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  1. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Viking cruises - excursions Although I touched on these earlier, some more info might be of interest. The buses used were touring coaches with decent seats and seatbelts that were mandatory to use in Netherlands, Germany and Austria. One interesting issue we found was the bus would not leave...
  2. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Viking cruise - Desserts! These did deserve their own category. Not only were 2 desserts offered, there was ice cream, sorbet and cheese plates on offer. Purely for research purposes we did go through the dessert menu quite diligently and weren't disappointed most nights. These was a good...
  3. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Viking cruise - dinners So to the main course, as it were. Dinners were offered at 7.15pm both on the Aquivit Terrace and in the restaurant (rather than the 'dining room' as I've described it) and were all table service. As mentioned the tables were all set for groups of 6, 8 or 12 and most of...
  4. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Viking cruise meals - lunch Each day, as noted, we had lunch on the boat. This was always around the noon to 1pm start time and the excursions were arranged around lunch. For me, I found this great as you knew what sort of meal you'd get and there was no worry about how big, how unhealthy or...
  5. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Viking cruise meals - Breakfasts Each morning breakfast was available, either on the front Aquivit terrace or in the main dining room. It started at 7am and finished at 9.30am(?). Most excursions were gone by 9am so there was no real leisurely breakfasts to be had, which is unfortunate as I like...
  6. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Damn straight. My wife wants to see *everything* and I am more worn out when I finish a holiday and this report was more tiring than I expected.
  7. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    23 days of cruising condensed into one post I'll sum up the cruise as much as I can, rather than describing each day. I'll post the meals and drinks in separate posts too. The Viking cruise we did was the European Sojurn, which was 23 days from Amsterdam to Bucharest. We elected a Category D...
  8. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Amsterdam Day 4 - Embarkation day The Viking cruise we did was the European Sojurn, which was 23 days from Amsterdam to Bucharest. We elected a Category D French balcony cabin which was on the main deck along with the restaurant. The booking and interim contacts was fine. About 90 days before...
  9. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Amsterdam - Day 3 After breakfast we again rode the (correct) train into the City. The metro train is slower than the Sprinter but the Sprinter is dearer. It's about a 20 minute trip on the slow train. We did find a church in a house which was original from many hundreds of years ago when...
  10. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    4 days in Amsterdam - Day 1 & 2. From the airport it was a fairly simple trip on the Sprinter train to Sloterdijk, where we had booked the XO Hotels Park West joint. We booked it direct and chose it as it was the best compromise between the City expense and transport links that fit our needs...
  11. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Well, there's not much I can do. I'm annoyed that they elected to not send the bags on the next flight to my destination and make things better for us, but that's just large corporations who cannot react quickly to issues. The insurance is what I expect from insurance - all promises and gloss...
  12. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Amsterdam arrival and the missing luggage. Being eternal optimists, we waited at the baggage carousel in Amsterdam for our bags to arrive. Sadly, they didn't so off we went to the luggage query place in the arrivals hall. My recollection is a bit vague (this was a month ago) but we did receive...
  13. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    AY1301 HEL-AMS What I really like about Europe is the way they board planes. Serious stuff, they have barriers with gates that stop unauthorised boarding. And so it was for our A350 flight to Amsterdam. Group 1 were called and a few of us stepped forward. In front of us was Dad, Mum and the...
  14. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Helsinki arrival, transit and Schengen lounge. We arrived a bit earlier than planned but not by much. Disembarkation was easy, we found the lines to the transit gates and then it all fell apart. I somehow misplaced by onward boarding pass so there was a frantic bag reshuffle in the midst of it...
  15. smckay

    Qantas Business Class meals & menus

    Well they got me good then. I thought the roughness was pure alcohol and therefore good. I'll stick to Bourbon.
  16. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    AY62 - awake at stupid o'clock, snack and a wander Not being a frequent flyer enough to get used to sleeping on planes, I was awake at stoopid o'clock. My wife had beaten me to it and already had a tea and a bun to hand. Being the curious person I had a look around this plane. First stop -...
  17. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    AY62 - HND-HEL But we also queried what was happening with our bags. The gate staff apparently said they would be on the next AY flight, but that was a day ahead as they don't fly each day. I was pretty shattered by this time - early start, Sake and all - so didn't quite pick up on it. So, we...
  18. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    QF59 - Sydney to Haneda. 2K, 3K Boarding was as expected on an A330 - straight to our seats, stuff taken from carry on, settled in and pre departure drinks served. I can't remember the CSM greeting but he did acknowledge my very valued status and thanked me for flying. Sparkling and coloured...
  19. smckay

    Sydney to Amsterdam the long way - QF & AY in J and a river cruise

    Posting this retrospectively, as we started on May 3 2024. We booked a Viking River cruise leaving from Amsterdam so the next step was to book rewards flights. As a QF WP should be simples, log in, grab some primo seats and forget about it. No, what ensued was 6 months of research, changes...
  20. smckay

    The view or two from my "office"

    QF12 over Fiji
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