Lyon River Cruise: Travel & Pre-Cruise Days

Tuesday, May 20-Wednesday, May 21: ORD > FRA > LYS

We worked most of the day on Tuesday before our early evening flight to Frankfurt for the first leg of our trip and made sure to get to O’Hare in time to enjoy the newly renovated Polaris Lounge. It didn’t really look that different! But we did enjoy the new speakeasy style bar in the middle of the space. I had been able to pre-order the salmon option for dinner during the flight, so I was pretty satisfied with the food offerings that we received in our Polaris pods. I watched a couple of really great international films (I’m Still Here in Portugese and Lo Que Quisimos Ser in Spanish) before catching a few hours of sleep.

The flight wasn’t even that long, just a bit shy of eight hours, so there was no need for me to take advantage of breakfast on board. Unfortunately, we had been delayed by over an hour on departure, so we didn’t have time to pop into the lounge in Frankfurt when we arrived on Wednesday morning. Our connecting flight was less than two hours, and we arrived in Lyon on time in the early afternoon. We caught a taxi to the Hotel Alexandra near the Perrache Train Station in the Presqu’île area of Lyon and were able to check into our room as soon as we arrived. The benefits of a slightly later arrival time and a generous 2pm check-in time! 

Mr. E and I did some minimal organizing in our two-room suite and then settled into separate beds for some nap time. He snoozed for a couple of hours, while I did my Zumba and yoga workouts in the other room. His mom, aunt, uncle, and cousin were all on their way via train from Paris to Lyon during this time, so we also monitored texts from them to make sure we could meet up when they got to the hotel. Unfortunately, his uncle had a fall when getting on the train and had hurt his arm, so one of their first priorities was to find a pharmacy to pick up some first aid supplies.

Mr. E and I headed off to find some dinner, as we were both pretty hungry by this point given the time difference. I opted for an awesome DIY salad spot since I was craving veges and some sort of protein other than salmon (I had had salmon for breakfast before we left and then salmon appetizer and entrée on the flight to Frankfurt!). Eventually his family met up with us to gather at a local restaurant just across the street from my salad spot. I joined them for some wine and frites and then headed back to the hotel to get to bed at a reasonable time and catch up on some sleep.