Katies do Euro Summer

[Katie]

Sometime way back when in 2023, I spotted an Instagram post by the Skein Sisters yarn store in Sydney (where I've never even walked through the door!) announcing a Rhine River knitting cruise in 2025.
I mentioned this to Mumma Katie (my mother) and she seemed unexcited by the prospect. Her favourite knitters Arne and Carlos weren't featured in this cruise and she was very much into their double-colour knitting during Covid.

At some point, tickets go on sale for the ~150-170 passengers on the cruise. It's so popular, the TA website promoting it went down. Over 1000 people were interested in the cruise, and my submission ended up being one of the lucky ones. I told Mumma Katie we were going on the Rhine cruise and she confessed she'd also tried to book it! Huzzah, Mumma Katie WAS interested in the cruise, even without Arne and Carlos.

Our knitting cruise departs AMS on 4 August and arrives in Basel on 10 Aug, with disembarkation on 11 Aug.

Mumma Katie had done some cruises before, there was one back in her Miss (almost but not-quite) Queensland days in the early 70s and some travel with her partner around 2018 or so. When we booked, I had not yet been on a cruise, well, if you don't count the overnight ferry between Oslo and Copenhagen.
The booking was made back in Sept 2023 and for quite some time was the only arrangement we made. Well, it was about the only arrangement we made until 2025 as I didn't have my act together to get rewards seats last Aug/Sept.

 

[Denali]

I swear I saw something about this about a week ago. Im not a knitter but I follow a group in the UK that make mail box toppers and spotted a few in May (I was very excited to find some) so maybe thats why I got the ad

Very exciting about you going on this and your trip report!

 

[Katie]

So, this is our cruise: Knit Retreat 2025

At the start of the year, we finally started knuckling down with arrangements. But first - Mr Katie's BFF threw a spanner in the works.
"Katie and Mumma Katie are on a cruise from Amsterdam to Basel in Euro Summer? Well, how about we re-do our Spring Classics rides from 2024 and hope the weather's better and we don't end up covered in mud and freezing from the dreary rain every day?!"
Mr Katie: "OK, sure"
The Teen: "Hang on, you're leaving me home alone with the dog for 2 weeks?"
...

Many discussions and the decision the Teen really can't stay home alone for that amount of time yet. Now the trip turns from Katie and Mumma Katie into the whole family going ... except for Q (the dog). He stays home.

Now we have:
Mumma Katie and the Teen flying together to LHR, spending time in London and then toodling off to Paris on the Eurostar. Now I'm not worried about Mumma Katie getting more time in Europe, just worrying about grandmother and granddaughter patience levels. They've negotiated some really interesting things to do together and have agreed on a number of activities.

 

[Katie]

Slight spanner add to the plans, but hoping some serendipity might come into it!

Mumma Katie came home yesterday to discover her bathroom vanity pipe/hose had exploded and her house was flooded.
After cleaning up what water she could with her neighbours, Mumma Katie stayed at our house last night.

Waiting for insurance assessors and advice in the coming days (initial assessment was done today), but she may have to pack up her whole house before going to Europe with the Teen in about two weeks.
Upside: Mumma Katie is away for four weeks, so repairers would have a clear time to do repairs, if that's possible to arrange at short notice.

 

[I love to travel]

What a fabulous experience and family bonding time. Riding along

 

[Katie]

Stage 1 of the trip has commenced!
Mumma Katie and the Teen departed and flew BNE-DOH-LHR, successfully navigating Doha airport for the first time together.
Teen was unimpressed with her GF meal on the first flight as it unfortunately contained a heaping pile of mushrooms. She opted for a non-GF meat pie (she's gluten-sensitive, not coeliac) with a glass of champers instead. Haven't heard much from Mumma Katie, but I guess she enjoyed the flights.

On arrival into LHR (~6:30 am), it seems they had to wait almost an hour for luggage; I was asked to check the AirTag locations as the Teen wasn't able to see them in her FindMy app. The bags were definitely at the airport, luckily not left behind in Doha.

They caught the underground to near their hotel, and I assume deposited their bags successfully. Mumma Katie had emailed the hotel asking if they could leave their luggage there, to which the hotel responded a resounding No. I told her I'd never heard of such an issue with a hotel and being too early to check in, and they should just give it a burl.
Next I knew, thanks again to Apple's FindMy app, they were on the HOHO bus and toodling around town. Based on limited photographic evidence and credit card purchases I can see online, I know they ate at Macca's and went by the Sherlock Holmes museum.

Some surprising news just before they left - I got a call from the Teen's university. They have my phone number somehow and not hers. We can't find any way to change it in their system. Anyway, she's at risk of failing a subject from this past semester, unless she sits an exam at 9am AEST one day later this week ... if she doesn't give the exam a try, she will fail the subject.

Fingers crossed she will wake up to an alarm to sit an exam at midnight BST! The exam is only being offered once. This will be after a big day starting with a tour of the Globe at 10am and a Jack the Ripper walking tour in the evening ...

In the meantime, on the Katie home front, Mr Katie is still sorting out his week of cycling and contemplating options for dropping off their hire car. Dropping it off in Zurich seems to come with a ridiculous cost, well beyond a one-way charge we've had before.
Arrangements have been made for our furry fiend to be looked after, and there's some tidying around the house I need to do for the houseguests who'll arrive about 9 days before I get home. PHEW.

 

[Katie]

Cruise updates
There must be some water issues in the Rhine, as our cruise is now finishing in Breisach instead of Basel. The cruise line will get us into Basel on disembarkation day (Mumma Katie and I were arranging our own transfers/what we were doing after disembarking).

The TA organising the cruise has established a WhatsApp community, which cruisers may elect to join. There's around 140 cruisers, 1/4 of which are Aussies. The group chat is going off!

I was not the person to mention I'd be leaving Aus via the QF SYD Flounge , what a flex (hey, good on you if you happen to be reading this).
Lots of Americans and Canadians on the trip, some non-knitting partners.

 

[Katie]

Thanks to renos at BNE, this was the best departure pic I got of the Teen and Mumma Katie.

 

[Katie]

The Teen and Mumma Katie have completed their time in London and are now in their next city.
Some London notes:

On arrival, their luggage took almost an hour to arrive at the carousel. The Teen was messaging me to use the Apple Find My app to check they were in London and not in DOH still.
They stayed at the Hilton Kensington Olympia, as Mumma Katie had stayed there ~7 or so years ago and was familiar with the location. Twin bed room, the air con worked well (essential during their stay), though they were flummoxed by the shower on the first night and resorted to bird baths. There were two controls for water, one of which in the middle of the wall (a great, big knob) was not working. Only the lower taps into the tub of the shub worked. I guess they didn't call someone to ask for help/advice when they were trying to shower.

They were able to drop their luggage at the hotel before checking in, despite what the hotel had emailed to Mumma Katie. They were on the HOHO bus quite quickly after getting the tube to the hotel.
HOHO bus was a bit eventful - no stops for 2 or 3 hours?? as they told me, so they missed their lunch plans. Not a reservation, just the gurgling of tummies. Unsurprisingly to me, they said London traffic was awful.
The HOHO bus helped the Teen tick off a few items that she just wanted to see - 221B Baker St, etc.

They caught up with two of my cousins, one on one night when they met for a pub dinner, but all the pubs were full of after-work drinkers (not on a Friday night even) and the other cousin joined them visiting the Tower of London.

On their last day, they split up for a bit as they each wanted to different things. The Teen's involved comic book stores, and I've no idea what Mumma Katie was up to.

Mumma Katie had issues getting her Simcorner physical sim to work, I think it's up and running now. She was telling me that it worked OK when she went to a restaurant/location and logged in ... so slightly confused with the difference between 4G data and wifi connections.

On the home front:
We're starting to pack, I've asked some of the American cruisers to bring GF Oreos to swap for Tim Tams, and preparing the dog for his care while we're away. Mr Katie also cooked up a storm on the weekend, making bolognaise and a tuna bake, so the Teen won't have to live on Uber Eats before we get home. Oh AND meals for the dog while he's at the dog sitter. Still to do: meals for the dog for when he comes home before us.
I've figured out what knitting projects I'm travelling with.
I'm fighting a cold.

Oh, and it's our wedding anniversary. Yay! Except I have a cold, so not expecting much romance otherwise Mr Katie will start getting sick while we're travelling. :/

Mumma Katie has lost her credit card.
Thank jeebers we got the Teen a card for her expenses (the kind we'd normally pay for - food, transport tickets, etc). Mumma apparently wants to TF some cash to me so I can bring over some Euros, but I'll just use the ATM when we get there.

 

[Katie]

Alrighty, we’re now half way through the Katie and Mr Katie portion of the trip, so time to start updating this thread.

The Teen and Mumma Katie - Paris edition.
They caught the Eurostar on a Sunday afternoon, and made their way to Hotel Meslay Republique, which Mumma Katie chose without any help from me. No issues with their accommodation in general, though on checking out, they discovered the rate Mumma Katie booked didn’t include brekky, so they had to pay for that. A slight issue with Mumma Katie being without her single credit card, thank goodness we organised one for the Teen.

Highlights of their time in Paris - an early morning private tour of the Louvre, which meant they were practically alone viewing Mona Lisa for a good 10+ minutes. Mumma Katie decided to splurge in case this is her last/only time in Paris. The Teen also talked Mumma Katie into spending a day at Disneyland Paris. The Teen loved it; Mumma Katie found it exhausting.
Random aside: they discovered there are no period products available for purchase in the park itself. Only at the hotels. <mind blown emoji>

The Teen was also very upset as she planned to buy me a birthday present there, and they didn’t have that item. I’d bought an AtAt Pandora charm at Disneyworld last year, and I think I threw the box out, confusing it for an empty one. SMH. She hoped to replace it, but they didn’t have any Star Wars charms and she was devastated she couldn’t replace it. We had a talk while Mr Katie were in the SIN QF FLounge and like a good Mumma bear, I was able to calm her down.

The last day was relatively quiet, with heading to CDG for an AF flight to BER around lunchtime. Except the ticket seller at Republique sold them tickets that weren’t valid for the airport and they were each charged a EUR 35 fine.

We met them in Berlin on Friday afternoon, 25 July.

 

[Katie]

Over to the Mr Katie and Katie week in the lead up to departure.
Weekend prior - spent tidying, washing sheets, preparing spare bedroom for our lesbian invaders, and making meals for the dog and the Teen when she returns, as well as GF and onion free for our first lesbian invader (aka dear friend who arrives to stay at our place a week before we even leave Europe).

Monday night - out for a function that’s really aimed at people with more disposable cash than us, asking us to give donations to a particular cultural cause. Mr Katie said “let’s go” when we got the invitation and I didn’t talk him out of it. Bonus - heard Kate Miller-Heidke sing her Eurovision song in person. I am already sick with a cold.
Tuesday - woo hoo, we made it to 25 years married, and this year no jokes about getting less for murder. We have a lovely dinner out at Donna Chang, though I feel like death warmed and had forgotten to bring any tissues with me. Thank all that is holy I married a former scout who always carries tissues. Usually I curse them when they’re still in his pockets on washing day … but this time, I was grateful.
Oh, and we take the dog to the dog sitter before we go out for dinner.
Wednesday - a local pizza place was in some kind of Australian pizza competition and had a 6 course pizza degusation dinner, with matching wines, which we signed up for because, well, why not, the night before a 6am flight to Sydney and 34 hours of travel to Berlin.
Our optimism is strong, as is our delusion.
Dinner started at 7, and I left shorting after 9 and the first 2 or 3 courses as I was overstimulated with the noise in the restaurant and thinking about tasks to do - finish packing, make dog food, etc. I think Mr Katie may have still needed to dismantle his bike and pack it! He came home around 11pm, before dessert, and without our brolly.

I made it to bed around 12:30am and had the alarm set for 3:40am or something unholy like that hour of morning (barely suitable for breastfeeding mothers and their infants!) as we had a car picking us up at 4:30am. Mr Katie gets to bed some time after me.

This is how much sleep my FitBit calculates I got - happy to be heading into J seats for our long flights!

 

[Katie]

Thursday 24 July, we start our 35 hour journey to Berlin, our meeting point with Mumma Katie and the Teen.
We’re flying AY and QF, BNE-SYD-SIN(QF291, AY operated)-HEL-BER.
In the checkin queue, I decide to photograph all of our bags. This was a GOOD IDEA. Stay tuned to find out why!

We have all kinds of troubles at checkin in Brisbane. Good thing we don’t need to get into the lounge to eat or anything. Our problem - in QF MMB, I added a bicycle to our luggage, as we know there can be issues travelling with sports equipment without declaring it. Well, AY was saying we owed money for the bicycle, even though we were under our allowance, weight-wise, but the bicycle bags are typically oversize with AY due to their dimensions.

Anyway, eventually the checkin agent can only give me the BPs for BNE-SYD-SIN and nothing further, but Mr Katie gets all his BPs. All of the luggage (4 bags, including the bike) is checked in under his name.
By the time we get through security and upstairs, we had maybe 5 mins in the lounge before boarding for QF501 was called.
We didn’t bother eating on the flight, as a FLounge brekky sounded much better.






Fog in the hollows somewhere in NSW



Oh hai Sydney.

We scurry over to the transfer gate, Mr Katie goes to the loo and of course that means the transfer bus opens for passengers the moment I get there. I decide to be kind and wait for him to get back.

Uneventful security and passport control, although the layout seemed to have changed slightly since I went through in May, as we went through passport control first and then security.

Soon we were saying Hi to Nestor and ordering brekky. We got a table by the window, where I remembered that early in the morning the sun glares in and you don’t want to be looking directly at the tarmac and airfield. I’m sure my rosacea spiked during that breakfast.

I had the classic Eggs Benny with Lallier to clear up my cold.



I tried to get my SIN-HEL-BER BPs printed in the FLounge, but they couldn’t do anything and told me to check at the transfer desk in SIN. After a while I decided to call AY, I end up talking to someone in Helsinki I think and he was able to sort out the situation. Apparenlty when the bicycle was passed from QF MMB into the AY system, it was flagged as some other kind of luggage that came with a charge, but that was the wrong code for AY. So that’s why systems were showing we needed to make an extra payment, but weren’t showing what that payment was.
I was able to go to the FLounge front desk and they were able to issue my remaining BPs. Phew.

We go to the gate for QF291 and it’s a dreaded bus gate. The poor toddler on our bus was not happy, nor were most of the adults who wanted to cry but the world’s told them to suck it up.