Day 0 - Saturday, April 29, 2017 - Departure

Last year, our friends Betty and Dave Noone invited us to join them on a river cruise through Provence but Carmen was needed to take care of her mother's final days in hospice. David and our daughter Amelia went on the cruise instead and had a wonderful time.

Around the same time, our friend and travel agent, Ginny Barthel, announced a trip to Budapest and cruise up the Danube to Vienna and Nurenberg. As a surprise anniversary present I signed us up. So this morning we are on our way.

The route of our cruise is shown on the map below:

Our friend Brian picked us up and brought us to the office of Booked by Barthel to get our limo to Newark airport.


The limo was quite luxurious for the 14 of us going on the trip, a "party" limo with lights on the ceiling, controls for disco music and padded bench seats all around the inside. We made it down to Newark in just under two hours, faster than usual when we drive - it was certainly nice having someone else drive and not having to worry about parking.

There was a huge line waiting to check into the Delta flight to Amsterdam but we eventually made it through check-in without any problem. We had dinner in the terminal as we hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast.

We left a little after 6pm, about half an hour late, with the assurance that we would still arrive on time - I think the scheduled times are "padded" to avoid getting in "late". I had upgraded to Comfort+ and we had bulkhead seats with lots of legroom which made traveling more comfortable.

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