For this trip, we were flying Delta from OKC to Atlanta and then Air France from Atlanta to Munich. I had purchased the tickets separately - going economy on the first leg to Atlanta and then business class from Atlanta to Munich. Luckily, Air France is a subsidiary of Delta so I checked us in for both flights on the Delta website and when we arrived at the OKC airport, they were able to check our luggage all the way through to Munich instead of us having to pickup our luggage in Atlanta and re-check in.
What was odd on this day was the way Delta didn't "assign seats" until we were literally at the gate. We checked at the gate and got our seat assignments but Seth and I weren't even sitting together on a full flight. We never even got the opportunity to upgrade to seats with more leg room. Fortunately, this flight was only a couple of hours. Lisa, Tim, and I were in the very back row with seats that didn't recline. I watched "10 Cloverfield Lane" on the way to Atlanta which was a very strange, somewhat boring movie.
When we arrived into Atlanta, we made our way over to the international concourse and checked with the Delta lounge to make sure that our luggage was checked all the way through to Munich. They were. We had a leisurely lunch at TGI Fridays where Seth and I shared a hamburger which was just the right amount of food. We hung out in the Delta lounge watching Dexter epidsodes until just before 5 pm and then headed to our gate for our 5:54 pm flight. We got our seat assignments in business class and it was really nice getting on board a little earlier. We had really nice seats that were able to lay flight and had a nice personal entertainment center with very current shows and movies.
I watched the final 2 episodes of the Downton Abbey final season as we took off and during dinner. The dinner was nice - everyone had the same starters (cream of corn soup, smoked trout, salad. For the entree I chose the crab cakes which were delicious - they were named after the head chef so I figured they were his specialty. Huge chunks of crab with virtually no breading at all and a delicious sauce. I also had the Rioja wine which was quite good and they were very generous - filling my glass several times. I had the cheese course for dessert with a glass of Rosa Regale. I was pretty much done with the last Downton Abbey episode when dinner was done and so went straight to sleep.
We arrived into Munich a little early after breakfast but I don't normally eat right when I wake up so I just had some coffee and fruit while starting "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" which was really funny. I wish I had gotten to watch the whole thing.
Since we were the last 2 rows in business class, we were the first ones off the plane - that never happens. We found our way over to baggage claim after getting through border/passport control pretty easily. The plan was to take an Uber to the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski where we were meeting up with Adventures by Disney Guides but when we walked out of the airport and I looked up Uber, there was no XL or van available for the 4 of us so we just hopped right into the nearest taxi who took us the 30 minutes or so to the hotel. Unfortunately (and surprisingly), the taxi driver didn't take credit cards and the total fare for the taxi was over 70 Euros. I only had about 40 Euros. So we negotiated for a bit and finally we ended up giving him $90 USD for the fare. Lesson learned - always ask first if a taxi will take a credit card.
On our way to the hotel, I took out the Tep unit that I had rented and turned it on. For basically around $100, I rented this unit after reading a few reviews on the best wifi options while we were in Europe. On previous trips, we had just added a passport package to our AT&T plan but it cost us $240 to have unlimited texts and only 800 MB of data. This time, we rented the Tep unit and had unlimited data for which all 4 of us could access. From what I had read, after a certain amount of data, you got throttled but the reviews were favorable in that the speed was still decent so I decided to try it. It seemed to work fine and the battery life was very decent - about 5 hours on a charge. I could easily upload photos to and put comments on Facebook but it was noticeably slower trying to send pictures via text messages to anyone.
We were dropped off in front of the hotel - a very nice 5 star hotel in Munich. The bell boy immediately whisked our luggage away. We had a good couple of hours before we had to be back so we walked for a bit near the hotel and eventually wandered into a cafe called the Vorstadt. This ended up not being a great start to our vacation as the staff at the cafe were gruff, impatient, and just generally didn't give a hoot. We were taken to the small courtyard to eat outside. It took forever to get our drinks and when the waitress came to take our order, we were not quite ready (trying to translate the menu) and she got impatient and told us she would come back to take our order later and walked off. When we finally ordered our entrees, the waitress was clearly annoyed and it seemed to take another long time to get our food. Lisa and Tim's hamburgers were good but my eggplant parmesan was pretty bad - the eggplant hadn't been properly prepped - they were bitter and I couldn't tell that there was any parmesan cheese in it.
 |
| Crossing the street in Germany - looking for someplace to eat |
 |
| The sign says "bicycle parking prohibited" |
 |
| Eggplant Parmesan - not good at all |
We walked back to the hotel and relaxed in the lobby at around 12:30 pm. Our meet time was supposed to be 12:45 pm for a 1 pm departure but even though we saw other ABD adventurers and saw a couple of ABD guides walk back and forth, we really didn't get any instructions until just before 1 pm. We went back outside to get our luggage from the bell desk and added them to the other ABD suitcases. The luggage tags that we got in our ABD packets were not the right ones. We met Daniel from Germany who confirmed our names and made sure that our suitcases were properly tagged with pink tags instead. We made our way onto the pink bus and we left the hotel at around 1:20 pm.
The bus was really nice - the same type of buses that we were on a lot last year for the Oklahoma Ambassadors of Music tour. The trip from Munich to Vilshofen took about 2.5 hours - it was a lot further than I thought it would be. We were offered German snacks and water on the bus and Daniel was very informative and patient with us. We pulled up right in front of the AMA Viola at around 3:45 pm and walked right on to the ship. The first order of business was using the bathroom and then we relaxed for a short while in the lounge where they had some welcome snacks for us including Mickey head shaped sandwiches and cookies.
We were offered champagne and delicious hors d'oeuvres. It was really nice that the Adventure Guides made it a point to mingle and sit with us. The cruise manager introduced the senior staff on board and then all 8 Adventure Guides introduced themselves: Jennae from the US, Dean from California, Stephanie from Germany, Veronika from the US, Daniel from Germany, Katerina was Germany, Birdi from Germany, and Henriette aka Yeti also from Germany.
 |
| The AMA Viola Captain introducing the executive staff |
 |
| Adventure Guides introducing themselves |
After a lot of housekeeping information and safety information from the Captain and the Cruise Manager, we were invited back off the ship to attend an Oktoberfest in a tent on the pier. We were given a tall glass of beer and a large pretzel and we watched as the band played some traditional Bavarian music and also demonstrated some traditional Bavarian dance steps. The dancing was fun to watch - one of the band members dressed in traditional Bavarian leather pants tried to teach some kids to dance by alternating between slapping his thighs and feet with a loud snap.
We left the Oktoberfest just after 7 pm - it was getting quite warm in the tent. We went back to the stateroom so Seth could change from shorts to pants for dinner and then met Lisa and Tim down in the dining room at 7:30 pm. They both spoke with the Maitre d' (Tomi) to discuss their nut allergies and we were pleased to see how seriously they took their allergies. Tomi seated us and personally saw to it that they were taken care of carefully. This was repeated over and over again each day - Tomi was personally making sure that they were able to enjoy their nut free meals. We had a california roll as an amuse bouche. I had the crab cake and risotto both of which were quite good. I enjoyed their free wine during dinner having a Riesling which was generously poured and refilled a couple of times. We thoroughly enjoyed dinner. The cherries jubilee for dessert was great.
 |
| amuse bouche |
 |
| crab cake |
 |
| risotto |
At this point, we pretty much went back to the stateroom and passed out. A great plus about the staterooms - each one is controllable with its own thermostat and we had immediately turned ours down as we prefer a cooler bedroom. Unlike the hotel rooms in Las Vegas which turned the AC off when there was no movement in the room (like when you're sleeping), the AC worked well and kept the room nice and cool. We were told that the only time the AC is turned off is when the door to the balcony was open. The AMA Viola wasn't set to sail until 4 am as we were only going to Passau which wasn't very far. There would be a trip through our first set of locks at 6 am.
Next post:
Day 2 - Vilshofen, Germany to Passau, Germany
No comments:
Post a Comment