20260316 Viking Vela Northern Lights and British Isles - Day 1/32

Viking Vela In Search of the Northern Lights and British Isles Explorer Cruise Day 1/32 – Time for another trip! (or so we thought)

Noon on Sunday - the car arrives at 5pm to take us to the airport

Have you missed traveling? We have! So...we're back on the road again.  In truth, the packing started Saturday evening.

Arlona, the more organized of us, started putting things in packing cubes Saturday night

I, however, didn't even un-nest my suitcases and just put a small pile from the laundry on top

Where are we going this time? Since you asked, this trip will take us to the Arctic and the British Isles on two back-to-back cruises on the brand-spanking new Viking Vela. It's only been sailing for just over a year, entering service in December, 2024. It marks the first substantive change in the design of Viking's ocean fleet, jumping from 930 passengers to 990 passengers. The layout of the ship remains unchanged. There are just a few stretches here and there. Manfredi's, Mamsen's, Chef's Table, the World Cafe, the spa, Explorer's Bar, the Living Room, Finse Terrace, Torshavn - they're all still there.

Let's check out our itinerary. Here is cruise #1.

We start in Bergen, Norway. We will spend a couple of days there before boarding the Viking Vela on March 18 and heading north. We will cross into the Arctic and spend a couple of days in Alta at 70° north latitude. The goal for this cruise is to see the Aurora Borealis, more commonly known as the Northern Lights. Next, we'll spend an overnight in Tromsø, before continuing to Narvik. After our time in the Arctic, we will head south to Amsterdam, and eventually end this cruise in Tilbury, a London port, on March 30.

The second leg has us continuing on the Viking Vela, departing Tilbury and sailing through the British Isles.

Our cruise will visit Ireland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland before returning to Bergen, Norway. We will disembark the Vela and hop a train to Oslo, Norway, where we'll spend a couple of days before flying home. We visited Oslo on our World Cruise, but Arlona was locked away with Covid, so she missed it completely. Since Viking offered Oslo as a post-cruise extension, we jumped at the chance.

Technically, this trip started on March 15, but since it was just an overnight flight, we're officially starting on March 16. We will fly home on April 15, arriving home in the wee hours of April 16.

This trip is unusual for us. Most of our trips seem to start by getting picked up for the ride to the airport before the sun comes up. This trip started with a ride to the airport at 5:20 pm. How nice to have the entire day to pack!

Our driver was scheduled to arrive at 5 pm to take us to Orlando for our 8:20 flight. With all the spring break hubbub at Orlando International Airport and the partial government shutdown, we wondered if we were cutting it a little too close, with potential TSA slowdowns.

To make matters worse, this happened on the way.

We hit some major weather, slowing the Florida Turnpike down to 50MPH from its usual nearly 80.

Good news, if you interpret it that way, came in the form of a Delta notification that our flight was now delayed 90 minutes. Problem solved. We have a 4.5-hour layover in Amsterdam, so no biggie there.

Well, sort of. We got a second notice that we were now delayed 145 additional minutes with a new departure time of 12:15 am. That put our connection in jeopardy. The gate agent booked us on a contingency connection to Bergen, just in case.

We cleared TSA in less than five minutes. They did need to take a look at the ice packs, keeping some meds cold, but it was otherwise uneventful. We grabbed the train to the gates and headed for the Delta Sky Club. Well, that was the plan. This sign greeted us.

Yup, full. Nice. There were 17 ahead of us in the Delta One line. 

The regular line for credit card holders had at least 75 people waiting to get in.

Starbucks had a line at least 50 people long. The airport was crazy.

After 35 minutes in line, we got in. The Sky Club at Orlando is small as clubs go. Seating was at a premium. We did score a small table and got something to drink and a snack.

Our inbound aircraft was diverted to Atlanta and got stuck there. We got an update that it was supposed to leave Atlanta at 9:30 pm and arrive here in Orlando at 10:52 pm. That will make a quick turn to get us to launch by 12:15 am. The issue is that our 4-hour layover in Amsterdam was now down to 50 minutes. Plus, Amsterdam is our entry to Europe, so we'll have to clear immigration. Delta saved space for us on a contingency flight in the event we can't make our original connection. That leaves seven hours after our original connection. Woo.

What could possibly happen next? The Sky Club kicked everyone out rather unceremoniously at 10 pm, so we made our way to the gate and found seats. A little after 11 pm, our flight got canceled. We first saw it when the marquee at the gate changed. No announcement. Eventually, a text came in.

Arlona was checking at the Delta desk, and there were already at least 150 people in line. I called Delta and was told there was a two-hour wait. Yikes!

We waited in line to talk to a Delta rep on the phone. He was utterly useless.

The line to talk to a useless Delta rep on the phone

I texted our intrepid travel agent, Lisa McKay at CSB Travel, who jumped into action. Over the next two hours, she was able to rebook us. The only flights from Orlando weren't until Tuesday! She was able to book essentially the same flight with the same departure time out of Tampa tomorrow (Monday). We figured that we'd rent a car and drive home, and then drop it off in Tampa tomorrow. She tried to get us a rental car tonight, but there was nothing available. She scored us an Alamo Jeep Wrangler tomorrow from Orlando to Tampa, and a room at the Hilton Garden Inn on American Way for tonight.

We went down to baggage claim to find our bags already on the carousel. We grabbed our bags, hopped in an Uber (with surge pricing due to the scads of stranded passengers), and headed for the Hilton Garden Inn.

We arrived about 1:45 am. An unusually cheerful desk clerk, Cat, greeted us warmly. We hit the room, I finished this blog, and we hit the hay.

We'll grab breakfast tomorrow at the hotel and take an Uber back to the airport to pick up our car. Then, we'll drive to Tampa and try this overnight flight thing all over again. 

Travel is so exciting...