And we are off!

Tuesday - Splurging all the way

So, after years of dreaming this moment, we are finally packed and ready to go on our grand European adventure.  We had been following a couple of FB groups about cruising with Viking and reading the good and the bad leading up to this trip. 

First it was testing everyday and hoping you didn’t come back with a positive result which ended you cruise right then and there, to now worrying about the river levels and being able to actually cruise down the Rhine.  We kept telling each other that things would be better when it was our turn to go.  Sure enough, they stopped daily testing and there has been rain ahead of us arriving.

Since this is mom’s “retirement celebration cruise”, she wanted to go all out. I told her about my experience of flying United Business Class the last time I went to Europe and I knew we needed to go on it for this trip. I have never flown first class on any trip (never been lucky enough to be upgraded), but United Business Class to Europe is AMAZING. The seats can lay flat so you can (potentially) get some sleep on the plane. I don’t feel like I really got any sleep, but I tried resting.  The nice thing is that the lighting in the cabin and your seat window (by auto dimming) simulates an early night fall (since we left at 3pm) to help try and trick your body that you should be sleeping.

On of the things that people were “commenting on” in the FB groups was issues with planes and reservation. Both of us were checking often that our reservation didn’t get changed (since we had book a direct flight) or worst, canceled.

Checking again right before we were to check in, I noticed that our seats had changed because at the last moment, our plane was switched to a bigger version. On the original plane, it had a single row on the window, which I had selected for us. Now we were on a two seats on the window so not only we were not sitting together but not even near each other.  Luckily we noticed before boarding and got two seat closer together, but a row apart.  When we got on the plane, someone graciously offer to switch seats with us so we could sit together, but not before I accidentally spilt my water on the seat (ooops!). The nice gentleman still was willing to switch and didn’t mind that I had dowsed his seat.

We were offered nuts and drinks shortly after take off and then a “fancy” lunch /dinner option (all the options were to fancy for me, lol).  My new favorite thing to bring on a plane when taking advantage of the in flight entertainment is an adapter called AirFly that you plug into the normal headphone jack, and it’s a bluetooth transmitter that will stream the audio to my AirPods. Then we could enjoy the onboard entertainment selection, made easier with our AirFly adapter for our AirPods. In the morning they served breakfast and shortly after that, we landed in Amsterdam.