With the six-hour delay from Newark we missed our connecting flight to Basel, Switzerland Saturday morning. Viking’s emergency travel reps were cheerful and optimistic but left us to our own devices in finding replacement travel. This was the only blip in otherwise spectacular service—as Viking had booked our travel, I supposed they would handle the re-bookings. (Note to self: next time pad your trip with an extra day at the front of the itinerary to accommodate any travel delays).
Racing to the Lufthansa service desk we discovered a packed waiting area guarded by the “dispenser of the tickets.” Like the deli counter at your local market, the ticket assured that nobody would jump the queue. Despite our assignment of 183 at the “now-serving” of 146, we didn’t have long to wait. Unfortunately, it mattered little; there were no seats on direct flights to Basel for several days!
Second best was an early flight to Frankfurt the following (Sunday) morning with a connection to Basel that afternoon. Hotel vouchers were quickly offered along with directions to the shuttle bus. We would miss the first day of the cruise, but Viking assured us they would arrange car service from Basel airport to the boat docked in Breisach on Sunday afternoon.
It was at this point that Shannon made an auspicious decision—she insisted we retrieve our checked bags instead of leaving them with the airline. The reason shall soon become clear.
The Atomis Hotel Munich Airport by Mercure welcomed us with a clean, comfortable room and well-stocked lobby bar with a motley crew of international travelers. We met an Aussie who turned out to be a German who’d lived Down Under for seven years, a film maker from Canada, a Finn, and two Albanian ladies who tended bar. A lot of beer, Jaeger, and Single Malt was consumed, alongside a credible pepperoni pizza!
Startled awake by my phone notifications at 7 AM I was disconcerted to learn that our flight to Frankfurt had been cancelled leaving us once again stranded in Munich. The horror! Our flight had been re-booked again, but for the FOLLOWING DAY. Yikes! At this point we were happy to have retrieved our bags. Pondering options, we weighed the choices of train travel versus renting a car. The train won out. Hastily we packed, checked out and called for an Uber to the main train station in downtown Munish. An hour later, give or take, we were riding the rails to Zurich, and onward to Basel.
Viking was happy to switch the car service from airport to train station. We emerged from the Basel station bathed in light rain. It took us a minute to gather our bearings, but we eventually spotted the adjacent hotel with the black Mercedes-AMG sedan waiting to whisk us cruise-ward. Our enthusiastic driver expertly piloted the vehicle at speeds approaching 90 MPH on a section of the Autobahn leading toward Breisach (bucket list item checked-off). The Vosges mountains loomed in the distance—we had missed our outing to the Black Forest that morning, but our driver explained the region we were transiting was the adjacent French equivalent. Reclining in my comfortable seat I took consolation in that fact and the realization we would soon be aboard our Viking longboat.
Arriving at the dock we were greeted by a porter and the Cruise Director who welcomed us generously and grabbed the luggage from the car. We had missed lunch service, but the Concierge promised to send some sandwiches to the room after we’d had some time to get settled in and freshened up.
The room was as delightful as promised, including a cold bottle of Veuve Clicquot in the mini fridge that didn’t last a half-hour. We had finally arrived and could relax and start the vacation!
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