Rhine Getaway Viking River Cruise
Day 1: Sunday, October 31, 2021 - Travel
The day's statistics:
- Weather: low 60s
- Steps: 8,368 Linda; 10,064 Steve (including any pre-trip / leaving home steps)
- Miles traveled (approximately): 3,860
This really isn't the first day of our cruise, but rather it is the first day of travel on our vacation.
I am a project manager by day. That means I plan things. Including vacations. Just over two weeks before we left, we started booking some activities for our first day in Amsterdam (which actually starts on Day 2 of our trip). It was a free day for us, so we wanted to make sure we did a couple things and with some COVID restrictions in Europe, pretty much anything we wanted to do required a reservation. No big deal. Our flights were 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM to DC, and 6:30 PM - 7:00 AM to Amsterdam. Alas, exactly two weeks before we were scheduled to depart, we got an update: now it was 4:17 PM - 6:26 - to Atlanta. And 8:50 PM - 10:15 AM to Amsterdam. So we're leaving more than an hour later, traveling further south (which is technically out of the way), and the second leg is about an hour longer. So that sort of screws up the plans. Time to try to change our tickets!
We weren't supposed to have a meal on a flight until the Atlantic crossing, so we picked up an Italian sub from our local Italian restaurant, La Matesina, and took it with us to the airport. We wanted to be situated and ready to go before spending time to eat. With this sort of coordinated travel, we miss one step at the beginning, and the domino effect wouldn't be a pleasant one.
In Philly, we parked the car in the Smart Park lot, the sister lot to our originally planned parking at the
ExpressPark South lot, and were shuttled to the terminal. The flight
out of PHL (Philadelphia) was at 4:17 PM. We had PreCheck and were through security in no time. And our flight was on time.
We found a table in the immediate vacinity of the gate - D12 - and ate our sub.
We boarded at 3:37. Then waited. We were eventually all set and we departed the terminal on time. Taxied around for
about 10 minutes. Then sat on the runway for another 10 minutes waiting to take off.
When we were in flight, we watched a documentary called "The Murder of Alex Lima". It was actually sort of interesting.
One concern was that movie's estimated completion time was only two minutes less than the estimated time of arrival.
What made it worse was that the video paused every time there was an announcement. In the end, though, we were able to
finish the entire video.
Even though it was a quick hop down to ATL, we still had a snack and coffee. A random shot out the window while
in-flight.
While finding our way to our next gate, we passed some interesting sculptures by Mary Engel, that were made from found items.
We were at gate E17 and our flight was - on time!
This, like our last trip, was the red eye. We boarded just after 8:00 PM ET, and departed the gate at 8:49, and
lifted off at 9:00. Here are some Atlanta or whatever area shots just after take off.
It wasn't long before dinner was served. Linda had cheesy ravioli, salad, and a cookie, and I had (what they called)
chicken marsala (but it tasted more like herbed chicken), salad, and a cookie.
They eventually did come around with beverages, and we had wine.
To help pass the time, we played a few rounds of Hidden Objects on the seat back entertainment unit. We didn't stay up too late since we had to get to sleep because this was the only opportunity we'd have until Monday night. We dozed off a little, and got maybe 4-5 hours of sleep in all.
At some point it was past midnight - and a new day.