Ev's Georgick's Travel Blog

Our first night’s accommodations will be our plane seats. They actually don’t look too bad in the picture. Apparently the airline is in the process of installing, throughout their entire passenger fleet, these new, leather upholstered seats with inflight entertainment system, and “maximum width of seats for maximum comfort” (whatever that means). Our cheap seats will have 32 inches of leg room, plenty for me or any of my mother’s kin, everybody else might be out of luck, though. You know, I can stand completely upright on a plane in a window seat and still clear the luggage compartment overhead without needing to duck down. I suspect that all of these pictures of our sleeping spaces, be it plane seat, hotel room, or ferry cabin, apply to the first, business, deluxe, or luxury class models, and not the economy versions that we’ll actually be staying in, therefore, actual size is smaller than depicted. We’ll inquire about upgrading when we check in. It would be worth it if we could snap up better seats for a modest additional fee. Sitting for 7.5 hours is never any fun, additional comforts would be welcome, plus its just plain fun to be offered complementary drinks, an endless supply of peanuts, and real utensils. Yes, another steaming face towel please.

Iceland Air uses WWTE, the World Wide Travel Exchange for their hotel booking engine. Its not connected to their flight reservation system so you have to book those two parts of the trip separately. Not a big deal. You needn’t even go through Iceland Air if you wish, but their site does offer comparable prices to Expedia, Travelcity, Hotels.com, Oribtz, etc. Really they all seem to be within a few pennies of one another, almost as though they were all drilling down into the same database. So both Tamara Georgick and I would browse through the listings on the Iceland Air site. I filtered my searches for a minimum of three out of 5 stars, free internet access and breakfast included (though the last condition not always successfully). The first hotel in Reykjavik (took me forever to remember how to spell that city’s name, but now I’ve got it down cold!) that looked good to Tamara Georgick was the Hotel Bjork. I favored it simply for the name itself. The only word of Icelandic I know is that one, courtesy of that odd singer with self same moniker. It apparently means willow or some such. I think it might be slightly further from the central shopping core, but its a trade-off for being closer to the shore, with views of the water and surrounding landscape. The building exterior is pretty nondescript, but breakfast and broadband internet is complementary. It received a 97% recommendation rating from the Iceland Air site and a 95% recommendation from the TripAdvisor site.

I have no inclination to go on a cruise, so I think this overnight ferry between England and Holland, will be the closest I ever come. The cabins look cute and tidy, and I opted for an outside berth so we can look out the porthole at the water in the middle of the dark night. Since it is an overnighter, it still allows us full days to play in both London and Amsterdam while also enabling us to save a little by avoiding an additional night and expensive hotel stay in either city. I think we leave London around 8pm and get into Amsterdam around 10am. And, hey, maybe the train travel will allow us to take in a little countryside scenery. [Maureen, I’ve already got the train tickets, do you suppose I need to reserve actual seats on the train?] The ferry has free Wi-Fi, so I’m sure I’ll be trying to catch up on my travel blogging then.

I threatened Tamara Georgick with another Best Western Hotel stay in Amsterdam, but instead we are staying at Die Port van Cleve. It is located in the original Heineken brewery building. It looks georgous, outside and in, but the reviews are very mixed. Only 53% recommended it on TripAdvisor, though 78% gave it a thumbs up on the Iceland Air site. One of the negative reviews complained of mice. Tamara Georgick’s counter to that is where there is mice there is surely cheese, so that’s where we are headed. By the way, since it would simplify things immensely, if you want a souvenir from this vacation, know now that it will be cheese. This hotel has free internet access, and although breakfast is not included it is available and looks like a nice spread.