Travelicious

A few years ago a state senator, also a preacher, tried to get the name of the airport change due to his distaste for the current namesake. The effort failed. This is not a political post, but I figure, love them or hate them, we are exceedingly unlikely to have another president from Arkansas during my lifetime. No offense, Huckabees.

Here we are at the beautiful Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. Tight connection? No problem. Just one terminal, one corridor and 12 gates.

We checked in for Getaway cruise this morning, but the edocs are not yet available, so can't print luggage tags before leaving home. Guess we'll see if we can print at the hotel in NY. Will have to check in for the Dawn cruise while onboard the Prima. We were shooting for 40 pounds or less each in checked luggage, but ended up at about 47 each, plus carry-ons. Ugh. One day I hope to master packing lightly, but the colder weather itinerary makes that difficult for this one.

It's been a busy couple of days getting everything ready. House is now clean, pool is clean, just waiting for towels to dry, then we'll be ready to head to the airport hotel for the night, and our first meal of the trip. Good thing we have several people lined up to help out with the pool, as brother-in-law's blood pressure has gone sky-high, and he is currently in the hospital. Hope they can get it figured out quickly and he can be on the mend.

Thanks. I was aware of this, but unsure about the OBC from the TA. I think it is refundable.

I'm not finding that package. I'm only seeing $10 per day, but will only be charged for 10 days per month, for a max of $100. Of course, I think that is per billing cycle, and we'll be splitting cycles on this trip.

Thanks! I'll check in to it. I doubt I'll be making calls anyway, unless an emergency arises. I hate talking on the phone.

Thanks for checking. I did. In fact, I figured out which station I needed before finding a hotel. Tickets already booked.

Mostly packed, but not flying out until Tuesday morning. Finishing touches today, as well as some house cleaning. Will finish up and go to stay at hotel near airport tomorrow afternoon. Re Snake Away, who knows if it really works, but when I've put it out I haven't seen any for a while. It is probably a bit too early for them anyway, but I have found a few small ones in the skimmers over the years. Only one larger one actually in the pool proper, but I think it was a harmless water snake. He wrapped around the pool brush when I put it in there, and I just took him outside the fenced area to go about his business. When are you heading in? See you soon!

Thanks! Vasa was also recommended by another friend. Will be on the lookout for "fika." Yum!

Thanks for the tips! I'll add to my list of potentials.

The next couple of days will be pretty busy as we wrap up preparation. We fly out early Tuesday morning. Then, if all goes according to plan, there will be food pics.

The Dawn cruise begins on May 24. But first, we must make our way from Copenhagen to Paris to Le Havre. We will fly early morning, luckily a direct flight, on Air France. The tickets were quite inexpensive when I booked. We have booked a hotel very close to the train station. The plan is to drop luggage at the hotel and set out on foot to explore. We in Paris once before, perhaps not in the same area. If the mood hits and the weather cooperates, we may do a Seine River cruise. These only last about an hour. We’ll not to the lunch/dinner ones. The main goal is to find a restaurant with some good truffade like we had last time. OMG - the greasy, cheesy, gooey goodness! We will take the train to Le Havre on the morning of the 24th. Sailaway is scheduled for 8:00, so I’m not sure we’ll be able to board on time for our traditional embarkation day lunch. But I’m sure we will figure out a way not to starve! Frankly, once I board a cruise ship and have my first meal, I find I'm never really hungry again. But when it is time to eat and good food is available, what am I supposed to do? On this cruise, we are back up to $750 OBC: $100=shareholder; $200=Amex; $450=TA. This was the most expensive of the three cruises, which explains the much higher OBC provided by the TA. As I believe that whopping $450 will be refundable, it will be used to pay DSC. If not refundable, we'll do lots of upgraded drinks, I guess. Again, we have 6 specialty dinners: 3 FAS, 2 Latitudes, 1 Amex to Le Bistro. We’ve prebooked Cagney’s twice, Los Lobos twice, Le Bistro, La Cucina. The first port is, again, Zeebruge. This time we are taking the train to Bruges. Tickets booked via Omio. At Tilbury, we are using the NCL transfer “London on your own. Amsterdam will again be on our own. By this time, we should have a pretty good idea of what is there and what we want to do. We will be back in Copenhagen, and as of now do not have specific plans. Maybe our previous visit will help us decide. Same with Wardemunde, and again, no desire to go to Berlin. Karlskrona will be the first of 3 ports in Sweden, and we have no real plans here. In Visby, I have received a tip on this thread to visit Pippy Longstocking’s house. Who knew? I loved Pippy Longstocking! Trying not to be overly redundant here, but we will do our own thing in Riga, Tallinn, and Helsinki. Finally, we will disembark on June 5 in Stockholm. We have booked the Scandic Grand Central hotel, which includes breakfast - hopefully not stinky fish. We plan to explore on our own for two days, then take the train to ARN to begin our 2 days of travel to return home. Hopefully, the pool temperature will be perfect by then, and we can begin resting up from what I’m sure will be a very busy and tiring trip. This will be the last long trip for at least 2 years, but I’m sure there will be a few shorter ones in between.

The Getaway cruise begins May 13. Even if we don’t get our embarkation day lunch on the Prima, we should be able to on the Getaway, as it is set to sail at 4:00. We’ll enjoy a bit less OBC on this cruise, but still a nice amount at $650. This consists of $100 shareholder benefit, $150 from NCL, $200 from TA, and $200 from Amex. Again, the only refundable credit will be from TA, so DSC has been prepaid. Because we will have only 1 sea day and not a lot of down time, I’m not sure that we will get the unlimited internet. Will decide when the time comes. I used a different TA for this cruise. This one had been my TA for around 10 years, and was always pretty good until the last couple of years. Response times became slower, and she forgot to provide my promised OBC on one cruise. When I mentioned it, she said she would make it up on the next one, but didn’t. Anyway, that all happened after I had already booked the 3 original Getaway cruises onboard, and then transferred the bookings to her. So after she began faltering I was regretting it for these cruises. When we rebooked for the Prima and Dawn, we did so through a different TA recommended by a CC friend. The new one provides more generous OBC, as will be seen on the Dawn cruise. We will have 6 specialty dinners: 3 FAS, 2 Latitudes and Le Bistro courtesy of Amex. We have prebooked Cagney’s twice, Le Bistro, La Cucina, and Ocean Blue twice. Our first port is Le Havre. We have a private group D-Day tour with Overlord. We filled 7 of the 8 seats at a cost of $137.42 pp. I think that is pretty good, considering what I have seen others posting for similar tours. As previously mentioned, I’m eating the last $137.42 as people wanting to join are more than one, and we had one solo that joined early on. I am really looking forward to this tour. The next port is Zeebrugge. We will take the train to Ghent. I pre-booked tickets through Omio. While it costs a bit more, I was able to secure the times we wanted, so I feel more comfortable. It still was pretty cheap. I have mapped out where we will walk and visit: Gent City Center, St Nicholas Cathedral, St. Michael’s Bridge, Gravensteen castle, ‘t Dreupelkot (Genever bar), and St Bavo’s Cathedral. I’m most looking forward to ‘t Dreupelkot, which was recommended by a person on our roll call before he had to cancel. On this stop in Amsterdam, we will just do our own thing, and maybe do a canal cruise. Playing it by ear. In Oslo, we don’t have definitive plans, but will consider the HOHO bus. My brother has recommended a visit to Vigeland Sculpture park, and the bus stops there. Aarhus, Denmark is another day on our own. My research indicates the cruise port is walking distance to town and all major attractions. I do need to go to an ATM to withdraw some DKK so will have it on hand for bus in Copenhagen. Our current plan for Warnemunde is to explore close to port, and take a ferry to Rostock. I’m just not into being on a train or bus for 6 hours to get to and from Berlin. In Kiel, we’ll just walk around and see what is there. Also will have to pack up, as disembarkation will be the following day in Copenhagen. At the time I was getting organized and figuring out logistics, NCL did not have a tour with a drop off at the airport in Copenhagen, and I was unable to find any reasonably-priced private tours. We wanted to do some exploring, but needed to figure out the luggage situation. We opted to utilize the services of Copenhagen Luggage Service to collect our luggage from the cruise terminal and deliver it to the hotel at which we are staying near the airport. We will then be free to explore Copenhagen on our own before making our way to the hotel via public transit.

I get it. This is why we always feel so cramped in a balcony cabin. It's all what you are accustomed to. Of course, the trade-off is living in the middle of nowhere next to chicken houses.