Tulips and Windmills

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Travel Day ... BIG UGH!!

Uniworld arranged for transfer from the ship to the airport in Brussels where our flights were departing from. We had to have all our bags outside our cabins by 6:30am and the coach was leaving at 7am. We went to the dining room for our final breakfast and enjoyed a bit of everything today!! An "everything 2 egg omelet", a small bowl of oatmeal, a mini donut, and some ham. This should hold us over for a nice while until we have to start eating airline food.

The coach guide told us that the ride to the Brussels airport would be 30-40 minutes. There was terrible traffic and we did not arrive until 8:30am and many of the cruise travelers were worried about flights. We got in to the airport international terminal and located the United Airlines check in. We were premier access so we could get in to the quicker lines. We checked our 2 bags with no problems as we were under the max weight.

Went through security and headed to our gate. We prefer to fly business class on these long over the water flights but this trip we decided to try and save some money and fly economy plus. The plane is a 777-200 and the economy section is configured with seats 2 - 4 - 2. We were in row 20 seats A and B which were the 1st to seats behind business class and we had the extra leg room. It was ok, we were comfortable and seemed to have plenty of room. The flight departed late be 40 minutes because Brussels went to a one runway this a.m. for whatever reason. Finally we took off headed for Chicago O'Hair airport.

Jim and I eached watched a couple of movies, drank lots of water, walked the aisles of the plane a couple of times and finally landed almost on time at 12:30pm CT. As with ALL international flights you have to go through customs, retrirve your checked bags, turn in the customs form, recheck your bags back to the next flight, go back through TSA then head to the gate for flight. UGH.

In January, Jim and I applied for the Global Entry card and that was really great. There were kiosks set up for those with the GOES cards and we immediately left the herd of travelers and stepped to a kiosk. we each loaded out passports for scanning, then our hand for the confirmation and a printout was provided that we could just go through immigration/customs without having to stop at an agent. YEAH for this most efficient process and well worth the $100 each we paid for it!!!

We went to baggage claim 6 to claim our 2 checked bags and waited. and waited, and waited. The bags for 1st and business class came out FAST but the rest of the bags for the passengers came out slow, slow, slow. It took over an hour for the bags to arrive at the claim area and then we had to go to the area to recheck them for the flight to Denver. We had 25 minutes at this point to get to our gate. We took the airport train from international terminal 5 to terminal 1, go BACK through TSA but thank goodness we are YSA precheck and that went really quick, then we had to go to gate C26. They were already boarding group 5 so we went to our group 2 line and immediately boarded. For this flight we again thought we would save money on the shorter flight and went with straight up economy. I HATED this!!! So cramped and crowded and the overhead were already full so Jim had to go searching toward the rear to find a place for our 2 carry-ons. The flight was uneventful and although only a couple + hours it was terrible and we need to NOT book this again remembering how tiring it is after the 1st long flight and we need to pay the premium for at least economy plus. What a diva huh ... NEVER thought I would say this about myself but when traveling long distances, NOTE TO SELF ... do not go cheap... spend the money to be comfortable!!

We landed safely in Denver and were happy to be home. We had a wonderful trip but it is always good to come home. Our bags came out quickly at baggage claim and Jenna from Anthony's Limo was waiting for us outside door 506. We got our bags tucked inside her Mercedes SUV and we headed home. Arrived home finally at 6pm, unpacked only the necessities like cables for our electronics and tooth brushes. Jim went out and bought McD chicken sandwiches and stopped at Safeway for milk, eggs and cinnamon bread for breakfast. By 8pm (4am in Belgium) we had it and went to bed. What a wonderful trip.

Where should we go next?

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