Scottish Isles & Norwegian Fjords: June 5

June 5: Copenhagen (briefly), Amsterdam, Boston

We had to have our bags ready outside our room no later than 6:30am, so I got up early for some final packing and a brief Pilates & yoga workout in the cabin before going to our final onboard breakfast.

Mom and I had managed to sort out all of our Euro cash the day before so that we could distribute appropriate gratuities to several of the staff who had been particularly attentive: Husni, our cabin steward; Yana, the maître d’ in La Boussole; Avish, a waiter in La Boussole who called us “Jodi and Mum;” Ghyslain, the maître d’ in La Licorne; and Raphael, the sommelier who had led the wine-tasting. We also left a lump sum of gratuities to be equally divided among the entire 140-person crew, as that is the standard process onboard (reminds me of how tips were shared when I was a barista at Starbucks many years ago).

Since Le Boréal is a small ship, we could dock right near downtown Copenhagen, which was a lovely area and near the site of the famous mermaid statue, which was quite a bit smaller than we had expected.

We reclaimed our passports at the Reception Desk and disembarked at 8am.

All of our bags were waiting out on the pier, so we confirmed our luggage and then climbed aboard the coach to the airport. We had a brief but lovely tour of downtown Copenhagen, and this is now definitely a place to put higher on the priority list for a visit with Mr. E.

The Copenhagen airport contained some surprising sites, including a big blue Lego elephant and a sports bar with an affinity for Boston teams!

Our flights back to the U.S. were on time and uneventful. Mom had requested wheelchair assistance for the entire trip, which meant that we were on the express path through most of the journey, especially when dealing with customs and immigration. The Amsterdam airport has a particularly well-organized fleet of little 6-passenger jitneys to take folks around the enormous facility, and we were very impressed with how efficient the process was – much better than here in the States with Delta.

All in all, it was a great trip, although I’m still feeling some of the effects of being in constant motion, as even on dry land it seems as though we’re still rocking a bit!