Day 1 - Thursday, July 21 - Departure

 Well we are trying it again, after a sad cancellation of our planned lower-Danube cruise in June due to coming down with Covid two days before departure.

We are taking the "Viking Homelands" 15-day cruise from Bergen, Norway to Stockholm, Sweden with a pre-cruise extension in Oslo and a train trip over the mountains to Bergen. We are staying one extra day in Stockholm at the end.

We were originally supposed to visit St. Petersburg and Latvia but due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Viking decided that wasn't a good idea. Viking added extra time in Oslo and stops in Bornholm and Mariehamn.


We had thought we would rent a car instead of parking at Newark for 21 days but after discovering that it would cost $266 each way, we decided to drive and park.

We packed up the car before lunch as the sky was very dark and there was a severe thunderstorm warning. There were only a few sprinkles.

We left just after 1pm. It was a smooth trip all the way down and we were glad that the A/C was working as it was 96-98 degrees on the highway.

The Newark airport was crazy busy, a solid mass of people waiting to go through security with 4 different categories of security, regular, TSA Precheck, Premier Access and Clear.

We are waiting in the United Polaris lounge which is quite pleasant although very busy - Carmen and I weren't able to get seats together.

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 6:30 but didn't leave until 7:30 as there weren't enough trucks to fuel the jets!

Start of a happy trip with champagne in Polaris class



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