Donna, At least the delays are happening at the end of the cruise and not the beginning. This will make for a loooooong day.

Donna, sorry to hear about your flight delays. I'm here in Reykjavik already. We took off about 45 minutes late but got here just a few minutes after we were supposed to. So far the flight to Boston is on time. If all goes well - about 8 hours until Tigger time!! Somehow I doubt his greeting will be as enthusiastic as Tessa´s was for Captain Dag!!

Arlene, I watched the Homecoming DVD last night - there´s a great moment of you petting Tessa while she was in the Captain's arms!

We are now checked into our hotel overlooking Lake Geneva with the Alps in the distance, and best of all, we have beautiful sunny weather. We are heading into the French Alps to Megeve tomorrow for a week of hiking (working off the excess poundage...) and exploring.

Today was a day of upgrades - first the car at Avis was upgraded to a BMW with a talking GPS and our hotel room was upgraded to a suite with terrace. Belonging to these preferred 'clubs" can sometimes pay off.

Quite a few flights were delayed out of Copenhagen on the departures board. We flew coach to Geneva so no lounge access for us. The grandmother-daughter-granddaughter blonde karaoke "stars" were on our plane. The airport was positively hopping.

I think those going on to other destinations made a wise choice. Hope those who are going home arrive safely and don't be discouraged by the unpacking and laundry!

Those of you staying on in Europe, have a terrific time extending the fun.

Suzanne and I are at the Airport Hilton in Copenhagen (she via Regent air, and me independently) overlooking nothing but the outskirts of the city. I'm glad Arlene and Marc were able to get out for a late flight tonight instead of daybreak tomorrow. We just finished a wonderful dinner of a burger, club sandwich and a bottle of wine for about $60 per person. Suzanne is still hacking, and I am starting to feel scratchy in the throat and tender skinned. May be a long day tomorrow for each of us. My lucky Joanna should be pulling into the Nottingham train station before long.

Sorry I haven't posted on the cruise. My laptop was acting funny, but when I got on-line, everyone had already posted the events of the day, most of which we missed for sleeping and having the chance to spend time together! It was a wonderful cruise. Far, far different than my first time there when we started out in Reykjavik, simply a weather thing. It confirmed my feeling that weather really does affect your perception of a cruise experience. Nonetheless, all seemed to enjoy, and overall it was a great cruise with nice times meeting old and new friends!

Honestly, maybe because I have been to Spitzbergen twice now with nothing to report but a bad excursion last time that Regent has since abandoned, and a walk in the town this time with people who were saying to me "and this was the best cruise you have ever experienced?", I wish Regent would change this itinerary to include more Norway ports. Even going to the North Cape is a long haul. I say include more of "Norway", and forget about taking everyone out to see "ice". I'm way over that, until ICE, of course! Just really think Regent needs to rethink, like Luke or someone said earlier somewhere, getting some shorter cruises here and repeating them..

Just catching up with the FJORD'ers, having just returned today from our family beach week on the Outer Banks.

This trip just sounds so amazing, and thanks to all of you for your posts, and pictures and Karen for her stalks.

Have safe trips home everyone.

The sistah's are home sweet home!! First off the ship this morning, cab waiting, fast ride to airport, arrived 8:30 to chaos, worst mess of people trying to find their gate, construction everywhere but flight left CPH at 11:30 and we arrived Atl. on time for customs and check-in for home. Phew!
Miss everyone...didn't say good-bye's at dinner last night...too sad and tears flowing. We had best time ever. Will post pictures when I stop bobbing and weaving.

Welcome home Suz!
Girlfriend, I'm so glad you had such a great time. I am waiting for those photos!!

I'm sorry we didn't get to say good bye to each of our FJORDing friends. It was such a pleasure to see you all again! Glad to hear so many are either on to their next destination or safely home.

We were fortunately only slightly delayed (about 40 minutes) on our flight to London at 3 pm. Olivia, Joanna was at the gate next to us. I concur Copenhagen airport was a sea of random human movements. The Star Alliance gold card was extremely useful on this trip. Not only did get one extra bag (saving overweight luggage charges) but also got access to lounge. We had award tickets, so went on high alert when they advised the flight was two seats oversold. Fortunately, two folks took the 150 euro offer. The next flight supposedly left in two hours, but with the delays others have noted, that sounded like a stretch to us.

The fun started once we got to Heathrow. We had toyed with simply renting a car at Heathrow, driving over to Gatwick and then turning the car in this morning. Cost of rental? only 23 pounds. Real cost (taxes, surcharges, and anything else that could fit on the invoice)? 90 pounds! I then remembered the car rental at Heathrow is a ride from the terminals, so we bagged that idea. The most important point was no matter what, we had hassles awaiting us upon arrival.

Get to Heathrow to search out the National Express bus to Gatwick. This involves strolling (?) with a loaded luggage cart down ramps, picking up speed and playing dodge 'em cars with the swirling mass of humanity. Heathrow made Copenhagen look positively tranquil. We are fully focused, of course, on who won at Wimbledon. Get to the "central bus terminal" only to learn there's an extensive line of equally bulging luggage carts waiting for two elevators. A guy comes us and conspiratorially says "gatwick?" "Why yes!!!" "Follow me!" For the low, low price of buying the bus tickets from his relative of some sort at a booking agency, he pointed out the hidden escalator. Unload baggage cart, haul stuff on escalator, corral luggage cart, and find bus terminal to be even more crowded than airport terminal. Check board .. all buses to Gatwick are DELAYED. Good news is there are a bunch of them in the queue. We get a lucky break , jump on bus, get to Gatwick. The hotel bus lane is not exactly where we thought, so we got to work off excessive poundage finding the circle bus. Finally get the right bus, get to hotel. Transfer time from landing in Heathrow to check in was, no joke, 3.5 hours. We get to see the semi-final match for mixed doubles. For some reason, they just won't spill with who won the singles semi-finals or the women's final until it's match over. Whew!

Like Suzanne and Olivia, we enjoyed the luxury hotel meal option of a pizza, a chicken sandwich, two beers and two glasses of wine for only US$90. We were toting up the purchases for customs this morning. We bought almost nothing. Sandwich in Olso at the statue park was nearly US$10. Our US dollar needs a personal trainer to make Europe more affordable IMHO.

This morning .. another 45 minutes to get to terminal. Gatwick a mess. Fast track was the slowest security line. Anyone with online check in was out of luck. Some security system is down, so go back & get an airline printed boarding card. One hour to get bags checked and through security.

Quite seriously, if you are thinking about transiting London, the one carry on bag rule, plus absolutely stuffed lines to get to your flight, are daunting. How does London plan to retain passenger traffic when their departure process is so onerous? End of information/rant

The one big bonus is Continental got rid of their President's Club in favor of pairing with Emirates. This club IS better than La Verandah. Scrambled eggs with chive (hot, no less), smoked salmon, fresh fruit boat and Veuve Cliquot.

Gary's had the best idea .. we'll stay over in this lounge until next year's Wimbledon fortnight. That way, no departure or arrival delays. No wonder I love this man!

Cheers, Anne

deleted - duplicate post

We, too, are home. Unlike others, we had no delays or bad airport experiences. We checked in early for our flight from CPH as I didn't have a lot of confidence in the "hand written" paper tickets with boarding passes with misspelled names; I even asked the gal at Airport Hilton to hold off cleaning our room in case we had to return. At each checkpoint, passport control, and gate, I sweated that someone would notice that our passports did not match the names on the boarding passes but no one said a thing.

Novia lounge at CPH was comfortable although messy. AF lounge at CDG just suffered from lack of ice. Also, there don't seem to be any restaurants in Terminal 2F at CDG. Otherwise, CDG was easy yesterday.

Flight from CDG to NRT was a piece of cake. Flight left on time around 11:30pm and arrived twenty minutes early. We were on a new 777-300 with the lie flat cocoon seats. Food decent and we both got plenty of sleep.

This trip was wonderful! So many sights, so many friends, and so many memories.

Marsha and I are home...finally! We were on that same 3:45-delayed-until-6:15PM flight out of Copenhagen to Seattle. The flight was great once we left, but with the delay we missed our original connection in Seattle on a UA flight.

But, no problem! SAS had already booked us on an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland. The usual take a train, change, take another train, change, take the third train experience of Seattle got us to our only slightly delayed Alaska flight back to Portland. :rolleyes: So, our poor bags are off on their own again, though since we saw them in Customs at Seattle we're not too concerned.

All in all, a wonderful cruise even with some luggage frustrations!

george

But...

It seems our bags didn't make it to the Alaska flight. :rolleyes:

George, I cannot believe you just get your luggage in time for them to lose it again. At least you are at home waiting for it this time. After our "luggage" experiences I took some things in my carry on I usually check.

We are not home yet. Currently sitting in Heathrow airport Admirals club. We made it surprisingly quickly through the system. From touchdown in London on our flight from Copenhagen, we were in the Heathrow Admirals club in about one hour. Even security was fast. It all depends on timing.

I read Anne's post and experienced the same frustrations many times trying to find the Gatwick bus that bought back some memories.

Spent a day in Copenhagen and caught up on many things I had not done on the ship -- not enough time. Too much pooching but it is such fun. Anyway I took advantage of that time to upgrade all my port reports so it was not time wasted.

Not too thrilled with the hotel, the Le Merdien Palace, small rooms and poor air conditioning but this is fairly common in old hotels in Europe. My expectations are never high. Nice comfortable bed so that was great. We were in a new renovated room, very small but clean and all new.

There were many highlights for us on this trip. Probably one of the greatest was after 26 years of marriage Ken finally played cards. He sat down and shuffled those cards like an expert. As he says you never forget what you learn in college.

It was fun to see so many LCT people and meet some of those I had not met personally before. Had some great nights in the Voyager lounge, I really do enjoy dancing and particularly with others who also enjoy dancing.

We had our best Kareoke group ever. George can sing a tune as well as anyone I have ever heard in Kareoke. Our theme song "We are Family" was played by the duo many times. The LCT group jumped to the dance floor, singing "We are LCT, I have all my family with me". The duo got a kick out of it because it always got everyone up and dancing.

For those on PUB (September 1, 2007 Voyager) it appears we will also have Captain Dag on board. Things can change but he told me he expects to be there. For those of you who know the Hotel Director Phillipe from the Paul Gauguin he is scheduled to be on board also. Have not seen him for a long time so thought I would share that news with you. Best information is always gathered on the ships.

Home sweet home, what a wonderful trip this has been, but it's also so good to tuck into one's own bed. It's a good life when travel is fun and returning home feels good too.

Our poor bags. We've no idea when we'll see them again. It was a deja vu (or would it be deja NOT vu?) when the belt stopped and our stuff didn't arrive. Oh well. We ended up getting home about eight hours later than we expected. Today, instead of being afloat in a sea of laundry we'll kick back, have a second cup of coffee, and bask in the glow of a wonderful two weeks with new and old friends. Thanks to you all.

Oh no. Poor George and Marsha. Well at least you had a great cruise. Thanks again to all posters on this trip. It's going to feel awfully strange not traveling on Regent again, Smokers, you know. I guess I will have to keep reading all of your interesting travelogues and at least in that way I can keep up with some of the most wonderful people we have ever found whilst cruising.

Cruise Crazed

Have been following the posts since the cruise started. Thanks for all for keeping us updated.
And glad to hear that people have made it home safe. I hope that everyone's luggage arrives soon.
The photos were great.

...and with a final Fjords luggage update from the Goodmans: all bags are home and happy. :)

Something that missing our luggage 11 of the 14 days of Fjords has taught me is that I can do very well with much less than I usually pack. Give me one pair of jeans, one pair of nice slacks, a dark suit, a white dress shirt, a couple of ties, and a handful of other shirts (plus, of course, socks, u-wear, etc.) and I can do very well indeed. So there's a positive from having long-lost luggage!

george

Hi All, I just wanted to thank you for one of the most fun cruises my family and I have ever been on. We got to know many of you on LCT and that really added so much to an already wonderful cruise. We were able to say goodbye to some of you, but glad to have found this chat thread this AM so that I can say it to all of you! On the other hand, I have just spent 2 hours "walking down memory lane" and viewing all the great pictures from this last two weeks. I should have been catching up on work e-mail, but just needed this one last fix....

Thought I would answer a couple of questions that some of the folks asked over the last 6 pages of posts.....my family (husband Eric and daughter Katherine, age 12) did the sea kayaking in Gerainger. That was wonderful. There were 2 person kayaks, so I ended up with a stranger since Eric went with Katherine. That added an extra dimension, but all in all, it was a great experience to be gliding along in the beautiful fiord. Would definitely recommend it -and no, we didn't get wet. Sweaty yes, but wet no.

We went to the ice bar in Honnesvag. Was fun....wouldn't have been worth the individual fee of $20 a head but was included in the zodiac excursion. THAT was a lot of fun and my daughter just LOVED zipping around at really fast rates (there were 2 140 HP motors on those babies) - still talking about that. Back to the ice bar, though. Basically it is just a big meat locker....could have been in Las Vegas or Orlando - but in H they could advertise "the northernmost ice bar in the world". They did have an standing ice bar and carved out seats with reindeer mats to sit on, etc. Best of all, they had an igloo and guess what else my daughter loved! Actaully, her dad and I thought that was pretty cool, too. I didn't take my camera so I don't have any pictures to post, but another couple is going to send us some. I will post if that happens.

Pooch is addictive - or so says my daughter. Thanks to LCT for including her as the junior addition - the "puppy" of the group? She really loved that and when we were going over our "favorites" at dinner last night (we were home by 5:00 PM and had a home cooked meal courtesy of my sweet husband), she cited the Pooch activities as one of her favorites things from the cruise.

For anyone going on the Voyager anytime soon, don't miss Nathaniel Reed at the piano. We were basically groupies and went wherever he was to hear him each night. We even missed Kenny Smiles' second show for Nathaniel. Not sure most would go that far, but do check him out if you like wonderful old tunes, jazz - and even some blues.

One last thing before I go back to reality and prepare for work tomorrow.....some of you saw us in the luggage tent without smiles on our faces yesterday morning. That is a sad story that luckily turned out fine. So here goes: when we went to pick up our bags, they were all there - EXCEPT our big blue Lands End bag. There was another bag - exactly like ours - except this one had someone else's initials on it and pink locks. So, I knew immediately what had happened. Anyway, we got the luggage people involved and everyone - after looking around - surmised that the other passenger, let's just call him "Mr. L" had picked up our bag, thinking it was his, and had gone to the airport. Turns out his flight was at the same time as ours and was also on SAS. Those were hugely lucky breaks. Anyway, we then get in contact with "Finn" at the airport - we take Mr. L's bag and meet Finn there at Terminal 2. We all walk to Terminal 3 with Finn on the phone talking to various people. We get in contact with some SAS folks and then take all our bags (including Mr. L's) to a special check-in place where this SAS lady takes over the case. Seems Mr. L had already checked in for his flight (certifying, I suppose, that he had personally packed the blue bag he was checking in, etc). So, it is worked out that we would check through all the rest of our bags to Newark where we were going, they would check Mr. L's bag that we took to the airport to Washington (where he and our blue bag were going) and then they would try to retrieve our blue bag from the Washington flight. This involved our lady having a long conversation with someone at the luggage area (in Danish, so who knows what was said). But Finn - who was still with us - seemed pretty confident that the solution was near at hand. She gets off the phone and declares that everything is arranged. We head off - after thanking everyone profusely - and go to our gate. Eric lingers after all the passengers are loaded to see if we can find out if our bag did get located and loaded. He talked to the person who said she personnally went and found the bag (by this time the Americans with the blue bag are becoming well known). He came on board looking happy. Well, we were all happy when we landed in Newark and there was our blue bag! And all our other luggage arrived as well.....And the funny thing is that I am sure Mr L. landed in Washington and went to get his luggage and there was his blue bag. And he will never have a clue that for 3 hours, the 3 of us did nothing but track and deal with the missing bag that he took, involving many staff on Regent, ground, and SAS - to get our bag back and his bag on the right flight. When you think about all the other permutations that could have occured - he could have been staying locally and then taking a train somewhere, he could have been on an earlier flight to Tokyo, etc....we were very lucky that the two flights were essentially side by side and leaving at the same time.

And, so,....that blue bag has now been unpacked and then repacked for Katherine. I did laundry last night and this AM to clean all her dirty clothes (including that Norway shirt she wore for about 5 days straight) and now Eric has taken Katherine to camp. The blue bag and Katherine are going to be gone to tennis camp for 5 days and now Eric and I will be empty nesters for a bit.

Thanks again for welcoming us into the LCT family. It was a great cruise!

Best, Jan

Jan, it was fun to meet you, Eric, and Ms. Katherine! I hope we get to cruise together again sometime!

george

Well I am now in Chicago airport. My last SEA MAIL post from Fjords. Our plane is delayed an hour so we will be home about 1.00 am in DFW. At least we are getting close. May not be in the office bright and early tomorrow.

Glad Katherine enjoyed playing pooch - she is a very intelligent and mature young lady for her age. I hope she loves her camp I know she was anxious to go - all kids love camp.

Well I am now in Chicago airport. My last SEA MAIL post from Fjords. Our plane is delayed an hour so we will be home about 1.00 am in DFW. At least we are getting close. May not be in the office bright and early tomorrow.

Glad Katherine enjoyed playing pooch - she is a very intelligent and mature young lady for her age. I hope she loves her camp I know she was anxious to go - all kids love camp.

Hi from Rome running out of internet time so no time for spell check ' beautiful weather here and apt we are having lots if fun it was great cruise loved meeting so many new people MARCIE says hi Tom and Tony walking we have had some yummy meals more funny tales to tell about our arrival etc but do that once we get home next sunday 'bye thanks to all for making it one of our favrite LCT trips Hi Jan and Eric and Katherine is amazing young lady hope you all made it home safely Joanna

We too are home sweet home! Not too eventful as our wonderful Ngaire insisted that I ask Regent to arrange a wheel chair for Heathrow and Chicago. They took care of it instantly, and let me tell you, as embarrasing as it was to be "wheeled", they whisked me through. There is no way I would have made it "on foot".
We spent our last day in Copenhagen doing the on and off bus thing, very nice. Good way to see the city without doing alot of walking. Like Olivia and Suzanne, we enjoyed some pub food with 2 beers for about $75. So glad we are all arriving home safely.

Just the most wonderful trip, so many wonderful memories and new friends. We relived it all the way home.

Off to deal with 176 emails. Reality is here.

I forgot to post after arriving home on Saturday afternoon. This was a wonderful cruise and we enjoyed meeting so many new people. Now the reality of being back home and doing lots of laundry and having to pick up our own towels!

Cheers, Pam

Our update:
We were not sleepless in Seattle but we were bagless in LA. Sound familiar, George and Marsha?

Due to our delay in Copenhagen, we arrived too late in Seattle for our United flight to LAX and were re-routed via Alaska.

Daniel in Alaska baggage claim deserves a medal. Try explaining, five bags, four people, three locations (each in a different state). We were laughing by the time our claim was recorded and he thanked us for making his day (and providing a bit of overtime earnings.)

Lesson learned - always make sure you know which claim tag goes with which piece of luggage. Since Kathryn was escorted through the Seattle airport in a wheelchair, our SAS rep worked hard to efficiently help us. He obtained the hand written luggage tags and hurriedly placed them on each bag, giving me the matching claim tag. I ended up holding five tags with no idea which bag they matched.

We finally arrived in Irvine at 3:00 am on Sunday. After a couple of hours rest, Alan and I had to do the plane thing alll over again to Phoenix and Tucson.

Woke up this morning to a message from Daniel advising that our bags have been located and should arrive today. I'm planning to write Alaska with a nice commendation for Daniel. He deserves it.

I hope to finish posting pics this week and also the blog. Have to complete two "paying" assignments first.

I played POOCH with Katherine. She is a delight and a quick learner.

We enjoyed meeting everyone. Sorry there wasn't time to say proper goodbye's to all. I was thrilled to finally enjoy a lively dancing crowd in Voyager Lounge. What a fun cruise.

We°re here in Rome with this keyboard that has things in the wrong place so pardon all the mistakes I will make! We arrived in Rome....2 of our 3 pieces of luggage didn°t. Joanna & Tony had theirs. We 4 had to wait on the airport 4 hours but luckily ours arrived on the next SAS flight from CPH. Thank goodness!!

Our apartment here in Rome is very large and spacious. 3 bedrooms, 3 baths and a HUGE terrace. It is in a great location and we can walk everywhere. We°re having some amazing meals, good wine, Sambuca and espresso every night and so many laughs. Our wonderful time continues from the Voyager.

It was so great seeing old friends again and meeting so many great new people. We sure had a great time with everyone!

We 4 will fly home on Saturday. More later.....

LOL.....i just realized that i was on the same computer at the internet cafe as Joanna was on this morning.....above written by Marcie, NOT Joanna!

I too arrived home without incident on Saturday, and spent yesterday catching up on my recorded tv programs, doing a little laundry and email. I was able to upload some people photos at our Ofoto site - here is the link. Login information - the email address is cruise@yahoo.com, password is cc. (If there is a photo of you that you don't like just let me know and I can take it down)

FJORDS People

Scenery photos coming soon - however, I've ended up with what I think is a kidney infection, so I'm seeing my doctor in a few hours - may be a couple of days before I can get those uploaded. I guess I worked my kidneys too hard with that all-inclusive alchohol policy!!

Andrea,

What wonderful pictures Andrea. You are really good! You did have some great subjects though. I was glad you managed to capture me without a wine glass in my hand. Thanks! You are great..

Yes, you should hurry to the doctor, nothing to play with......

Great pics, Andrea. Sorry to hear about the infection. I always try to drink a cosmo or two .... the cranberry juice helps!!! ;)

Andrea, your pictures are wonderful. Hope you feel better soon.

You look great!

Nancy

Great pics Andrea! Everyone looks like they had a fun time! :)

Sure hope the doc fixes you up real fast!

Terrific pix, Andrea! Everyone looks wonderful!

Hope you're feeling better soon. You look fantastic!

Nice, Andrea! Love all the smiling faces in the photos. I hope you feel better soon!

Dena

Thanks so much for your well wishes and compliments! I'm getting ready to head to the doctor's office right now. Beth - you would think with the number of cosmos I drank in the last couple of weeks I wouldn't have a problem!

Betty, that's another passenger. I think Marcie and Tom know her from the WC. I have a picture of the Captain's wife I will upload.

Fantastic photos Andrea!! Everyone looks great!

Andrea - yikes! I hope you get better quickly. If it is a kidney infection, getting to the doctor right away is essential.

On to more pleasant topics .. wow! You've got fantastic photos; the portraits are particularly striking. Quite a talent, girlfriend!

Glad you are home safe & sound. Give Jerel a smooch for me.

Cheers, Anne

Feel better soon, Andrea. Great photos.

Andrea GREAT shots. You have a wonderful eye.

That is not Captain Dag's wife with him and the the Captains dog, Tess. Just another passenger.

Captain Dag and his wife did pose for pictures someone probably has a pictures that will show up in time.