Since the bags went out last night, we could sleep in just a little bit longer. I woke up just before 3:00am and I checked my email. First email I see is that our 7:05am flight to Munich was cancelled. Second email I see is that we have been rebooked on Austrian Airlines from Prague to Vienna. But we need to get to Munich to fly home. I went into the Air Canada app and saw that now we are flying Prague to Vienna to Munich to Toronto. I put a message in our WhatsApp group chat about the cancellation and rebooking. Marie responded and said that we was not going to Vienna but to Paris. That is odd.
Once we got down to the lobby, we learned that Marie, Maria (Marie’s boss Chris’ wife) and Theresa (Marie’s co-worker at Expedia) were going to Paris. That left Nana, Karen, Linda, Steve, Drew, Kerrie and myself with our revised itinerary. Pavlina our tour guide provided everyone with a breakfast bag which included two homemade sandwiches, an apple and banana, granola bars and a bottle of water. It was very kind of her to do that. We got onto the bus for the half hour drive to Vaclav Havel Prague Airport.
We got inside the terminal and tried to use the self serve kiosks to check in for our flights. But because of the changes, we were not able to do anything. We had to wait until 5:15am for the Austrian Airlines counter to open. We got up to the counter and we learned that our bags would be checked through all the way to Toronto. This was excellent news. The second thing that happened to us was that we were not charged for the second bags that both Karen and I checked in. A Christmas miracle.
While we were waiting at our gate, I noticed that there was no plane there but a bus. This seemed odd to me. The gate agents started calling for us to begin boarding and sure enough we boarded the bus. Once the bus was jammed full, we were driven about five minutes to the plane on the tarmac. We got settled in for the just over an hour flight to Vienna.
When we arrived in Vienna, we were shuttled again from the plane to the terminal by bus. I guess the smaller airlines do not get the primary space at the terminals. By the time we got to the terminal and found our gate, we only had about twenty minutes before we had to board for our second flight with Air Dolomiti. Once again we had to take a bus to the plane for the one hour flight to Munich.
We landed in Munich and rode the bus to the terminal. This time we had to go through passport control. I can not figure why some countries you have to go through passport control and other countries you do not. Anyways we again only had twenty minutes before boarding our final flight.
Originally we had booked the window and aisle seats hoping the middle seat would stay empty. This time it did not work. I could not get comfortable for the eight hour flight home. The time was broken up with a meal, snacking, movies and very short cat naps.
We landed in Toronto around 3:15pm. While we were walking to baggage claim, we ran into Marie and company. It was great to see that they made it home. It took about an hour for us to collect all of the bags. Karen’s brother Ross was kind enough to come and pick us up. Back at their house, we had a quick visit with Ross and Susie along with their son Greg, his wife Anne and their daughters Bridget and Penny who are visiting for a few weeks from Australia. It was time to say our goodbyes and head home.
The drive home was fine and we arrived just after 7:00pm.
Final thoughts … this was a great introduction to river cruising. I definitely want to do another river cruise but I would like to go maybe in the spring. This trip was go go go everyday and it would have been nice to maybe factor in a day of rest. Or I need to do much more walking in preparation. Thanks to everyone who made this trip memorable.
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