Departure – June 19, Wendell, NC & Day 1 – June 20, 2024 – Wendell, NC to Reykjavik, Iceland
We had a car service pick us up from the house at 5:30 p.m. as we did not want to leave our car at the airport for 2 ½ weeks. My in-laws are joining us for this trip so we needed a car big enough to carry all of our luggage. That thing was packed to the hilt!!!! Got to airport with plenty of time to spare and made it through security with no issues. John errs on the side of getting there too early, in my opinion, yet tends to be late for other things (lol!). Our flight was scheduled to LEAVE at 8:30 p.m. and that didn’t happen. The plane was late coming in, almost an hour late, so by the time we boarded and took off, it was close to 9:45 p.m. We had the tail wind so we actually made up the time. John and I splurged a little and got business class seats thinking we’d sleep better – nope, no such thing for me, John dozed off for a good hour or so. The one advantage to business class was that we had meal service, which was good since the pickings were slim at the RDU airport.
We arrived in Reykjavik around 6:30 a.m. on the 20th. We are 4 hours ahead of EST, so the time change thing was already messing with us, plus the fact we had had no sleep. All the luggage was collected and we had a car service pick us up and give us a tour around Reykjavik as we could not board the ship until noon. Our driver was Marus (not sure of the spelling, but sounds like Morris) and he was very pleasant and gave us lots of information as we were leaving the airport, which is about an hour drive from Reykjavik. We asked for a place to grab a bite and he found us a great little café where we had a light breakfast and coffee. I opted for the high-test stuff since I was dragging a bit and that perked me right up! He took us to a couple of the hot spots, we took a few pics and then it was time to register to board the ship. I will mention that the temperature was quite different from what we had experienced just a few days ago from out West, lol! It was in the low 50’s and overcast, so definitely a big change!
We were dropped off at the dock where the ship was, got through registration quite easily and effortlessly and boarded. We were greeted with a glass of champagne and then wandered around for a while getting acquainted with the layout of the ship. We had to wait about 2 hours before getting into our room, but the time went quickly and there a was a lot to see. The room is amazing! It has a king-sized bed, a huge closet, a small living room and a nice balcony. The bathroom is fairly spacious and there was enough room for all of our clothes, toiletries and plenty of room under the bed to store the suitcases. This is our first time on a ship like this and we were very impressed.
They have two specialty restaurants on the ship, Prime 7 (steakhouse) and Chartreuse (French) along with the Compass Rose and La Veranda. The two specialty ones you need to make reservations ahead of time and we ate at Chartreuse for dinner. The food was amazing, as well as the service.
After dinner, we headed to the room as it had been almost 36 hours since we had slept and I was finally done for, lol! In Iceland, it is only dark for about 3 hours, so we have black out curtains across the patio and also where the living area separates the bed. I’m excited about all the darkness as that is what I like, John, not so much. He wants to be woken up by the light every day and so he is in for a rude awakening, lol!
Tomorrow we are in Heimaey, Iceland and have a Lava & History walk scheduled. Looking forward to some great sleep! Nite all 😊
