If you only see the outline below, we haven’t yet gotten to update it with what actually happened. Be sure to check back later!

Our day started very early: 2:30 am (8:30 pm on Sunday in the States). We had minimal luggage to wrangle downstairs after our showers and dressing, but what we did have was pretty fat since we would be transferring some of the stuff into the suitcases that Viking had taken and gotten organized last night.

They had some continental breakfast items in the ship’s living room, and before too long, we collected our organized luggage at the pier, and saw that it was loaded on the bus.

It was about a 30 minute drive to the airport, and probably a bit longer line than that to drop off our luggage (after rearranging it once again. ),

Then it was off to the security line. Who knew so many people would want to be flying out of Bergen at 3:30 in the morning? Though we did hear last night that about 180 passengers would be leaving the ship between 3 and 4 in the morning!

Security was a little bit of an issue. We had to pull out all of our electronics, and then both of us got flagged for additional security, which we passed. Alan’s carry-on bag was not as lucky. It was flagged to begin with because he had the bags of cords and adapters, which looked suspicious on the x-ray. That led to him opening the suitcase and then having to swab things inside. That swab didn’t pass the test when he put it into the machine, so he had to do it again, even a little more aggressively. He said that if it didn’t pass again, he would need to touch everything in the suitcase. He took his latest swab to a different machine, and this time it passed! Alan got all of his stuff put back and got dressed again, and we were on our way to the gate.

Of course, we had to walk through their duty-free shops, and then once at the gate, there were only a few chais, and the announcements were made very softly. Nonetheless we made it on the first plane, though since we were in the back of the plane, we had to go down some steps and then back up into the plane. The rest of the flight to Frankfort was pretty ordinary.

The Frankfort Airport was a little bit of a challenge. The directions to get to the Z gates led to a bank of elevators that were blocked off. The Viking agent at the gate directed us to go to the next bank of elevators to go up to Z, but we came to the ‘customs’ doors before we found them. We were then directed to go back to the pack of people at the customs station that we had passed. Before we got back to that point, we stopped at a kiosk to check our passports, pictures, and fingerprints. We still had to go to the long zigzagging line, but were able to bypass the machines in the line that were doing what we had just done. We didn’t keep track of the time in the customs line, but it was probably about 40 minutes. Our earlier work at the kiosk in the hall allowed us to just breeze through the actual check pretty quickly, and we were at the right gate with over an hour to spare.

Getting to Frankfurt was pretty ordinary, but then the fun began. When it was our turn to board, we were faced with a long line of stairs down to the outside. Once there we boarded a bus that we could have sworn drove long enough to drive to D C. When we did finally arrive, it was back up another set of steps to get into the plane. Once there, we were in row 51. The good news is that it was only the two of us for our set of 3 seats. The attendant told us when we were trying to stuff our carryons into the overhead compartment that there was no need as there were a lot of empty seats.

The flight to DC was about 8 1/2 hours but we both got a little sleep and there were only a couple of sections with much turbulence.

Then began the work at Dulles. After we got off the plane we made our way to customs. The wait was fairly typical and we didn’t have any issues getting back in. The next step was to collect our checked bags so we could walk them down the hall to recheck them. Then we went through security and Joyce got flagged for some reason.

I think we started the escalator parade at that point. We really lost track of all the times we went up and down, but it was a lot. Then we got on the train to take us to the A terminal. Alan still hasn’t told Joyce that the sign when we left security said it was about a 23-minute walk. Joyce might have decided to live with. The East coast at that point!

Our gate was at the end of the A concourse but we made it with about 40 minutes to spare. It turns out it was even more than enough time. We were at gate A2A and there was no information board T the gate and at least 4 other flights leaving from there at about the same time. Eventually, about 5 or 10 minutes after our departure time, we were called to board. The pilot made up some time getting to Indianapolis so we were only about 15 minutes late in landing. However, there was another plane in our assigned gate, so we were stuck in the tarmac for another 30 minutes or more.

• Favorite memories from the whole trip
• What we’d tell someone else planning this cruise