Just a Quickie...

Overheard in the St. Louis airport...

Dad to young son: "Look at all those airplanes! They go all over the place!"

Son to dad: "Oh...I thought they all went up."

I know I said my next post would be from the Viking Venus, but we have a few hours in Atlanta between hops and I thought I'd share some thoughts about how to make the flight portion of a cruise vacation less stressful.

All Righteousness Fulfilled: For most folks, this means having the right ID. I choose to think of myself as "special," because a passport and CDC card is not enough for me.  After being held up by Delta agents in NYC for a couple of hours in 2019 over whether I was allowed to bring my POC's onboard, the DH went on offense. He meticulously contacted Delta, OxygenToGo and KLM (the carrier we're using for the last leg to Bergen) and got emails documenting that he'd jumped through all the hoops. Once he presented the printouts of said emails, our check-in went swimmingly. So if you represent anything out of the ordinary, do the agents a favor and make sure you've done your homework. They want to get you checked in as badly as you want to be checked in, but if you don't have the right stuff in the computer or can show that you do, their hands are tied. 

TSA Pre-Check: For most people this is very good value for money. The DH and I paid for the "Known Traveler" designation and for the most part it's great. We get to use the shorter line for our TSA scan. We don't have to remove our computers or liquids from our luggage. The DH didn't even have to take off his shoes.

But because of Herkimer and Percival, my Portable Oxygen Concentrators, I received a very thorough pat down (as in only my DH touches me in some of those places). It's embarrassing but evidently necessary, if I want to remain attached to my source of supplemental O2 and keep these sensitive pieces of equipment from being x-rayed. I don't know if it would damage them, but I can't take the chance. I had to remove both my sweater and my shoes. And both Herkimer and Percival were subjected to a swab test. (I'm happy to report neither of them had been up to anything nefarious!)

I went into this screening with a much better attitude than in the past, so I didn't let it get to me. I knew what to expect, and if it feels degrading to me, imagine how it must be for the poor TSA agent who had to screen me so intimately.

Expect Surprises: In my case, it was a happy surprise. I'm accustomed to using Herkimer, my bigger POC for flights, but this time since our trip to Atlanta was only a little over an hour, I thought I'd give my purse-sized unit a try. Hurrah for Percival! Not only did he give me enough O2 to maintain healthy stats, I only had to have him on the 2 setting instead of the 3 or 4 I usually have to set Herkimer at. This means he can deliver O2 for over 9 hours. I'm topping off his charge and plan to use Percy on our overnight leg to Amsterdam, which we'll board in about 3 hours. 

Download the Airline's App Before You Fly: This is the first time the DH has done this and we were delighted to be able to see that our bag was loaded onto the same plane we were in St Louis! Now it's told him our checked bag is off the plane from STL and waiting to be loaded onto the one we'll board to Amsterdam. It'll ease my mind if once we're on, we can see on the app that our bag is too!

Thanks to our friend Dave (of Dave and Kristy fame, our World Cruising buddies!) who texted the DH this shot of the Viking Venus. It's already in the Bergen harbor waiting for us. And since all the Viking ships follow the same lovely deck plan, we expect to feel right at home!

More soon...