Orlando on Saturday night, September 10. I have photos to go with this, but don't have enough battery power left to post them. I hope I can remedy this, but may not be able to until I board the SUN ship on September 20th.
A Rough Start
September 10-11, 2011
After taking about 3 weeks to get all the details done getting ready for almost a month of travel, I was finally ready to go. Since I was going on an international flight, I got the airport about 3 hours before the flight. I surprised to find quite a long line already at the Air France desk. Once in line, I found out that the flight was delayed 2 hours because there had been a security threat at Charles DeGaulle Airport where the flight orginates. (It flies from Paris to Orlando, then turns around to return to Paris.)
This meant the we, like many others, were going to miss our connecting flight. So the line moved very slowly…it took about an hour and half to get checked in…and I was near the front of the line. I learned that I would have about an 8 hour lay-over in Paris and would not arrived in Copenhagen until 10 p.m. (the next night) where originally I was to arrive at 2:30 p.m.
The best thing I can say about this whole flight is that I didn’t have anyone sitting in the seat next to me. That was great because I had a little more room to stretch out and move a little easier when trying to get some sleep.
We arrive the next day around noon Paris time. Got our connection verified and a seat assignment, then spent 8 long hours waiting. Believe me, CDG Airport is not Orlando International. You walk for what seems like miles to get from one terminal to another, there are few places to get something to eat, and there is hardly any place to sit and wait. The gate areas are small and huge crowds of people are milling back and forth, standing or rushing to get a plane, with their pull-along-luggage bumping into one another.
So, after three gate changes, the Air France flight to Copenhagen finally arrives and gets us to Denmark. Again, we walk a long way to get our luggage (through what looks like a nice airport), go through customs, and go out to the terminal area where we (there were about 20 of us in the group I am travelling with) expected to see a representative of the company waiting for us with a bus to take us to the hotel. Well…no one was there. We looked at the paperwork and found it clearly stated that if a flight is delayed, they could not guarantee a pick-up. Bear in mind it is now 11 p.m. and we have been on this trip since the day before…travelling for over 24 hours. I was exhausted and thought I would collapse.
We did have the name and phone number for the Hotel, so one of the group called, and a bus was sent to get us. We saw on the notice board that we had to have our luggage ready by 8 a.m. and ourselves ready to leave at 9 a.m.
I can’t tell you how wonderful that shower and bed felt after this ordeal. My first impression of this tour was not good.A Better Day—September 12, 2011
After a short but good night’s sleep, I was up at 6 a.m. and to breakfast…which was wonderful. Got the luggage ready to go and learned that we had to schlep our own luggage to the bus. (Usually on tours, you put your luggage outside your door, and it is picked up. )
The bus was there waiting for us. It is a beautiful double decker. There are 70 of us on this part of the tour of the Scandinavian capitals. Again I am fortunate to have no one sitting next to me which gives me a lot of wiggle room. This helps me get myself arranged so I can take pictures as we roll along. As many of you know, so many of my travel photos are taken for the bus window, so it helps for me to be able to twist and turn.
Our tour guide’s name is Benedicta. I think she is going to be a good one. I writing this right now on the bus after lunch on our way to Stockholm. It is 500 km to Stockholm—about an 8 hour trip. The group seems friendly, mostly my age, and well-travelled. As we drive along, some are playing cards, some are reading, others are napping, and I am blogging. I hope I get a Wi-Fi connection tonight to get this posted.
It’s a congenial group who took yesterday’s travel travails (for some of us) as just part of how things go. We’re too old to let stuff like that bother us too much.
More later.
P.S. I am getting instructions and information from Blogger in Swedish!! Gish!
Visiting Norway, Denmark, Finland and/or Sweden has always been on my bucket list. Enjoy it for me! I'm so glad you're there!
ReplyDeleteHope you get your power conversion figured out so you can......Keep blogging!