Overnight we sailed down the Rhine Canal and very early in the morning on Wednesday, November 22, 2017, we docked in Amsterdam next to the Mövenpick Hotel located at the cruise ship terminal that we docked at last year when we sailed to Amsterdam on the Koningsdam. I put our luggage out at 4am and we got up and prepared to disembark the River Empress for the last time this trip.
The ship provided a continental breakfast for the 15 of us who had a 5am departure to the Schiphol Airport. It was a quite early morning 30 minute ride to the airport and we were deposited at the Lufthansa gate where we joined the check-in line. It took over an hour to get checked in. This very slow checkin has been our experience at the Frankfurt airport as well. Once we were checked in, there was a second line to clear security. After that, we walked out to our gate. Lufthansa has a strange boarding process in that they board certain priority groups (1st and business class, the elderly, and those with children under 2) and then everyone else. There was no sense of priority for the main cabin passengers. But we all got on for an on-time departure for the brief one hour flight to Frankfurt.
Once we arrived in Frankfurt, we deplaned, cleared immigration, and then had the long walk to our gate. And I do mean it was a long walk. After a brief wait, once again we followed the Lufthansa boarding process to fill our 747-900 for the direct flight to Seattle. The flight itself was nice and 9 1/2 hours later, we landed at SeaTac. Since we had Global Entry, we passed a line of some 1,000 people for a quick entry back into the USA. And our one week river trip was finally over.
IMPRESSIONS & REVIEW
This is the first river cruise that we had taken. Everything about it was simply well executed by UNIWORLD. The ship was in very good condition. The crew were friendly and helpful. The food was first class and the menus varied by region with nice wine pairings. All drinks, tours, and gratuities were included in the fare. We enjoyed all of the stops although the last one in Cologne could have been longer.
In short, it was a wonderful cruise and we'd like to do another. We'll see how that pans out as we have a number of ocean cruises planned for the next several years.
No comments:
Post a Comment