For some unknown reason, Suzanne always thought it would be fun to travel Scandinavia in a small camper. After some research, we realized that Norway was the place for us, so the day after we came back from our Croatia/Slovenia/Dolomites trip last year, we booked our departure flights to Oslo, Norway….and finally, 11 months later, it was the day of departure. Yay!
Original Flight Plan (Yep, one can read these words
and realize that this was not what happened…….)
- Thursday, 8/14 Miami to Madrid on Iberia (international business class with lie flat seats - yay!): 5pm departure, 7am arrival.
- Friday, 8/15 Madrid to Oslo, also on Iberia: 10am departure with arrival to Oslo at 2pm.
This gave us time to get through Passport Control and
Customs, get a decent night’s sleep, and all without any hurry…..the perfect
plan!
What Really Happened
Our Miami to Madrid flight was delayed three hours. Did they
tell us when we checked in? Nope, even though they had that information. We
went to the Admiral's Lounge in Miami (lovely with good food), ate, wandered
around, etc… and eventually checked the departure board for our gate. What? The
flight is delayed by three hours? Ugh -
this meant that we would miss our connecting flight.
We had to go back to the ticket counter to see about
changing our connecting flight to discover that Iberia had automatically
rebooked our connecting flight for two days later - Saturday 8/16 with an
arrival time of 7:30pm. Huh? What? Why? There were other flights earlier than
Saturday…….We chatted with the Iberia people at the check-in counter, but they could
not help us as they don't do ticketing, so they had us call Iberia Customer
Service who wouldn't (not couldn't) make any changes to our flights.
Even the supervisor at the Iberia counter spoke to customer service on our behalf
and it was still a “No flights until Saturday,” response.
At this point, we figured we'd have a day in Madrid and started
looking at things to do. While standing in line to check our bags a few hours
prior, we chatted with a couple who shared that they have spent tons of time in
Madrid, so we found them in the Admiral's Lounge and chatted with them some to
get some idea on what to do in Madrid for a day. Okay, so we had Plan B!
Finally, we were on board our flight to Madrid and again enjoyed Iberia’s international business class. The flight was easy, and we must have slept a lot as it did not feel like a nine hour flight. We pretty much alternated between eating and sleeping.
Apparently, we like to fly in the same clothes each year! 😅
8/16/2024:
8/14/2025
By the time we got to Madrid, we had a new plan! (Plan C!) First, as we had checked in two pieces of luggage that were already booked to arrive in Oslo on the Saturday flight, we went to the Iberia luggage counter and had them pull our luggage so we could take it with us. We then went to the Iberia ticketing booth outside security and asked again if they could get us to Oslo today (by now it was Friday), and, of course, in business class. Magically the man behind the counter was able to help us and he was able to reroute us through Heathrow in London with an 11pm arrival in Oslo – and all in business class! (Which of course made us wonder again why the first person couldn’t take care of this originally….) Great! So we checked in our luggage again, went through security again (forgot we had filled water bottles - confiscated!), and went to the lounge in Madrid for just about 20 minutes to grab a bite to eat and use their (cleaner) bathrooms.
Since we had canceled our hotel in Oslo when in Miami when
we were told that there was “no way” we would get to Oslo Friday night, while
boarding Suzanne rebooked it - at a lower rate!
The flight to London was easy (fed again!) and we passed through passport control swiftly.
The flight to Oslo was easy – and we were fed again, but it
was sort of disgusting – even Brad wouldn’t eat it! 😲
We finally landed in Oslo around 11pm on Friday!
- Three lounges
- Three flights
- Four security screenings
- Three passport controls
- Dozens of airport and airline employees we spoke with – to ask for directions in the airports, to change our flights, cancel/rebook hotels rooms, luggage getting, etc…
Once we went thought Passport Control and picked up our
luggage, we went to the VyBuss stop to grab a bus to the hotel for the night. We
chatted with a friendly Norwegian man who gave us tons of ideas of places to go
(which is why we never plan our travels if we can help it - unlike what
everyone seems to think - and you know who you are!) and got to our airport
hotel and bit past midnight. Check-in was a breeze and when we got to our room,
Brad said, “Wow, this is tiny.” Bet it'll look a lot bigger when we get our
camper van tomorrow!
So sort of a crazy and unexpected day - lots of maneuvering in
different airports. We (let’s be honest - Suzanne) really had to be tenacious
and insist on getting to Oslo on the same day. Would Madrid for a day been terrible? No, but
we wanted to get to Oslo because we had a camper van reserved and were ready to
hit the Norwegian roads. The best decision was to grab our luggage off the flight
from the Madrid-to-Oslo flight so we had more travel options. This is why we
hate checking luggage (but have to when we want to bring our hiking gear and
the weather will be cold).
Gotta say - flying
business class was super beneficial as we barely waited in any lines with all
this – getting the luggage in Madrid (there was a special line for business
class flyers), Miami check in (another dedicated line – and we had to go back
twice), Madrid check in (ditto), security lines (FastPass – yay!), and London
check in (ditto on dedicated line).
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