We got an extra hour of sleep last night! Ireland changed back to standard time at 2am this morning! I now remember this happening when we were in Australia and wondering why the whole world does not change on the same day… I know we will be changing in North America in two weeks. Makes calculating time zone changes so complicated now! I just realized that our flight today is actual flying time and no time change is happening as Ireland and Iceland are now on the same time zone. So it was not hard to get up at 7am to get everything organized and ready to check in to fly to Iceland today – also a new airline (Icelandair) to try out!
As we filled up with gas last night, all we had to do was to get to the EuropCar rental car return, which was kind of an interesting experience! Using Google Maps, I entered the Car Hire Return lot as all returns are in the same place, and it took us to the airport instead (much to Andrew’s frustration)! So leaving the airport we saw the Car Hire Return sign and managed to get to the return area for EuropCar, and unpacked our car only to have the return agent come up to us, as I was putting some bags on my walker, to tell us that we could have returned the car to Terminal 1 (where we had already been and where we were flying out of) due to me having a disability. Really??? NOW Andrew remembers being told this when we rented the car – was I told? Nope. I would remember things like that as getting into the rental car van is usually a challenge (Andrew has to push me upwards to into the front due to how tall they are). We still arrived on time, 3 hours prior to our flight which was good! As I had spent some time walking around this medium sized airport when we arrived a month ago, I knew where the elevator was and where we were going to check-in. We quickly got checked in at Icelandair and the gentleman told us to go through Express security and the lounge is on the other side. I also THOUGHT he said that the VAT refund was next to our departure gate number 102, at gate 103.
Got through security with the normal issues – they had to check my knitting supplies (NOT YARN) and my medical stuff and then we got to the lounge. The lounge was used by all the international carriers that used T1 (about 10) and it was very BUSY with travel lice standing around and blocking the places where people had to get to – such as the inspection tables for the CATSA type people.
We found our way to the lounge – indeed it was right next to security! The downside to this lounge was not only for Business Class and Elite program members of the 8 or so International Airlines that T1 served, they also admitted passengers buying their way into the lounge for 60 Euros per adult! So we all had to line up and the line was slow as they were turning away people who wanted to pay as the lounge was already almost at capacity. Finally, we got in and remained there for about 2 hours where we had breakfast and I was finally able to upload some pictures to my website – they have very fast internet at the Dublin Airport!
At 10:30am we left the lounge to walk the “10 minutes” the check in agent told me, to the gate. I am not slow at walking like some people who use rollators are, however I am not ultra speedy either! Even using the moving walkways and walking instead of standing on them (they were wide like in the Chicago O’Hare Airport), and walking a kilometre, we finally arrived at the gate for our flight and there was no VAT refund nearby (it was gate 303 instead in a different wing)!
There was no one in the gate area though, so I was confused. I then looked out the window – and there was an Icelandair jet but it was NOT connected to a jetway! It was now 10:45am and everyone was either on the plane or waiting to climb the stairs with 45 minutes yet to go until the doors closed. Wow. They board EARLY here! I then noticed a guy with a hazzard vest on, who shortly came up to me and asked if I was Lynda, which I confirmed and he said he would call the Ambu-Lift for me to get onto the plane. The gate agent then scanned us onto the flight and said to me “why did not one help you get here”? I said no one offered wheelchair service nor told us accurately how far a walk it was! The Ambu-Lift then arrived and we went down to the tarmac and got onto it.
We sat in the Ambu-Lift for about 5 minutes – normally this lift boards people from either door 2 (front right) or door 4 (right side before the wing) exit doors. I could see this was a 757 – which was interesting – I have not been on one of these planes for about 25 years – they have mostly been decommissioned/sold off by North American carriers. Both the airline doors that are normally used by the lift were blocked with equipment that would have to be moved – especially the power unit that was hooked up to the plane. The driver of the Ambu-lift went out to see what he could do. Eventually we drove around the back of the plane to door 1 instead (the stairs people climbed up were at door 3) which was quite convenient to our seats – which were 2D and 2F – right across and in front of the bulkhead from the door! There was no row 1 on this plane which was interesting and a surprise! I do not remember selecting bulkhead seats but was happy to get them. We also seemed to be the last people onto the plane… As I got seated, I saw my walker ride the conveyer belt into the hold and then we waited 15 minutes until it was time to leave (11:15) and off we taxied to the runway. It was a beautiful day for a flight as you will see below –
The flight was about 2 hours and 40 minutes “gate” to “gate” in a Boeing 757 which I often call the cigar tube plane as for me, it looks like a giant cigar tube, fairly high in the air due to its large engines. We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Keflavik which is about a 3 minute drive from the airport, on one of the main roads. The hotel is about 3 years old and while very nice, it really is in the middle of nowhere right now. There is a grocery store being built next to it, however right now, there are 2 restaurants in the hotel, a bar and a pharmacy across the parking lot. There also are electric car charging stations at the far end of the parking lot – about 8 of them – which they look to be a popular site to visit due to the express charge that they provide. We could have stayed at a Marriott Hotel in downtown Reykivik, however when I looked at the points needed to stay in those hotels (as their room rate was higher than I would pay) I just could not justify the number of points for a 5 night stay, even if the 5th night was free. It was half the cost to stay at the Courtyard – besides – we planned on being out enjoying Iceland each day as we were not going to be there for long – so why spend all the extra points!
On the flight, which you might notice above, I had the best gluten free meal that I have had on an airline in decades – one thing that bothers me is I often get the main meal which is correct however due to not a lot of gluten free meals being made these days as meals are only provided in business class domestically and then when flying over an ocean in both business class and domestic, they can be plated incorrectly like a regular bun instead of a GF bun and instead of a cool dessert like chocolate cake, we get fruit. This meal was awesome – it was chicken, that was seasoned really well (not just salt), crisp veggies, rice, a gluten free bun, and for desert – a chia pudding that was not too sweet – perfection! I know from my experience with United Airlines and getting the GFML change system wide when I travelled for my job installing software around North America and in New Zealand, that I was not only the highest consumer of the GFML, but less than 1% of the meals served at that time were gluten free. That causes airlines and flight kitchens to combine meals – such as bland/diabetic/gluten free together and sometimes they are not very palatable. When I get one this good it is a surprise!
As for the flight and Icelandair, they were fantastic – I sure lucked out sitting on the starboard side of the plane and being able to see the volcanoes and blue water as we flew over the southern peninsula of Iceland and then banked left to land to the east at Keflavik airport, which is about 45 minutes south of Reykjavik. We really lucked out with the weather for this flight – being able to see the volcanos and blue water from the sky was amazing – the topology was so different than I have seen in other parts of the world. The white peaks that are so sharp and sticking out of the clouds below truly were a sight to see and I was looking forward to exploring Iceland even more!
However Iceland is COLD! The Kefilik airport does not have a lot of jetways attached to the airport building for some unknown reason – instead they have jetways that are permeant structures out on the tarmac, so we pulled up next to one of them. Everyone got off and went down the escalator and then onto waiting busses to be transported to the terminal building. There are no elevators in these buildings so they had to bring the Ambu-lift out for us – it was a brand spanking new lift truck! I imagine they do not get a lot of people requiring wheelchair assistance arriving in Iceland – we shall see what we run into this week in terms of accessibility! Andrew and I were taken to the terminal and then I was put into a VERY comfortable wheelchair to be escorted through customs and then to the baggage area and out into the terminal where we then walked to the Hertz car rental counter. The escort was very nice however for a small airport the process of going through customs and to the baggage claim was VERY confusing! You had to go up to the 2nd floor and across and then down to the 1st floor and then up to the 2nd floor to exit and then down to the 1st floor again. No idea why however the escort was really helpful and made the process fast and as painfree as possible. I just wish that happened in Canada at our airports!
When we got to the Hertz counter to pick up our car – it was one time that I was very thankful that I had frequent renter status with Hertz! We went into the Gold line and the agent questioned if we were in the right place, I gave him my name and he confirmed that we were and proceeded to “upgrade” our car from manual to automatic as he thought it would be easier to drive. There is a significant different between the price of manual cars (cheaper) than automatic cars in Europe, so that was nice of him to do! He also gave us a KIA hatchback which was nice – however it was small – my walker would not fit in the trunk without one of the back seats down! So he gave us directions on how to get to the onsite car lot to get to our car and we walked out of the airport and it was like hitting a wall of cold – wow! That was one chilly walk to pick up our car 2 small parking lots away! I did not realize how cold it was when we were transferred from the Ambu-lift to the terminal – it was now about 4pm and it was COLD and windy! Time for those long johns!
We arrived at the Courtyard without many issues and quickly got settled in our room. As we had to go through customs and not knowing the rules for food, we did not have any dinner supplies so we went downstairs to the Tokyo (Japanese) restaurant in the lobby. While I love Japanese food and there is an excellent GF Japanese restaurant in Vancouver, I did not bring any GF soya sauce with me so a lot of the menu items were off limits to me and I really did not feel like just eating sushi. So I asked one of the waiters what they would suggest and he said they can make plain rice, salad and salmon for me – sounded good! It does not break my fish rule (being 1 timezone away from the ocean to consume fish) as we are surrounded by ocean! Andrew had a chicken donburi (chicken, egg, glass noodles, onions, soya sauce on rice). WOW, was my salmon good! I have had the luxury of having many different types of salmon, with Copper River being one of my favourites (out of Alaska) however this salmon was melt in your mouth! It actually was Atlantic Salmon (which in general I do not like), but this Atlantic Salmon is caught in Iceland which makes it more fatty and delicate from what is caught or farmed off the east coast of the USA. I will definitely have Iceland Atlantic salmon again! After that lovely meal, it was time to hit the sack – tomorrow morning I am going to do some planning and map out what we are going to do for the next 4 days in Iceland!