I’ve got a decision to make: how to get home from Europe. I am wavering between two choices, but there are actually at least four. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts, preferences, and suggestions.
Option One – via Greenland and Iceland
This has always been my first choice, but the logistics have proved quite difficult. We’re in Germany and getting to Copenhagen to make the flight Air Greenland flight to Kangerlussuaq is easy enough.
That’s an expensive 4.5hr flight, but I was prepared to buy two business class tickets so that my wife and son could be comfortable and I would have a new A330 business class product to review.
But I noticed an aggravating policy, perhaps to discourage crying infants in the comfort of business class: infant tickets are only available in economy class. So to give you an idea, Augustine’s ticket in economy class would be about $50 and his ticket in business class would be $850.
That’s a lot to stomach. We could fly economy class…or one of us (ahem) could fly business class…for work of course. But it’s not just that flight. Amazingly, the shorter flight from Greenland to Iceland is almost as much as the Copenhagen to Greenland ticket!
And then there’s the WOW! ticket from Reykjavik to Los Angeles…9hrs in a sardine can for $400 each.
But, we’ve had a beautiful week in Greenland and another driving around Iceland. It’s also a place my wife would really like to visit.
What about an alternate route home? Canada is closer to Greenland than Iceland is. Are there any flights? There used to be, but not anymore. Perhaps a cruise? As a matter of fact there is a perfect Princess Cruise that would pick is up in Greenland take us to New York. Problem: sold out and $5,000 each for the lowest category room if there was space. Then a six-hour flight from New York to LA in coach or another 50K+ miles? No thanks.
Option Two – via Scotland and Ireland
Perhaps the only other place my wife wishes to visit more than Icleand is Scotland. We would fly non-stop to Edinburgh, spend a week driving through Scotland, then continue to Ireland.
In Ireland, we’d travel to the west and drive along the beautiful coast, checking out sites like the Cliffs of Moher.
Then – if all goes according to plan – we’d travel from Dublin to LA nonstop on Ethiopian Airlines. Problem: no award space for the second ticket. While paid fares are not horrible, I’m not dropping $1400 on a one-way ticket when they sell a r/t business class ticket for less than $800 from Bangkok to Toronto…
Option Three – Faroe Islands
Another mystic land of natural beauty, I’ve had my eyes on a trip to the Faroe Islands for many years. This would be an easier trip because we could travel on SAS using miles.
If I had the time, we could star with the Faroe Islands, then travel directly to Greenland…
Option Four – Skip it and Go Home
I really hate to speculate about this option, but my son is teething once again which means for the last few days he has whined endlessly between meals and sleep.
Truth be told, going to any of the places above would be just a little bit miserable with him even on a good day. He did very well on our Greece trip earlier this year, but that trip was not geared around nature. I suspect taking him on a strenuous hike in Greenland or Scotland would be very difficult.
You know me by now: I’m the guy who will take four connections over one when traveling alone because I love flying for the sake of flying. But now that I’m the father of a toddler, I cannot underscore how essential it was to fly non-stop on the way out (despite the mixed review of SWISS Business Class).
Wherever we end up, I want to fly nonstop home. No domestic connections.
CONCLUSION
Four choices and only one can win. What do you think?
Iceland and Ireland were/are nice, but maybe Greenland and/or Faroe Islands, both which I hope to visit someday, are routes and trips awaiting a review posted by you. In your shoes I’d get input which can help make the right decision for all family members.
I vote for Option 3 – assuming you go from Faroe Islands to Greenland and skip Iceland. Iceland you can do any time, and is worth it’s own trip. As far as the baby goes, my experience is that they go in hibernation mode if it’s sufficiently cold outside. So maybe you’ll luck out on the hikes!
Greenland for sure. You know steam is going to shoot out of Lucky’s ears if you scoop him on posting a review before he has a chance.
If it’s teething from his molars coming in, beware that it might lead to intermittent sleep issues at night. It doesn’t happen every night with Ashok, but he’ll intermittently get up crying from tooth pain at 10 pm, which then causes him to be wide awake until 2. That would suck if it happens while you’re on vacation…
Anyway, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of those options, but I’d vote for Greenland. Just find some trails where you can push a stroller and he’ll probably sleep most of the time – or be so fascinated by the colors and animals that he’ll forget about his teeth hurting.
Suck it up and fly coach in option 3.2.
I’d like to see some more attainable product reviews then the bi-weekly “once in a lifetime splurge’ trips.
Any suggestions?
But what is valuable about a coach review, in all honesty? They served us a meal, we watched a movie, the end…
Sadly none – never been to either place, so I’m looking forward to reading your impressions if you decide to visit.
As for Y travel – if you live to tell the tale that’s valuable enough. And it can still make onto the antenna like your TLV-SFO flight recently, or the great A3 catering (that I myself have warm memories of, despite other circumstances).
Actually, I might have a suggestion for a similar destination:
https://www.visitnorway.com/places-to-go/northern-norway/the-lofoten-islands/
Haven’t done any logistics research, but looks just as appealing.
I think a review on Air Greenland and the country of Greenland itself would be extremely interesting. Apparently Air Greenland used to fly from Nuuk to Iqaluit in Nunavut, but sadly stopped that service I think in 2015. That would have been a very cool flight to take and would be a fun tour of the north.
Greenland is tempting. How about getting on a Transatlantic cruise out of Europe. Say Cunard. For example QM2 leaves Southhampton on July 21st to New York for about $1000 per person. My guess is children are free. 7 nights.
That actually sounds great, but the cruise is sold out (and I didn’t see any prices below $2900pp). Where did you see $1K?