Ashes to ashes...

The news of the day is the volcanic eruption on Iceland. We heard about it the day we landed in Amsterdam and really didn’t pay much attention. The next day we heard that Britian’s airports had been closed, no flights in or out. Apparently planes can’t fly through the stuff.

Yesterday when we boarded the Viking Pride we discovered many what our Captain called the “oldies” the tour group from the prior cruise still stuck and sitting around in the lounge.

Poor people, Amsterdam closed its airport too and they were stranded. Many of them had gotten up when the airport opened to try to get a flight out - no luck! Finally about 4 pm they were informed by the Captain and the cruise director that Viking was putting them up on board the ship tonight - to a round of applause.

The problem of getting out of Amsterdam also worked in their favor as the next tour group couldn’t fly IN to Amsterdam. Of the 144 expected passengers to embark on the ship yesterday only about 60 actually checked in! So they had empty cabins to put these people into.

Of course travelers thousands of other travelers are experiencing this problem. Hope for favorable winds!