Cities of Light: Day 13
Day 13: Monday, October 30, 2023 - Travel
The day's statistics:
- Weather: upper 50s
- Steps: 9,173 Linda; 12,519 Steve
- Miles traveled (approximately): 692
On the last day of our trips - VRC or one of our road trips -
I chronical all the way through until we arrive home. As such, I'm not exactly sure where to end this day, so I will go through
the end of the day, though some of text does indeed overlap with the first day of the
Elegant Elbe cruise.
While this is the last day of this cruise, Cities Of Light, this is not the last day of our vacation.
Most passengers will head to the airport. A few passengers will partake in a Viking Extension(s), some possibly even staying in
this hotel. We are heading to the airport too - however, rather than head home like most passengers probably are, we are
flying to Warsaw, Poland. Upon being dropped off at the airport, the COL cruise ends. Upon landing, retreiving our luggage, and
finding our Viking contact, we begin our Elegant Elbe cruise.
We could have used Viking Air and paid for a pair of international tickets at $999 each, and Viking would have taken care of
arranging the flight from Prague to Warsaw. Instead, we chose to spend ~$320 and take care of the flight ourselves, saving
nearly $1,700 in the process.
We wanted to do the two cruises anyway - plus we had certificates we bought on our cruise last year - so why not book them
back-to-back and save that much money?
Part of our home checklist before leaving on vacation includes turning the clocks back or ahead if needed - so I turned the
clocks back before we left so they would all be accurate when we returned.
The list also includes adjusting the camera time - but I said to myself that the clocks don't turn back for almost two weeks, so
I will wait. What I SHOULD have done was turn the clock back six time zones because I probably wouldn't use the camera until we
were somewhere in Europe. And even if I did, there wouldn't have been too many pictures taken where it would have mattered.
Instead, I took over 2,600 pictures WITH THE WRONG TIMESTAMP. Gah!
I have since updated the checklist to address Time Zones because it will be months before this becomes an issue again and I just
may not remember by then.
Also, since I had to adjust the camera for the turn-back-the-clocks anyway, I also added the time zone adjustment too.
When we left the room to go to breakfast, we would be putting our luggage out for pick-up and not returning.
So before leaving I took this picture of the parking lot that I referenced a few times already. Plus it had this neat design
in the middle of the walkway.
Breakfast was at the hotel, and was a full buffet. We had a bigger breakfast so we wouldn't have to worry about squeezing in lunch
somewhere at some time.
One neat feature of this hotel was providing this little coaster that indicates if the table is available or not. Green it is,
Red it is not. While a great idea, there should be the subtext on the red side aboout flipping it over like there is on the green side.
We had an 11:10 AM flight. Due to the Viking documentation error, we had our own private car to the airport. The driver didn't speak
much English, I had learned a little German (not Czech) before we left, so we didn't get to have any decent conversation with him during
our thirty minute drive.
We arrived and were greeted by a Viking rep that assisted with our check-in.
Linda's carry-on weighed 18.0kg (36 lbs) and mine weighed 18.3kg (40 lbs). The airline's limit is only 8kg for carry-ons,
so all our bags - both our regulars (as expected) and both our carry-ons - had to be checked.
Linda had her handbag and I had the camera as our carry-ons, instead of the actual carry-ons.
There was no direct flight to Warsaw, and we had a layover in Vienne, Austria. Our 11:10 AM flight was currently on-time.
We continued on to the terminal, and found that it was C.
Off we went. We eventaully found that it was gate C3.
Our cell phone carrier is T-Mobile. We came across an ad for their European subsidiary T-Mobilu.
We arrived at our gate at 9:09. So we had almost two hours before our flight.
We were called to board at 10:48, and were in our seats by 10:54.
It was a full flight. We first started moving at 11:08, and after taxiing and sitting, we eventually took off at 11:21.
Somewhere over the Czech Republic and or Austria.
At 11:30, we had a light snack.
We touched down at 11:52, and the plane taxied to a parking spot that was not at a gangway. We descended some stairs and boarded
a shuttle. We remained stationary for five minutes before proceeding to the terminal building.
Our next flight was at gate F13.
We arrived at the gate at 12:16, were called to board at 12:25, and we got on a shuttle again. And drove to the plane's parking spot -
and it was only a couple spots away from the plane we just got off.
At 12:43 we were sitting in our seats - the exact same seats that we had on the flight a couple hours prior.
We had to wait for a few passengers that were on a connecting flight, but we did eventually start moving at 1:11.
We took off at 1:19.
These are from Austria and or Poland. The first image looks to be a sea or a large lake; and the second, a HUGE number of turbines.
We touched down not even an hour later at 2:12 - though we did cross a time zone. At least I'm pretty sure as it wasn't clear
from our documentation. Plus this leg was about twice as long as the first, so there is NO way the flight was shorter.
We were at the gate at 2:15. We deplaned and headed to baggage claim. On the way. we came across this "Smoking Room".
At 2:25 we were at baggage claim. The toteboard showed that the luggage was to begin being delivered at 2:55 - a half hour away.
Fortuantely, the luggage started at 2:35 instead.
While we waited for our luggage, I noticed that the baggage carousel had a device that inspeced the available space between the
bags, and would hold the next bag until there was enough room for the bag to fit. Pretty neat.
We eventually fetched all four bags. We turned to leave and there was an exit just behind us - but it looked "small" or auxillary.
Since we were expecting to meet our Viking rep, we decided to go out the "more main looking" exit.
There was no passport inspection or customs or anything like that as we were in the Schengen Region and it wasn't required - so we just left.
When we got out into the main airport hallway, we were alone. There was no rep in sight. After a couple minutes of looking around,
I told Linda that I would walk down to the other exit to see if the rep happened to be down there. They weren't. I started back -
and saw a Viking rep, Matthew, walking into the building. I approached him and said hi. He asked if I was Mr. Michel, and I said yes.
He said we were late. Even though the time of our flight was updated with the team in Prague, the data didn't propagate all the way
to Warsaw. Matthew's paperwork showed that we were supposed to land at 12:05. We DID land about 12:05 - in Vienna!
Anyway, we were the only travelers here, and Matthew called the shuttle to take us to the Sofitel Hotel.
At 2:55 we boarded the Mercedes Benz shuttle van and headed out.
We arrived at the Sofitel at 3:19, and were greeted by Viking hotel rep Ivan (ee-van). He asked us to gather - with the other 12 Viking
travelers - in a meeting area just off the lobby at 5:00. The 14 of us were all doing the pre-excursion for the Elegant Elbe cruise.
We checked in and made our way to our room.
We got situated and relaxed for a little, and then headed to the meeting area by 5:00.
We were offered a drink each, and Linda and I had a glass of red wine.
Ivan talked about the itinerary for the next five days, and even gave out a summary sheet.
Our talk lasted almost an hour.
We both had cold-related coughs, so we wanted to get some cough drops. We talked to Ivan and he told us of a Żobka - a convenience store -
that was just eight blocks away. We headed there and got some cough drops. And wine.
We weren't really sure what we wanted for dinner and rather than deal with a restaurant, we - believe it or not - stopped at Subway.
Though the menu was in Polish, we were still able to figure out what we wanted and place our order.
We took our purchases to our room to take it easy for the evening - afterall, tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
We relaxed, washed up, and went to bed.
While this ends the Cities of Light cruise, our vacation continues with the Elegant Elbe cruise.