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Route Map

Planning

The last two summers we booked award tickets using UA miles to Asia via Europe and had a wonderful time. And we would have liked to do the same thing again this year, and I started the planning back in December. In last summer’s trip, we scored a 150 Euro VDB on SAS, and so we intended to fly to a SAS destination, and used the voucher to fly to another city with fare that would roughly cost the same amount. Since we covered Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki last year, we had in mind to fly to Oslo this time. As for the destination in Asia, we were planning to visit Okinawa, so this would be an award from San Francisco to Oslo, then onto Okinawa and back to San Francisco via Europe. And I believe this would cost 135,000 miles, the same amount used for our trip last summer from San Francisco to Hokkaido via Scandinavia.

As usual, booking this kind of complex award tickets requires extreme patience, and most likely several hang up and call back tries to get the job done. Unfortunately, after calling multiple times without any luck, as the agents and even supervisors were completely ignorant of the possibility of going to Asia via the Atlantic option using higher award miles when flying across two regions, I just gave up. At one point the agent made the booking, and the system confirmed the miles required, but she checked with the supervisor who came back and said it’s not a valid routing and this would require two awards, and refused to even check with the rate desk. Finally I lost my patience and only booked a pair of simple San Francisco to Europe round trip award tickets, trying to hold the award space I found for the TATL flights.

After more travel planning, we decided it’s still better value to go to another continent via Europe, so we planned on adding Dubai as the destination on the US/Europe award booking. The idea was to use the TATL flights we had booked, and add the Europe/Dubai segments, and pay the higher miles for the US/Middle East award. The agent insisted she had to cancel the US/Europe award and started from scratch, but was willing to see if she could grab the award seats back after we agreed to take the risk of them not coming back once the US/Europe reservation was cancelled. At that time there’s no more award availability for the TATL flights we had booked. So she made a new booking from San Francisco to Oslo, then onto Dubai, and back to San Francisco. But the big problem was the return segment would be on Economy on UA. Then she looked at the system again and tried to restore the flights we had booked, as it turned out, all the LH flights had the award seats going back into the system right away, so we were able to get the TATL flights back. The only problem had to do with the UA flight, which we had a San Francisco to Chicago segment, but we agreed to take that segment on an earlier flight which had award availability, so the trip plan was not significantly impacted.

And for the destination where we wanted to use the SAS voucher, we decided on Amsterdam. The roundtrip fare between Oslo and Amsterdam turned out to be exactly 150 Euros, actually I think it was a few Euros more the day we made the booking, but with the exchange rate fluctuations, the cost became zero for us a few days later upon ticketing It also turns out to be extremely easy to book on the phone and then do ticket by mail on SAS, I was connected to an agent in Estonia who spoke good English, and she was able to make the booking and told me where to send the voucher (New Jersey) to have the ticket issued. The voucher also covers all the taxes.

As I dropped from 1K to 1P this year, I made sure all the flights were booked before January, as changes would be free before then based on my 1K status. After several routing changes, we finally firmed up the plan.

Final itinerary

5/27 Fri UA 338 SFO 11:50pm ORD 5:56am (+1)
5/28 Sat LH 437 ORD 4:35pm DUS 7:45am (+1)
5/29 Sun SK 819 DUS 7:05pm OSL 8:55pm
5/31 Tue SK 819 OSL 8:30am AMS 10:20am
6/3 Fri SK 822 AMS 11:10am OSL 12:55pm
6/3 Fri OS 336 OSL 2:00pm VIE 4:30pm
6/4 Sat OS 839 VIE 1:30pm DXB 9:10pm
6/7 Tue LX 243 DXB 1:35am ZRH 6:20am
6/8 Tue LX 1104 ZRH 12:15pm MUC 1:10pm
6/8 Tue LH 458 MUC 4:15pm SFO 7:10pm

The itinerary uses San Francisco as the starting point, Dubai as the final destination and Oslo as the stopover point. This costs 115,000 miles on business class for each ticket. We were also able to add a half day in Chicago, Dusseldorf, Vienna and Zurich according to the less than 24 hour rule. As it turns out, this is a great plan because starting June 15, the same award would cost 5000 more miles. And finally, Amsterdam was thrown in with a separate round trip ticket starting from Oslo using the VDB voucher.

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Lounge

This year’s trip over the Memorial Day weekend was similar to last year’s Scandinavia/Hokkaido trip, with San Francisco to Chicago on a red-eye being the first segment, and the last segment being the direct flight on LH from Munich back to San Francisco. At check-in, we were able to get boarding passes through to Dusseldorf only, but managed to check the luggage through to our final destination in Oslo. I was surprised that the boarding passes still showed our 1K status, as while we made the reservation while we were still 1K, but had since dropped to 1P.


SFO Check-In

Since the beginning of the year, we are no longer able to use the SQ lounge without an outbound international segment. Never mind that we had an international itinerary. So we headed to the domestic RCC instead and tried to suppress our cravings for the delicious food in the SQ lounge. Our flight departed at 11:59pm, and the RCC closes at 11:00pm, and upon entering the lounge at around 10:30pm, we were kept being reminded that the lounge would be closing soon. I wonder if UA ever considers extending the closing hours by just 15 minutes so passengers on the last flights of the day would not feel getting rushed out.


SFO domestic RCC

They were closing down the snack station, but we managed to grab a few cookies and bananas before heading to the gate.


Pepperidge Farm Cookies, enjoy while it lasts

Flight

UA 744 SFO 11:50pm ORD 5:56am (+1)
Aircraft : 757 2-class domestic configuration
Distance : 1846 miles
Duration :3 hour 57 min
Class : First
Seat : 4A & 4B

The boarding process was the new (and had since been mostly reverted back to the zone process) CO style. It was a full flight though volunteers were not needed. By the time the boarding announcement was made, the line for the red carpet had already been flooded with elites. Since we were in FIRST class, with the 1K status on the boarding passes to boot, we definitely would have preferred the old process where the red carpet was only reserved by 1K/GS/First. And it did feel more chaotic and took longer for the boarding to complete. I am glad UA decided to change to the zone boarding process again.


Boarding – please restore to the old zone process

One enhancement we were supposed to like was the removal of the pillows This is particularly annoying for a red-eye flight. The blankets were the tolerable thin light ones, and were wrapped in plastic bags. I know passengers complain about the quality and cleanness of the pillows and blankets when we had them, but is removing them really a change we like ?


Where’s the pillow ?

Soon we took off and were able to enjoy the night scenery of San Francisco from the sky. We were given choice of hot turkey sandwich or cold pasta for this red-eye flight, and both came with a bowl of hot soup. The food was actually very good ! On one of the trip to the bathroom through the galley, I saw the FA preparing the snack basket with chips and bananas. However, we were so tired that by the time we woke up to the Chicago morning, the FAs were already preparing for the landing. I guess they must have passed around with the basket while we were asleep.



San Francisco Night View


Hot turkey sandwich


Cold chicken salad

The flight time was a little less than 4 hours, and we landed about half an hour early. Our next stop was to walk through the tunnel to the Hilton Health Club for a wake up shower.


O’Hare morning

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Hilton Health Club

The club opens at 6am in the morning, and since we landed early, we waited outside the club for about 15 minutes before we were let in. We were able to get the discounted price of $10 for a day pass when we showed my Hilton HHonors card. Maybe because we were the first customers of the day, the water temperature for the shower was not very hot, which I guess will help us wake up sooner !


Hilton Health Club

Train to City

We had the CTA card from last year’s visit, so we just added $5 to each card instead of buying a new one, and took the Blue line to the town. We transferred at the Grand station and took bus 65, all the way to the Navy Pier. It was quite cold and windy in the morning, so we found a quiet corner for a coffee break before starting our Chicago adventure.


Blue line to the City



Navy Pier

Segway Tour

We took a bike tour last year on our layover in Chicago, and so this time we planned to try something different. The Segway Tour turns out to be perfect for us, as the bike tour travels mostly north of the Navy Pier, the Segway tour takes us mostly to the south, so we get to see different sights. I had thought that the tour would start in the Navy Pier, but when we went to the booth at around 10:00am for the 10:30am tour, we found out it actually starts in the Millenium Park. So we did some speed walking as warm up exercise, and made it to the Segway tour office just in time. And as luck would have it, the tour was fully booked but there were couple no shows so we were able to join.


Oops, Seway tour does not start here



Segway tour starts in the Millennium Park

Most of the people on the tour were first timers riding on a segway, and we were the pros (yeah right !) since we had gone on a segway once previously, earlier this year in Miami. So the guide helped us to get on the segway last, allowing the first timers more time to practice before starting the tour. Riding on a segway was easy if you have good sense of balance, otherwise it would take a while to get used to it. There were some big pot holes to avoid along the route, and we had to be more careful when going up and down slopes, but everyone on our tour made it with just one accident when one person lost her balance and fell off the segway. Fortunately, it’s not us , and she was able to laugh off the fall. The tour was a great way to see more of the city, as we covered the Grant Park, Soldiers Field, and the museum campus.


First timer practice


Long line for aquarium


Buckingham Fountain


Segway group


Back of Solider Field


Field Museum

After the tour, we wanted to rush back to O’Hare so we took a cab to the nearest blue line station. It turns out to be totally unnecessary, as the station was only a few blocks from the Millennium Park where the tour ended, and to make us look even more stupid, a lot of the roads to the station were blocked off for the Memorial Day Parade. So essentially we were dropped off at a location not any closer than where we got on the taxi. But it’s not really a bad tourist mistake, as we were able to take some photos of the lively parade ! Also the segway tour was not as physically challenging as the bike tour, and we hardly sweated after the tour, so we did not really need to go back to the Hilton Health Club for another shower before boarding our next flight.


Memorial Day Parade


Parade


Train to O’Hare

Lounge

Our flight left at Gate B16, right across from the Concourse B downstairs RCC. We stopped by some for some quick snacks and wifi. Little did we know the wonderful carrots, celeries and tomatoes would be history in the RCC in couple weeks The Lufthansa agent in the lounge announced the flight was ready to board, in both German and English, and we headed to the gate.


Red Carpet Club entrance


Red Carpet Club


Still serving tomatoes, celeries and Pepperidge Farm cookies

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Flight

LH 437 Chicago (ORD) 4:35pm Dusseldorf (DUS) 7:45am (+1)
Aircraft : Airbus A330-300
Distance : 4230 miles
Duration : 8 hour 10 min
Class : Business
Seat : 4A, 4C

Soon boarding started, and we were seated in 4A and 4C, the last row of the 2-row business class mini-cabin. It’s definitely much better than the larger business cabin behind. In addition to the pillow and plastic wrapped blanket, the amenity kit and bottled water were awaiting us in the seats. Pre-departure champagne were served promptly. This also turns out to be a Flynet equipped flight, but the price was a bit steep at 19.95 Euros for the flight, so I just stayed with browsing several free sites like headline news.


4A & 4C


Bathroom with a view, and flower


Amenity kit and bottled water


Flynet

Though there were no warm nuts served on Lufthansa, the packaged almonds were surprisingly tasty, and went well with Bacardi and Coke ! For appetizers, we had some salmon, shrimp, chicken breast and cheese. Then came the entrees, and we picked the short ribs, and salmon again. The ribs were very tendered and delicious. And finally for dessert, we had some fruits and coffee, along with a packaged almond cookie, and of course, some Baileys.


Chicken breast appetizer


Shrimp & salmon appetizer


Short ribs


Salmon entrée


Dessert and Baileys

Going from Chicago to Europe on an evening flight is like seeing the earth spin in fast motion. Within couple hours, we saw both the sunset and sunrise, and before we were able to catch up with some sleep, it’s time for breakfast. Normally I would be quite disappointed with not getting a hot breakfast, but I was still quite full from the dinner, so the fruits and croissants would suffice and I actually skipped most of the cheese and cold cuts.


Breakfast

Dusseldorf

We landed in Dusseldorf on time bright and early in the morning. After getting the passport stamped, we went to the transit center to pick up our onward boarding passes to Oslo. The agent commented that we would have a very long waiting time in the airport since our flight would leave in the evening, and we told her we planned to squeeze in some sightseeing in Cologne during the layover.

The next stop is the Senator lounge, for another wake up shower, and more breakfast ! It’s a nice touch that they also provided slippers along with other amenities in the shower room. The breakfast selection was extensive, but we are most curious of the buttermilk with juice drink (Buttermilch mit Saft). Well, we will stick with regular milk next time !


Senator Lounge


Shower


Shower amenities and slippers


Breakfast selection


Cold cuts


Buttermilk with juice and eggs

There are a couple of computer terminals with decent connection speed for us to catch up on emails and light browsing. But all the Senator lounges in Germany are missing something very important, free wifi ! In the era of places check-in on Facebook, how can we live without free wifi ? Obviously the crazy roaming charges are not an option for us either.

We then put some of the carry-on luggage in the lockers just across from the lounge reception area, and headed to the airport terminal station. We had to take the SkyTrain from the terminal to the train station, and I guess it’s called the SkyTrain and not AirTrain for a reason – because the rail is above us, it’s more like flying in the sky in the driverless car. After the fun ride, we went to buy the train tickets to Cologne. Germany has this strange group ticket system where up to five people can travel on the same train ticket, and it’s usually cheaper than two individual tickets combined. So we bought a 5 person day ticket that covered the zones between Dusseldorf and Cologne for EUR 30, and off we went to Cologne.


SkyTrain


5 person day ticket


Train to Cologne

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We arrived at Cologne around 10:30am, and it was cloudy, windy and cold. Well, it’s cold because I was only in T-shirt and shorts and thought it’s already summer time. That didn’t stop us from snapping some photos of the famous Cathedral, and sniffing the 4711 cologne samples in the tourist office.


4711 Cologne


Cologne cathedral


Inside Cathedral


Candles


Street performer

We then headed to the bike tour office to see if we could get onto a bike tour, which started at 1:30pm. The sun was coming out, and it’s getting warmer and strangely people seem to be able to change from the winter outfits to the summer ones. We told the guy in the office that we had a constraint to catch the 4:40pm train back to the airport, and we would be OK if the tour finishes in 3 hours as advertised. And he said we were pushing it, as it’s a good 15 minute walk from the office to the train station, and he did not think the tour could finish within 3 hours. He did offer to let us take a shortened tour, if others on the tour also agreed, or if no one else showed up.


Bike tour office

We then went to grab some lunch, German sausages and mushrooms, and skipped the beer for later. After lunch we got back to the bike shop at 1:30pm, and were told that two people had joined the tour, but they would rather had the full tour and we definitely would not be able to make it back in time to catch the train back to the airport. The guy was very friendly and suggested we just rent a bike ourselves, and recommended to us some easy bike paths. We were tempted to go with his suggestions, but then discovered a cruise ferry that will depart in half an hour, and the cruise would take about an hour, so the timing was just perfect. And who could resist a leisurely cruise up and down the Rhine on a sunny day ? And while most people preferred to sit on the outside deck, we decided to relax in the restaurant inside with air condition and zipping German beer and eating ice cream. We did venture outside occasionally to take photos of the Rhine scenery. After the cruise, the sun really came out and we strolled back to the Cathedral to take more photos, and checked out some souvenir shops.


Lunch stop


German lunch


Cruise ticket


Cruise


Air-conditioned restaurant


Enjoying the sun


Beer and ice cream sundae


Rhine scenery


People watching


Cologne souvenirs


Goodbye Cologne

We then took the train back to Dusseldorf, and took the fun SkyTrain to the airport and tried out the evening food in the Senator lounge. There were sandwiches, potato salads, and lots of Asparagus food as it’s the Spargelwoche (Asparagus Week).


Asparagus week


Evening food in Senator lounge

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Flight

We went to the gate about half an hour before the flight time, and boarding had not started yet. But as soon as they announced the boarding, everyone could board. There’s no priority boarding for premium class passengers or elites. I was quite surprised by this, but it really wasn’t a big deal as we did not have to fight for the overhead bin space like on the United flights.

SK 819 Dusseldorf (DUS) 7:05pm Oslo (OSL) 8:55pm
Aircraft : Boeing 737
Distance : 627 miles
Duration : 1 hour 50 min
Class : Business
Seat : 1A, 1C



SK 819 to Oslo

The seat configuration for this flight was quite interesting. All the seats are the same in the 3-3 configuration. The first row is designated as Business Class, with the middle seat being blocked off with a nice pillow. Hot meal is served on Business Class. The next two rows are designated as Economy Extra, and the middle seat is not blocked. The passengers would get a cold snack. Then from the fourth row on, it’s the Economy section with Buy On Board service, i.e. nothing is free, even for sodas. We were glad we were in the Business Class section.


Bulkhead Business Class

The flight was about 1.5 hour, and we got another glimpse of the Rhine scenery upon takeoff. The service was very nice, and purser was from Norway and was quite interested in finding out about our travel plan. One observation is that everything for dinner except the bread was pre-wrapped, and the passengers would need to lift up the hot tin foil and take out the plastic wraps on the salad and cheese themselves. Maybe Europeans think this is a safer and cleaner way to handle the food? Anyways, the chicken filet was very good, and we also pleasantly stuffed that we knew we would not need to spend money on dinner once we arrived in Oslo. Did we hear that Oslo was an expensive city ?


Rhine


Red wine and Almonds


Wrapped dinner


Unwrapped dinner, looks much better

Train to Hotel

Once we landed, for some reason, we were asked to deplane from the back. Since we were in the first row, we were the last to get off the plane, but we were in no rush as we had to wait for our luggage anyways. After we cleared immigration and picked up the luggage, we went to buy the train tickets to town. There were the express train Flytoget which took only 10 minutes, but would cost twice as much. The regular train took 20 minutes, so we decided to save some money on this short ride. After all, it’s still an expensive ride for NOK110 (around US$20) per person. At the ticketing machine, we ran into the trouble of using incompatible US credit cards in the European system. We do not need to input a PIN for payment in the US, but in Europe a lot of machines that take credit cards require this for the transaction to go through. Fortunately, we went to the ticket office and the agent was familiar with this problem. He said he could run our card through his machine, which will then print out a receipt for us to sign, and we would be able to buy the tickets. So it’s either PIN or signatures. After we got the tickets, it was a smooth ride into town. I was quite intrigued by the ads that they offer wifi on the train. Right, we have to Places check into Facebook everywhere we go in this modern era (really ?) to collect the “Like” from our “Friends”. But once I got the login prompt on the iPhone, I realized I would first need to set up an account with them on the NSB train website, so no Facebook check-in on the train for now.


Deplane at back


Train Station


Ticket machines not accepting our credit cards


Train ticket counter


Wifi on train

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Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel, Oslo

We were able to use the Radisson Family and Friends rate for many nights in this trip to save ourselves from the sticker shock of the European hotels. We picked the Radisson Blu Plaza because it’s right off the main train station, and it turns out that it’s very easy to spot the hotel as it’s the tallest building around the area.


Tall building can’t be missed

We got a room on the 25th floor, with very nice scenery of the town. The furniture also had a very Scandinavian feel.


Room


View from room

Then we went to the 32nd floor to check out the gym, saunas and pool, and the scenery was even better. It was close to 11:00pm and the security guard was about to close and lock up the place, we decided we would come back the next evening.


Gym

We were exhausted after we got back to the room, and fell asleep promptly, that is, after we checked in on Facebook as the hotel provided guests with wifi access.

The next day we woke up to a bright and sunny morning, and realized our room actually had a nice view of the famous Olympic Ski Jump.


Ski Jump from a distance

Breakfast

What’s best about the F&F rate is that it includes the breakfast. Oslo is such an expensive city that we wouldn’t mind stuffing ourselves for breakfast and skipping lunch for the day. Well, the breakfast offering was massive with all kinds of juices, breads, eggs, meat, fruits, etc. we more than stuffed ourselves and would need extensive walking to burn off the calories.


Breakfast

Oslo Sightseeing

We walked around the train station a bit, and bought a 24 hour transit pass for NOK70 (US$13) each in the tourist office and started a full day of sightseeing. We hopped on to tram 12 and headed towards the Vigeland Sculpture Park as we had planned to see the famous crying baby there first. But it turns out there were plenty of sights along the way, and we made brief stops at the City Hall, the harbor, and then the Nobel Peace Center. Maybe we can find free wifi there and let our Facebook friends know we are being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, yeah right !


Tram 12


City Hall


Past Nobel Winners

Finally we arrived at the Vigeland Sculpture Park, and didn’t take long to find the crying baby, as there were many tourists lining up to take pictures with him. We spent more time to check out other sculptures in the park, and then took the tram again to continue the journey to see the Palace and the National Theatre.


Crying baby


Vigeland Sculpture Park


National Theatre


Palace


Parliament building

We stopped by the W. B. Samson coffee shop for a quick coffee and cake break, and decided on where to go next. Right, we still hadn’t taken a ferry yet. That’s not to be missed in this city surrounded by water, so we took the bus 54 to Aker Brygge to catch a ferry, thinking that’s where the pier was. But it turns out to be a newly developed area that’s not connected to the pier, so we got back on to the same bus heading the opposite direction to get back to the train station, and then transferred to the tram to the pier. We were lucky the ferry schedule was extended in the summer, so there were still couple more runs to the museum island even though all the museums were already closed. We took a few photos outside of the museums, and got back on the next ferry about half an hour later.


W. B. Samson


People watching and coffee break


Ferry 91 to museum island


Museums

It was a long day of sightseeing, and instead of looking for an nice restaurant for dinner, we decided to use the pool and sauna in the hotel to wind down for the day, and only stopped by the Norwegian chain convenience store Deli de Luca to grab some fast food.


Deli de Luca


Dinner @ Deli de Luca

We really would have liked to spend more time in Norway and time and money permitting, visit Bergen and the fjords as well. But that will need to wait till another time.

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Train to airport

Our fight was at 8:30am, which means we would need to skip breakfast in the hotel, and took the first regular train at 6:37am to the airport. Once again we had to use the ticket counter to buy the tickets because of our non PIN credit card. I had registered on the NSL website, but somehow the wifi on the train was not working that day, it’s not a big deal as it’s only a 30 minute ride. But Facebook check-in on the train will again have to wait.


Airport station


Regular train (Red) and airport express (Orange)

On SAS, we could check in online and select our seats 24 hours ahead, so the previous night we checked the load and it seems light enough that we picked an aisle and window seat combination, gambling on getting an empty middle seat in between. Check in at the airport using the Star Gold counter was a breeze, and we proceeded to the security check. Even though we were flying Economy, we saw the GOLD sign for the priority lane, and so showed the agent our UA Star Gold card to get in, but were promptly turned away as it needs to be SK Gold only, or Economy Extra or Business Class. The regular security lane was not that long anyways, so we were not too disappointed.


Star Gold check-in


SAS Lounge

We then went to the SAS lounge and grabbed some coffee and breakfast. The lounge was a typical SAS lounge with lots of Macs, Ikea like furniture, cold cut meat, and wait, what’s that Bacon toothpaste ?


Olso SAS Lounge


Cold cut and bread


Fruits


Bacon Toothpaste?


Macs


Lounge


IKEA Furniture ?

Wifi was available in the lounge, but interestingly, the signal does not provide the needed location information so Facebook and Google Map still thought we were at the last known location, the hotel. And this prevented us from using the Places check-in on Facebook to check into either the airport or the lounge.


Flight

SK 821 Oslo (OSL) 8:30am Amsterdam (AMS) 10:20am
Aircraft : 736
Distance : 597 miles
Duration : 1 hour 50 min
Class : Economy
Seat : 8A, 8C


Soon we boarded the plane, and bid farewell to Oslo for now. We were in the first row behind the Economy Extra section, but with the empty middle seat, the flight was very comfortable, and I pretty much slept through the flight since there was no (free) food or drinks served. About an hour and a half later, we landed at gate C14 in Schiphol.


8A & 8C


Above Oslo


Schiphol C14

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Train to town

After picking up the luggage we went to buy the train tickets to the main train station. There was a sign at the counter that says PINS were required for credit card transactions, and on top of that, there’s a 0.5 Euro charge on the 4.20 Euro ticket. So we just paid cash. Schiphol is one of the easiest airport to get to town, and the train took just about 15 minutes.


Train ticket counter


Hotel Park Plaza Victoria

We chose the Park Plaza Victoria because of the proximity to the train station, but that still relies on finding the right exit. We asked at the information counter where Park Plaza was, and the agent was quite puzzled. Then we muttered the word Victoria, and she immediately pointed us to the right direction.

The hotel was in a prime location, though it does show its age. And we were assigned a room in the old wing probably because of the F&F rate. But we had no complain as we got a nice room facing the quiet courtyard as opposed to the busy streets, and it was available even it’s only around noon time. Guests can choose to pay for faster wifi, or there’s a slower free option. We were quite exhausted because of the early flight, and took a quick nap before going out.


Hotel room


Bike Tour

When we woke up around 3pm, the sun had taken over the cloud and rain and we knew exactly what to do best – join a bike tour ! The only problem was that the tour started at 4pm, and we underestimated it took a good half an hour walk to the office. Fortunately, they were just starting the introduction and we managed to join the tour after all. The first stop was to Vondelpark to see a piece of public Picasso art. Our guide Karl was a musician from the UK, and took us to pretty much all the important sights, the Ann Frank house, the Dam Square, the many canals, a Windmill brewery and of course, the red light district, where Karl said he’s glad no one in our tour had spent money in the ‘shops’. In the brewery, we could not quite decide which beer to get, so we got a sampler of all 5 kinds, from the weakest to the strongest. Karl also made some recommendations to the famous coffee shop Grey Area and where to find the best apple pies, which we made use of the next day.


Picasso art in Vondelpark


Bike Tour


Anne Frank House


Biking through the Red Light District


Windmills brewery


5 types of beer


Happily serving beer


Plzen, Iswit, Natte, Zatte and Columbus


Dinner

After the tour, we walked around town a bit and stopped by the flower market, and ended up at the Restaurant De Roode Leeuw for dinner. The restaurant was right by a tram station, and it was great for people watching as we got one of the window seats. We ordered a Traditional Dutch 3 course menu set, and everything was good except for the herring appetizer. The pan fried salmon and stewed steak with ‘stampot’ were delicious, but the best part was the bread pudding dessert, with ice cream, of course ! Our waiter was very friendly, and gave us some traditional dutch candies along with the check. After dinner we strolled back to the hotel, and took some pictures of the evening scenery along the way.


Flower market


Beach Volleyball


Dam Square National Monument


Restaurant De Roode Leeuw


Stewed steak with stampot


Salmon


Bread pudding dessert


Dutch candies


Amsterdam at night


Back to hotel

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Breakfast

We started the day with a big breakfast in the hotel, thanks again to the F&F rate. The food selection was just amazing, for both hot and cold options, pancakes, wide variety of bread, donuts, eggs, salads, fruits, juices, etc. And the atmosphere was very relaxing, so much that we just forgot to stop eating !


Breakfast room


Amazing selection


Country Bike Tour

We had been spending a day each in Chicago, Cologne, Oslo and up till now, Amsterdam, and it’s time to slow down on the flying and spend more time seeing the places. Amsterdam is just the perfect city in the summer to spend time in. And what activities could be better than, hmm, bike tours! We went to the city bike tour the previous day, and decided to join the country tour on the following day since there’s so much fun.

The tour started at 11:00am, just perfect timing after the breakfast. We bought a tram ticket this time to the office as we would need to conserve some energy for the biking. We had a huge group this day, around 30 people and we had to split into two groups. Our guide Petra is an Amsterdam native, and we don’t think we could find anyone more energetic than she. Once again we biked through the Vondelpark, and then went along the Amstel river and into the country side. It was a sharp contrast to the busy city route from the day before. One person in the group had a flat tire, and Petra was able to fix it quickly. After about two hours of biking, we reached our lunch stop in a farm. I am not sure what to call the place, a cheese farm ? A wooden shoe factory ? Or a souvenir shop ? It’s all of the above, and strangely there’s no sign from the outside. This is quite obviously a place that had arrangement with the bike tour to bring the tourists in. Nonetheless, it’s fun to see the cheese and shoe making process under one roof, and we sampled quite a number of cheeses, and they were really good too !


Tram


Petra telling funny stories


Petra fixing flat tire


Country bike tour


How to make cheese


How to make shoes

On our way back, we stopped by another windmill, and crossed the famous Skinny Bridge. The tour took more than 4 hours, but it was so much fun that we hardly noticed that.


Another windmill


Skinny bridge


Food

Of course we needed a tea break after the tour, and we walked to the Grey Area coffee shop, which our guide from the previous day highly recommended. It was an interesting place, but everyone inside seems to be smoking, so much that we don’t seem to be able to see color anymore


Grey Area

We then decided to find an outdoor place instead. And we remembered there’s the Apple Pie place which’s not too far away, the Café Zeezicht, and we spent a good hour enjoying the sunshine, the apple pie with ice cream, and more people watching.


Café Zeezicht


Best apple pie in town

But that would only be the beginning of the food hunt. We then headed back near the hotel for the Kassland. It’s famous for the cheese, but we were there for the mini Cream Puffs, or Slagroomsoesjes in Dutch. And they were so good !


Kassland


Cream Puffs

And for dinner, we went to a Dutch kitchen full of locals, the Café de Klos. We had to wait patiently for a table as the place was very busy. Luckily we were able to grab two seats by the window, and had great view of the bar, the kitchen and the outside tables as well. We were going to order the smoked ribs, and the nice waiter commented it probably would be too salty for non-locals like us, so we ordered the regular ribs instead. They were served on a wooden plate, and the portions were big and these are the best ribs we ever had ! The price was also very reasonable, though the weak dollar was inflating the cost everywhere we went in Europe.


Café de Klos


Best rib in town

After dinner we wandered around to hunt for free wifi, and Starbucks came to rescue. Satisfied with our Facebook updates, we headed towards the Leidseplein to check out some street performance. The place was very lively even on a weekday. Finally feeling exhausted, we took the tram back to the main train station and went back to the hotel.


Free Wifi !


Leidseplein street performers

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Breakfast

We started the day with another big breakfast. We had to switch hotel later in the day as the F&F rate for the Park Plaza Victoria was only available for the first two of the three nights we stayed in Amsterdam. And the regular rate for this day was over 200 Euros, that we thought we’d be better off switching to an airport hotel for the night as we left Amsterdam in the next morning.


Breakfast time


Hearty breakfast


Heineken

We checked out from the hotel after the breakfast and stored our luggage with the bell desk. It was already around noon time but we were too full for lunch. So the next best thing to do was to drink up ! We took the tram to the Heineken Experience, and the 15 Euro admission fee was well worth the money, as we got three glasses of ice cold beer, along with an interesting tour of the beer making process.


Tram to Heineken Experience


Heineken Coasters


Beer tasting


Gallery


2 more glasses at the end of tour


Canal Cruise

In Amsterdam a canal cruise is a must. And that’s exactly what we did after the Heineken tour, and we saw quite a few tour ticket places with the “Show Your Card” discount logo. We understand that meant the AAA discount, so we tried to secure the discount by showing our AAA membership card. But we got rejected in couple places, one place said it’s only valid for the ARC Europe club members, and another place tried to run our AAA card through the machine as if it’s a credit card, and it said unrecognized card. We were going to give up and simply buy the tickets at the pier counter at regular price, but it was our lucky day as the agent there recognized the AAA logo and gave us a hard fought 20% discount. The cruise went through 100 highlights, well, we don’t know if it’s exactly 100 since we lost track of counting. But it’s definitely interesting to see a huge garage for bikes, the houseboats, and most important of all, people traveling on boats in the canal seem to be the happiest ones on earth. The happy faces in the photos says it all !


Isn’t that AAA discount at the lower right ?


Canal cruise


Happy faces


Yeah !


Bike garage


Boat or house ?


Pancake Bakery

After the canal cruise we went to our next food stop for dinner. This time we tried something very different, the Dutch Pancakes. We went to the Pancake Bakery, another restaurant frequented by locals not far from the train station. This place truly makes the best pancakes we ever have. We had the savory Caprese pancake, which consists of pesto, cheese and tomatoes, and the Dutch pancake with ice cream and hot cherries as desserts. After dinner, we had another leisurely stroll and took more photos of the canals on our way back to the hotel, and then picked up our luggage and took the train to Schiphol.


Pancake Bakery


Dutch pancake and Caprese pancake


Hotel Radisson Airport

At the airport we looked for the signs to the airport hotel shuttles, and it was a bit confusing as there was a shuttle stop that listed the hotels in central Amsterdam, not the airport. We went back to the information counter and inquired about the correct stop for the airport hotel shuttle. A lot of the airport hotels share shuttles, and while this means potentially many stops before getting dropped off and also more crowded on the bus, it also means the shuttle will come more often. The Radisson has its own bus, and it’s a big bus. The only drawback is it only came once every half an hour, and that’s about how long we waited. The shuttle bus took us to a suburban business park place where the hotel is situated. For a while we thought we were back in the US, as there is no resemblance whatsoever to the touristy Amsterdam we just came from. The hotel room was fine, but it seems strange that they still have the dinosaur non flat panel TV.


Hotel Shuttle Bus


Airport Radisson in the middle of a business park


Room

The biggest attraction of this hotel is, of course, the breakfast that’s included in the F&F rate. This was our last Radisson hotel stay in this trip, and the breakfast did not disappoint. There was an orange juice maker, where we only needed to throw in the oranges and get fresh OJ. There were also mushrooms, tomatoes, potatoes, fried rice, sausages and beans, fruits, cold cuts, and all kinds of breads.


OJ machine


Sausages and Beans

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Schiphol

After breakfast we took the 9am hotel shuttle back to the airport. At check-in, we informed the agent that while we were flying to Oslo, our final destination for the day was Vienna on a separate Austrian Airlines ticket. She then typed something into her computer to look for our connecting flight, and she’s able to tag the luggage all the way to Vienna but could not get us the boarding pass for the second flight. But she also told us that we would need to pick up our luggage in Oslo as all transfer passengers are required to do so. I was skeptical but she insisted she knew the rules.


Plane engine inside airport


Check-in


Servisair Executive Lounge

We then went through security and checked into the Servisair lounge, I mean on Facebook using the lounge wifi. There were not a lot of food offering, but it didn’t really matter since we just had a huge breakfast at the Radisson. On the other hand, it’s time to bid farewell to Amsterdam with more Heineken !


Servisair Executive Lounge


Lounge


Overlooking terminal


Dutch drinks


Flight

SK 822 Amsterdam (AMS) 11:10am Oslo (OSL) 12:55pm
Aircraft : 736
Distance : 597 miles
Duration : 1 hour 45 min
Class : Economy
Seat : 14A, 14C

We lucked out again by having an empty middle seat on this flight, but other than that, it was quite an uneventful flight, as we did not order any food or drinks. I guess it was pretty hard to justify NOK25 (US$4.5) for a can of soda.


Seat configuration


Our seats


Bye Amsterdam


Expensive !


Transfer in Oslo

We only had 1 hour and 5 minutes before our next flight, and we needed to pick up the luggage, clear custom, re check in the luggage and go through security again. However, it was all doable. After we deplaned, we looked for the International to International transfer sign, but the light for the sign was off so we figured out it might not have been open anyways. We then followed the check-in agent’s advise and proceeded to the luggage claim, and we waited for 10 minutes or so till all the Priority tagged bags had come out, and we did not see ours so we checked with the baggage desk. The agent there was quite surprised we waited for the luggage at all, and told us they would be sent to Vienna directly. So much for the Amsterdam’s SK agent’s advice. So we exited customs and went to the check-in counter for our Austrian flight. The agent confirmed our luggage were retrieved, and went ahead and printed our boarding passes. Since this time we were flying Business Class, I went to Fast track security lane. The agent scanned our boarding passes and it quickly beeped and rejected us ! OK, we understood we needed to be SK Star Gold and not UA Star Gold to use the Fast Track lane, but we were in Business Class, and why is this still no good ? It turns out we had to travel on SK Business Class, and not Business Class on any other airlines to be able to use the Fast Track lane. Oh well, the airport was not busy at the time, we queued up at the regular security lane, and still managed to go to the lounge with another 10 minutes to spare before boarding time. We tried to check in on Facebook, but again the SAS lounge wifi was not giving the location information and so the iPhone still thought we were in Amsterdam. We also noticed the wine on tap, with choices of red and white, and that’s the first time we saw in an airline lounge.


Fast Track – Business on Austrian won’t do


Oslo SAS lounge


Wine on tap


Flight

OS 336 Oslo (OSL) 2:00pm Vienna (VIE) 4:30pm
Aircraft : Fokker 100
Distance : 857 miles
Duration : 2 hour 30 min
Class : Business
Seat : 3D, 3F

The plane has a 2-3 seat configuration throughout. We had the middle seat blocked off in our 3-seat side, and they also blocked off one seat on the 2-seat side in the business class section, which consists of the first three rows. You can’t help but notice the color design of the interior. The seats were green, and the seat-belts were red in color. And in the Economy section, the headrest cover had different color on different seats as well.
While this was a relatively short flight, the meal service was top notch. The chicken breast was very tasty, and went well with the potato cake. The triangular and trapezoidal plates were laid out as if they were custom made to fit on the tray. We noticed there were also food and drinks being served in the Economy section, unlike SAS where everything is buy on board in Economy. Time went by quickly with good food and wine, and soon we landed in Vienna.


Fokker 100


Colorful cabin


What a meal


View from the back


Our plane shadow


Arrived Vienna

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Vienna arrival

Vienna airport is just the most wonderful airport in Europe. Why ? How about free wifi everywhere ? Our experience with free wifi in European airports were mostly limited to the lounges, and in Germany the Lufthansa lounges do not even offer that. But this is not a problem at all in Vienna.

Another pleasant surprise was we could even use our US credit card to buy the train tickets to town from the ticket machine. After we bought our 3.6 Euros tickets, a nice couple heading to the terminal offered us their weekly ticket. They had spent 4 days in Vienna and bought a pair of weekly passes, and so the passes were still good for another 3 days which they had no use for. The weekly pass is only good for traveling within Vienna, but we could have bought a supplement of 1.8 Euros each to go to town, instead of the regular train fare. Still, we could make good use of it once we got to Vienna.


Ticket to city and weekly pass from generous strangers

We got on the train to Wien Mitte, and somehow missed the sign to transfer to the U4 line and ended up in some nearby park. Rain was coming down pretty hard, but we eventually made it to the right place to get on the U4 line. And after two stops we got off at the Karlsplatz station.


Train


Hotel Le Meridien

The hotel is very centrally located, only 5 minute walk from the Karlsplatz station. Upon check-in, we were told that we got upgraded to a nice room on the top floor, and that all the drinks in the mini fridge were complimentary. On top of that, the wifi would be free, yes, more Facebook check-in ! The hotel exterior was like a historic building, but inside it’s as modern looking as an W. Our room had a nice view of the State Opera, but we had to lean out the ceiling window to enjoy the view.


Le Meridien


Modern decoration


Complimentary drinks


Pink tub


Bathroom


Lobby


Bar


Vienna evening

We took the subway for one stop to the Stephansplatz, and strolled along the main shopping street. We checked out a lot of Mozart chocolate stores, and also found a Starbucks. Yes, free wifi again ! You had to register with them first, and then they will email you a code and also let you get onto the internet for like 10 minutes for free. Then you will use that time period to retrieve emails and the code, which after you enter the code you can get the unlimited wifi access. That’s simple enough for us to do in order to do more Facebook check-in !


Cathedral façade


Starbucks wifi

We also enjoyed the outdoor Opera, which was a live broadcast of the Opera inside.


Live Opera broadcast


Not W hotel

We went back to the hotel and went to the coffee shop downstairs. We had noticed in the Austrian flight magazine that by showing our Austrian boarding passes, we could get various discounts, and one of them is the free illy coffee at Le Moët right next to our hotel. While it’s not Viennese coffee, it’s too hard a bargain to miss. The coffee shop closed at mid-night, and it’s a perfect way to wind down the day with some desserts.


Hotel coffee shop


Coffee is free with Austrian boarding pass !


Vienna morning

The next morning we walked to the Café Mozart for the Viennese coffee, and the Mozart croissant – a regular croissant with some sugar bits on it. It was still early in the morning around 8am and the surroundings in Albertina were pretty empty – the tourists must still be sleeping ! After the overpriced breakfast, we headed back to the hotel for a quick morning swim before checking out of the hotel and taking the train back to the airport. It was a perfect sunny day in Vienna, and we wish our stay in Vienna could have been longer.


Café Mozart


Viennese coffee


Perfect sunny day


Morning swim

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Flight Cancellation

With the Vienna weekly pass, we easily figured out the right supplement fare to the airport. Then we headed to the Austrian Business check-in counter with our Star Gold cards, and this confused the agent somewhat. It turns out there’s a separate check-in place for Star Gold, and she asked if we would prefer to check-in there. Since we were already at the counter and there’s no line, we just asked her to check us into the Dubai flight. As soon as she heard the word Dubai, her face turned into a and said “Oh it’s cancelled !” What ? This would definitely screw up our travel plan.

6/4 Sat OS 839 VIE 1:30pm DXB 9:10pm


Separate Star Gold check-in room


Ausfall = Cancelled !

OK, now what ? As far as we could tell, this was the only Star Alliance direct flight from Vienna, getting on a connecting flight on Star Alliance would mean we won’t arrive till the next day. The agent said we probably had been rebooked on the Emirates leaving two hours later. Probably ? Then she typed something into the computer and said that’s indeed the case, but we would need to go to the ticketing counter to re-issue the ticket. Consider we were going to arrive a little after 9pm, pushing this out to 11pm would not be such a disaster since we had not planned much activities for the first night in Dubai. And while we heard good things about the food on Austrian, we only heard great things about everything on Emirates. The only thing we wanted to make sure is we didn’t get rebooked on Economy since we were going to fly Business class on Austrian.

Luckily we were indeed booked on Emirates Business (Yes !), and with the new tickets in hand, we went to the Emirates counter to check-in our luggage. The counter had just opened, and the line was already fairly long, that is, for Economy. We were quickly checked in, and got the lounge invitation to the AIR lounge printed on the boarding passes.

Since we now had two extra hours in Vienna, spending them all in the lounge would seem to be a waste. We remembered there were still two days left on the Vienna weekly pass we got from the nice couple, so we went back to the train station ticket machine, and waited for another innocent looking couple to give away the pass. That actually took a while as there must not have been a lot of flights arriving into Vienna at that hour, or most people heading to town already got their tickets some place else. But the stranger couple we gave the passes to were really thankful


Lounge

We then went through immigration as we were leaving Schengen, and headed to the AIR Lounge. The lounge was fairly crowded at the time, and it’s fairly basic looking with white as the main theme color. We thought the Austrian or Star lounge might have been better, but it’s probably a good trade off to be able to fly on Emirates Business. The food offering in the lounge was pretty decent, with selection of salads, soups and cookies. There was a notice which said the cucumbers were not from Spain, guess we wouldn’t need to worry about catching the E-Coli bacteria.


AIR Lounge


White


The notice says cucumbers are safe !

We ate and surfed (Facebook check-in !) a bit in the lounge, then headed to the gate. Security was done at the gate, we needed some extra time for this. And even this was an Emirates flight, the agents working at the gate were Austrian Airlines employees as they were all wearing the bright red Austrian uniforms.


Flight

EK 128 Vienna (VIE) 3:30pm Dubai (DXB) 10:55pm
Aircraft : 777
Distance : 2626 miles
Duration : 5 hour 25 min
Class : Business
Seat : 10A, 10B

As soon as we boarded the aircraft, we knew we really lucked out to be able to fly on Emirates. The seat was just a lot nicer, and came with a big pillow and a comfortable blanket. The individual screens were huge, and on top of that, there was a smaller 6” or so side screen at the seat so passengers can make the music and movie selection easier. Champagnes were promptly served and placed in the built-in cup holders. While there were no amenity kits, socks and eye shades were provided in a bag. And the wine list and meal choices were in separate menus. About the only thing we would complain is the lack of floor storage. Unlike the Lufthansa flights where we could put our backpacks on the floor, the flight attendants told us we would need to put them in the overhead bins.


We are not the only one taking cabin shots


Seats


Amenity Kit

Soon after takeoff, we were served cold canapés and nuts, followed by the main meal. It’s already 5pm Vienna time and perfect timing for the delicious dinner. Appetizers were roast beef and salmon, and we had the Chicken Madras with basmati rice and Sea bass for the main course. The chicken was better, but the highlight was the Cranberry crumble cake dessert ! After the fantastic dinner service, passengers staying in Dubai were also given the Fast Track cards to make it faster to go through immigration. The flight attendants also distributed a mattress, which I made a very comfortable almost lie-flat bed with. It’s time for a nap, and the flight just went by too quickly ! Soon we were on our descend to Dubai and this was unquestionably the best flight in this trip !


Menu and Canapes


Appetizer


Sea bass fillet


Chicken Madras


Cranberry crumble


Comfortable bed


Almost in Dubai


Fast Track


Dubai Arrival

We were amazed by the modern design of the terminal, and followed the easy signage to take the shuttle trains and immigration desk. The Fast Track card did come in handy as we saw others had to go to a long queue while we zoomed through. Our luggage also came our quickly and in no time we were on our way to take a taxi to the our hotel Al Manzil, which cost 50 AED (around US$14). Our flight landed around 11:00pm, and we arrived at the hotel just before mid-night !


Modern terminal 3


Taxi

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Hotel Al Manzil

We picked the Hotel Al Manzil because of the good ratings in TripAdvisor, and the proximity to the Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa. As we were checking in, we were delighted with refreshing kiwi juice and cold towels. Our room had a very unique décor, kind of a mixture of modern and Middle Eastern design, if that’s the right description. There’s an open bath tub, and the shower and toilet were enclosed by frosted glass walls – guess the room is great for couples but probably not so much if traveling with kids. Oh, and the wifi is free, though there’s only wired access from the room. This is just fine with us as we could check-in on Facebook in the lobby ! There’s a restaurant in the courtyard, which was surprisingly busy on Saturday night even after mid-night.


Al Manzil


Welcome kiwi juice and cold towel


Room


In room bathtub


Courtyard


Burj Khalifa

Our first activity in Dubai is a visit to the tallest building in the world – Burj Khalifa. We had booked the opening time 10 o’clock appointment, and we thought it’s only a short walk from our hotel. But it turns out we had to navigate our way through a business park, and the 15 minute walk under the extreme heat in June felt much longer. But soon we saw the entrance to the Dubai Mall, and followed the sign to the At the Top entrance. We had to leave our backpack with the cloak, and went through a security check before boarding the elevator. There were many replicas of the tower, but just like the real one, it’s impossible to take a picture in landscape mode !


Business park to Burj Khalifa


On way to Burj Khalifa


Dubai Fountain


Burj Khalifa


Entrance in Dubai Mall


Burj Khalifa model


Another Burj Khalifa


I am Burj Khalifa

After an twilight zone like ride on the fast elevator, we arrived At The Top. Well, it’s not quite exactly the top as there’s another section of the building that’s above the observation desk. The view looking down was amazing, everything seems so small ! We just wish it were a clearer day so we could see farther. After couple 360 degree walk around the floor, we came back down to the Dubai Mall and grabbed a quick lunch in the food court before heading back to the hotel. Free wifi was available in the Mall, though the registration process made it impossible for us to connect ! You have to supply a phone number where they can text you the password, or an email address. We did not want to turn on the roaming just to get the text message, so we could not retrieve the password to sign on. And since we could not sign on, we could not retrieve emails either ! The Vienna Starbucks wifi where they give you first 10 minutes registration free access was much more user friendly.


Inside elevator


Address Hotel


View from Burj Khalifa


Looking at the top from At The Top


Dubai Mall food court

We then walked back to the hotel and visited a nearby Starbucks for a much needed ice coffee break. To our disappointment, there is no free wifi in Starbucks either. Fortunately, it’s only a 2 minute walk from the hotel, and we could catch up with email and Facebook update in the lobby.


Starbucks Dubai