 2021, and the Delta variant hit Europe. The cruise was still going to sail, but the countries we would be visiting had all closed their Christmas Markets, and most of them would not even allow the boat to dock. So when Viking asked us if we wanted to reschedule to 2022, we said okay. I mean, why go if there is nothing to see?

But the problem then was that by that time (Christmas 2021), all the 2022 Christmas Market cruises were sold out…so here we are in November 2023, getting ready to board a Delta flight to Europe tomorrow morning. We really don’t start the cruise itself (our first river cruise) until the ninth, but when we spend the time and money to fly to Europe, we just can’t see staying for just a week.

We will start our adventure tomorrow with a non-stop flight to Paris and a short flight down to Lisbon, Portugal. We have never been to Portugal, and it is one of my absolute bucket list destinations. We have a very busy five days planned before we fly north to Prague where we join the two-night in Prague followed by a trip by “luxury motor coach” to a one-night stay in Nuremberg on a pre-cruise extension with Viking. After that, we board the Viking longboat Gullveig for our cruise down the Danube. Here’s our route.

As you can see, after we leave Nuremberg, we travel by “luxury motor coach” to Regensburg, where we board Gullveig and then sail to Passau, Krems, Vienna and finally, Budapest. We are spending two nights after the cruise in Budapest before we fly home on December 18th…which just happens to be my 71st birthday—never spent my birthday on a plane before. Hope they have cake! ?

We hope you will follow along with us. I would promise daily reports, but there are no “sea days” on riverboats, and that means I will do my best to get posts up and online at the end of our day. Can’t wait to tell you all about it. Come back tomorrow when I hope to do a quick story about our flights and our fun time with Air France and Delta.

Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo. – Al Gore