The road home

Day 8 Homeward bound

With our 6:15am bus to the airport, we were up at 5am and eating breakfast by 5:30am.

Viking is well organized and our departure and bag retrieval went quickly.

The bus ride to Keflavik was smooth. The airport, not so much.

When we arrived, we couldn't find the United desk. There was a reason. There wasn't any. They were having some kind of glitch and had to relocate United to another check-in area. Of course, that meant lines as no United passengers could do anything.

Then, we went through the most unusual security questioning we've ever had. This wasn't their version of TSA but an additional security screening before you can even get to the ticket counter.

How long were you in Iceland?

Where did you go?

Describe your cruise ship cabin.

What were your favorite things you saw?

Ok, well...

They also verified our passports and recent negative PCR test results (compliments of Viking).

Then we checked in. They verified the documents again. 

Then we went through actual security. They make TSA look great. Pre-check means nothing. Shoes, belts, watches all off. Laptops out. Slow and painful. Plus, they only have metal detectors. No body scanners. With my metal hip, that meant I got to be on a first-name basis with a security guard. He should have bought me dinner and a movie first.

Then at the gate, they checked out passports again. Then we boarded and had to show passports again.

There was almost no seating at the gate so with a completely full 757-200, it was a zoo.

I did get a photo of the smoke and haze from the volcano.

We finally launched and got into Chicago a little early. 

This was our first experience with Global Entry and it was awesome. A few quick questions, a passport, and a fingerprint scan at a kiosk, and we were on our way. Baggage retrieval and recheck were quick as was the bus from the M terminal to terminal 1.

Going back through security with TSA Pre-check was super quick.

We got to our gate and waited to board.

The flight home was smooth and uneventful and we arrived in Orlando on time.  There were even a few empty seats for a change so Arlona & I were able to have a three-seat row to ourselves, giving us a little room to stretch out.

Since we arrived at MCO at 6pm, we decided to stop for dinner on the way home.  Since we don't have a lot of food at home, something with leftovers seemed to make sense.

Lucky for us, Giordano's is sort of on the way home.  Unlucky for us, it was nearly an hour wait for deep dish pizza.  It was worth the wait.

We stopped and picked up the mail and arrived home about 19 hours after we got off the ship this morning, including a long stop for dinner.

This wraps up our Iceland adventure.  Stay tuned as more adventures are coming soon!