Well, we did end up leaving to go on this trip today, although the uncertainty lingered even up until the time of the first flight.
We were still not sure if any border closures would happen today due to Covid, and there were some Covid situations at Stephanie’s work that added to the stress. I felt that we were not as prepared as we normally would be, and we also had to leave some purchases to the last minute to avoid any non-refundable charges if the trip was cancelled by Switzerland closing their borders to travelers from the US.
We did make a replacement reservation yesterday for our three night stay in Lucerne starting tomorrow night, our first night in Switzerland. Unfortunately, the new reservation was not at our original accommodation there, that apartment was already fully booked. Since we are in Lucerne through Sunday morning, the weekend travelers had already booked the best locations. We did find a similar apartment, not too far from the original location, but without any view of the Reuss River. However, it was the best property still available, and we needed a Swiss address to put on our Swiss Entry Form that we had to fill out online before our flight and upload to the United Airlines site.
We were disappointed in the change of accommodations, but we were still glad to have an apartment versus a hotel room to stay in that was still close to the main area of town and to the River and Lake.
Now more about today. Our flight departure was at 2:00 PM, so we had plenty of time to get a few things done this morning. We finalized our packing and closed up the suitcases, each weighing in around 42 pounds. Our goal had been 40 pounds, but these were the lightest weight suitcases we had ever taken on a long trip. We have access to washing machines at some of our accommodations, generally spread out every few days. That lessens the need to carry more clothes, we can just wash more often. However, it is forecast to be cooler up in the mountains, so cold weather clothes are required, and they are bulky and usually heavier.
We had not even started to pack until last night, we had selected some clothes to take, but had not coordinated all of them together (me). Once everything was selected, It only took us two attempts to get down to our final weight, and we did not really cull that many items, just a few. This was the latest we had ever waited to pack, and it was a little stressful. The stress was eased knowing we had an afternoon departure tomorrow, not one super early in the morning.
This morning was going well, we had everything accomplished except for pre-purchasing some Swiss Half Fare passes and train tickets that we would need soon after our arrival in Switzerland tomorrow morning. We planned to do these purchases online during our three hour layover in the Washington Dulles Airport.
As I mentioned previously, there had been some Covid issues at Stephanie’s work, and we were awaiting the test results of her PCR test that the entire staff takes on Mondays. The results were taking a little longer than normal to come in today, and by 10:30 AM, we still did not have the results. We just wanted to make sure she was clear before we left for an overseas trip. Stephanie went in this morning and took a last minute Rapid Test, which thankfully showed she was Negative. We would just have to wait on the PCR test result, hopefully it would arrive before our first flight departed.
We ate some lunch and then Mom arrived to provide our transportation to the airport. We left a few minutes past 12:00 noon and the drive to the airport was uneventful. We got dropped off and went inside to check in. The attendant had some difficulties getting everything to process through their computer system, but she finally succeeded and we headed to security. There were not many people in line, but it was terribly slow to get through the body scanner and carry-on x-ray inspection. We were not required to remove my laptop and place it in a separate bin, so some aspects of the security seemed quicker, but overall, it seemed to take forever for the security person to complete the x-ray reviews.
Waiting to Board in Columbia
Once through security, we headed to the gate. We had a little over an hour to wait to board our flight. Everything proceeded smoothly, and we waited to board with Group #2. We still had not heard about Stephanie’s Covid test, but finally an answer was in via text, “Positive”. We were floored, but then we found out from another text that came in a coupe of minutes later that the first Positive result was a joke, and she was really Negative….bastards!
We proceeded to board and headed to our seats in row 2 on a regional jet. When we made our reservations, we had been the first people to have seat assignments on that flight, but of course, someone was sitting in our row, he had been “moved” at the gate to our row. We were not sure how that happened since we already had our boarding passes for that row. The flight attendant got him moved to the other side, same row and we were finally in our seats.
Then, what looked like an off duty pilot reported that a window or exit door was leaking rain water excessively on a exit row over the wing. There was a heavy rainstorm outside, and our pilot made the recommendation that it was too severe to fly with the leak after inspecting it. He indicated they were going to need to call maintenance for a repair. Now everyone had to de-plane while the window was repaired, and no one knew the time frame for the repair. We had a decent layover in Washington, but now it was getting shorter.
We inquired about alternate connections if this flight was delayed and we missed our Washington connection to Zurich. The agent at the gate said that there were no good options to get us to Zurich before 5:30 PM tomorrow afternoon according the information she was able to pull up on her screen. We just hoped for the best and waited.
Thankfully, the repair was done quickly and we re-boarded for a 3:00 PM departure, just an hour late. We still had plenty of time to make our 5:50 PM connection in Washington. When we got to our seats, there were some changes to who was now sitting behind us. The person who was seated by herself in that row was moved, and now it was a couple travelling with a child about two years old. They were already being loud and then the flight attendant gave the child some type of tablet with songs on it. We heard “Old McDonald” about 20 times before we even left the gate.
Of course, everyone on the plane was wearing a mask except the child, and then she sneezed right behind me. Really, we were already having this much “luck” on our first flight and the trip had not really even started yet!
Flight to Washington Dulles Airport
Everything calmed down during the fairly smooth flight, and we ended up only being about 45 minutes late arriving. Unfortunately, Washington Dulles is not an easy or quick airport to navigate through, it took us almost 25 minutes to get to our next gate. The terminals were quite narrow, and although everyone was wearing masks, there was not enough room to do any type of social distancing at the gate, and all of the gates around us were full of people.
I was trying to finally purchase our Swiss Half Fare Train passes in the airport using the free Wi-Fi when an announcement was made that everyone needed to have a special “clearance” stamp on their boarding passes, or the pass had to state “Pre-approved by United” on it. Ours had neither even though we thought we had successfully uploaded all of the information to the United site last night, and had received several text messages confirming that everything was approved. Stephanie waited in line while I finally got the passes purchased on the Swiss Train website. I headed over to the line to wait with her, and once at the counter, they inspected our documentation and we found out that mine was done correctly, but there had been a glitch with Stephanie’s for some reason. We had to show her printed copy of the Swiss Entry Form QCR Code. Once that was completed, it was time to board, and we got in line for Group 2. It was a little chaotic, and for some reason they had to take everyone’s picture before boarding. It was a little slow, but it kept long lines from forming in the gangway right at the airplane door.
Roomier Seats in Premium Pluss
We got to our seats in Premium Plus, and were glad for all of the extra room. Business Class looked completely full, but our section was only about half-full. It looked quite crowded in the Economy section behind us.
The Premium Plus seats were nice, they were much more roomier and had lower leg supports and reclined farther back than normal seats. We did not know headphones were included, and they were supposedly noise cancelling, but we had brought our nice Bose Noise Cancelling headsets with us. There was a bathroom right at the bulkhead one row of seats in front of us. It was really nice inside and had lotions and a few other perks. We utilized that before the flight departed the terminal.
Dinner is Served
Our flight left on time. However, we were not given all of the extra perks we though came with the Premium Plus class of seats we had purchased. One item we found out about during our dinner beverage service was that free liquor was not being offered. There was no liquor being served anywhere on United Airline flights except for first/business class. But, there was “complimentary” wine and beer for the other classes.
The flight attendant told us that the liquor ban was due to the number of intoxicated unruly passengers that had been on many of the recent flights. There were a lot of passengers that were complaining about wearing masks on the flights, and the liquor contributed to their bad behavior. Punish the many for the sins of the few, seems like that is always the case.
A short time later, they served dinner, and our dinner was probably a cross between business class and economy. We had real stainless utensils, no plastic, and we had cloth napkins. We thought the portions were larger than those being served behind us in economy. True to their word, we received free red wine for dinner and a few more afterward.
We both watched movies and then we thought we needed to try and get some sleep. The flight duration was just over 7 hours, so there was not a lot of time to eat dinner, relax, sleep and then get up for breakfast about 90 minutes before we landed. Although the seats were far better than economy, neither of us slept that well, we just were not that tired at the equivalent time of 9:30 PM EST.
Right on time, 90 minutes before our scheduled arrival, they turned on the lights for breakfast. We had barely gotten the blanket and pillow put away before they came through serving breakfast, which was a hot breakfast sandwich. For beverages, I had coffee and Stephanie had a diet coke.
Once breakfast was completed, we started to put a few things away, and get ready for our landing in Zurich. We had brought some small disposable toothbrushes, but we never got a chance to use them. The Captain made an announcement that he was expecting some turbulence as we approached Zurich, so he had the flight attendants cut short the breakfast service, and turn on the seat belt sign. Luckily, the cancelled breakfast service only affected the slower breakfast being served in Business Class, ha, ha. Apparently, they were being served a more “made to order” breakfast that took longer to serve.
Before we landed, I was able to replace our cell phone SIM cards with the Orange Zen Holiday SIM Cards we had purchased on Amazon. They came highly recommended at several online sites, but only worked once we were on a European Cell Network, so we could not try them out before we left home. We will see. They last 14 days and provide a lot of data service(12 Gb) and we can make 100 minutes of calls to the USA, plus free SMS texts. We will have French Cell Phone numbers since these SIM cards are from a French company. We plan on topping them off with additional time once the initial 14 days are expired. It is about the same price as getting separate SIM cards in Austria, which is where we will be located when these initially run out. Topping these off eliminates the time and hassle to try and purchase Austrian SIM cards at a local store, so it should be easier.
Our Plane At The Gate in Zurich
With everything packed back up, we descended into the Zurich Airport for landing. It had been quite cloudy just outside Zurich, but by the time we landed, it was sunny there, and there had not been any turbulence issues. We deplaned and started what ended up being quite a long walk and an underground train ride to baggage claim.
First order of business was immigration. Between the well manned booths and electronic passport control stations designated for EU Passport holders, which eliminated them from being in our lines for US Passport clearance, we were through that process in just a few minutes. Then we walked by an area where you stopped to if you had any items to claim for customs, which no one apparently had since that area was completely empty.
This was so much more pleasant than any Immigration and Customs Controls in the US, we are woefully behind in using advanced technology compared to most European countries.
This will conclude the Travel Day Post. The rest of today’s travel will be detailed in the “Arrival In Lucerne, Switzerland” post.