Off Again to Iceland and Greenland

For some time now, we (or at least Capt. Larry) have had a trip to visit Iceland and Greenland on the bucket list, and we are finally getting around to checking that item off.

Off we go!

We had booked a transatlantic cruise from Iceland to New York with 3 ports in Iceland, 4 ports in Greenland, 2 ports in Newfoundland, and stops in Halifax, NS, Bar Harbor, ME, and ending in New York. This morning we are up at 0400 to start a 3-legged flight that will end in Reykjavik, Iceland tomorrow morning.

Checking in at the New Orleans airport, the counter agent tells us that for some reason she can only provide us boarding passes for our flights to Copenhagen.

Sunrise from our hotel room

At Copenhagen she says that we need to go to the gate counter to get our passes for the final leg to Reykjavik. She tells us, however, that our luggage is checked all the way through to Reykjavik. Not thinking anything of this, we make our way to the gate and wait for our flight. This would later turn out to be a big deal.

Arriving at the Dulles Airport Washington, DC, we while away our 5-hour layover in the first-class lounge people watching.

Sveinesson sculpture

It’s finally boarding time, and we get on our first Scandinavian Airlines plane (also our first Airbus 350). The plane is really sweet and the service that SAS provided was even sweeter, and we move SAS into our number one most favorite spot, previously held by Lufthansa. Except for the usual lack of sleep, it was undoubtedly the best 7-hour flight across the pond that we have experienced.

Arriving in Copenhagen, we have a 1½ hour layover before our flight to Reykjavik, but going through immigration and finding our gate consumes close to half of that. We go to the gate counter for our boarding passes, but there is no agent around. An agent from another gate tells us that one will arrive  aproximately 40 minutes before the flight—boarding begins 30 minutes prior. An agent finally appears and Jane goes to get our passes while Capt. Larry watches our things.

Another Sveinesson

After about 10 minutes of watching the encounter, it becomes apparent that something is wrong and Capt. Larry goes to the counter. Between Jane and the counter agent he is told that there are no tickets in the system for this leg of the flight, in spite of our proof of the flight itinerary. Our travel agent booked this flight through the cruise line, and while he tells us that it is obvious that they collected our money for the flight, no booking was finalized. Boarding begins and he remains on the phone with higher ups for what seems like an interminable length of time. Finally, he hangs up and tells us that he has some bad news and good news. They can’t locate a ticket or any evidence that this flight was booked, but we can purchase two tickets that will get us on the flight. We immediately make the decision to purchase the tickets since our time was running out, but it takes about another 10 minutes for the purchase to be completed and boarding passes are printed out.

And another

We are just about the last passengers to board the plane and are none too happy about the situation, but it is what it is and we are relieved that we can still make it to Reykjavik.

We land at the Reykjavik airport with concerns that our luggage did not follow us. Most of our cold-weather clothes were packed in our checked luggage. We are relieved when we see our bags come down the baggage claim conveyer, among the first bags to be offloaded. We collect our luggage and exchange some money into the Icelandic krona (ISS) and exit baggage claim to meet our driver that will take us to our hotel. Coming in a day earlier than most of the other cruise passengers, we end up being the only passengers that he is transporting. It’s a 45 minute ride from the airport to our hotel in downtown Reykjavík, and our driver provided a lot of information about Iceland on the ride. At the hotel, we learned that we will have to wait 1-2 hours until our room is ready.

Typical Icelandic residence

We finally get our room but are a little perturbed by some of the hotel’s policies. We are staying here for 3 nights and are told that no room service will be provided unless we request it. We are staying here for around $500 a night and could get better service at a Motel 6! Of course this is all part of European countries’ push for the green agenda. We have 2 bath towels, 2 hand towels (no washcloths), and a floor mat and are told that additional linens can be provided for an additional charge! We guess that this is all in an effort to forcibly reduce the laundry load and save the planet. We have no idea what the situation would be should we run out of toilet paper! Additionally, our room is cool but we can’t find a thermostat anywhere to regulate the temperature. There is no air conditioning (not that we really need it), just a motor-driven window that lets in the outside air.

Our hotel

A local weather forecaster in his nightly newscast noted that it was going to be another “hot and muggy day with the temperature getting up to 64°F!” To us from Louisiana, this gives a whole new meaning to the term “hot and muggy!” And finally, there’s a sign in the bathroom telling us not to drink the hot water as it comes directly from a natural geothermal supply and has an odor and unsavory minerals in it. We can’t wait until the hotels in the states catch up to this thinking!

We are really whipped, so we finish our day with Capt. Larry sending off an email to our travel agent to let her know about our drama at the Copenhagen airport and then turning in around mid-afternoon to catch up on our sleep.

And sleep we did! We wake up about 17 hours after we went to bed, amazed that we could sleep that long. After doing our normal morning routine, we head down to the breakfast buffet and enjoy a leisurely breakfast.

Nordic stained glass

We have a tour scheduled for tomorrow and we board the ship the following day, but we don’t really have any agenda for today. We head back to our room to do some reading, but decide that the spartan furniture provided is not really comfortable, so we gather our reading material and go down to the main lobby where the seating is much more comfortable.

We spend the better part of the morning reading and people watching and not sleeping in the lobby like all the other old people. We can’t decide which are more numerous—old white people or young Chinese. We go to the Oceania cruise desk to get filled in on our transfer to the ship, then returned to our room or Capt. Larry starts working on the blog while Jane reads and naps. About midafternoon we decide to go out and take a walk to get some fresh air see some sites.

Stained glass in lobby

Reykjavik is the capital and largest city in Iceland and the world’s northernmost capital of a sovereign nation. With a population of around 140,000 and the capital region area population of 248,000, the greater metropolitan area comprises the majority of Iceland’s 387,000 population. Reykjavik is the rapidly growing center of Iceland’s cultural, economic, and governmental activity and ranks among the cleanest, greenest, and safest cities in the world.

Our walk takes us past all types of industrial, construction, and retail (strip malls) activities, but the cultural highlight is the Asmundarsafin Museum, Reykjavik’s contemporary sculpture museum.

Icelandic beer- Dayne would LOVE this stuff!

 

Named after the sculptor, Ásmundur Sveinsson (1893–1982), the white-domed structure is surrounded by Sveinesson’s massive sculptures. The museum was closed, so we walked through the surrounding garden greatly impressed Sveinesson’s works. Moving on we passed by a residential area that we assumed represented typical Reykjavik houses.

Returning to our hotel we enjoyed an Icelandic draft beer, Gull, which was tasty both as lager and light versions. Checking our email, we find our travel agent had contacted Oceania who confirmed that no ticket was ever issued, blaming it on some automatic booking error. She tells us to board the ship and file a complaint with customer relations who should be able to resolve the situation while we are aboard. We hope that is the case. We spend the rest of our evening watching the news on TV and the “World Series of Darts.” It doesn’t get any more exciting than that! We go to bed for what turns out to be a sleepless night for both of us which must be the penalty we pay for oversleeping the night before.