FRIDAY, JUNE 29TH – NORWAY TO DENMARK:
What a day….3 ½ hours of sleep and a long, long travel day. Showered and grabbed a small breakfast then headed for the airport. Check in went smoothly but I was still not able to get Galen out of the window seat. I’ve been sending ugly “What’s App” messages to KLM…as if they care!
The Kristiansand Airport is very small and the only little “concession” counter in the gate area was still not open at 10:00 am. We couldn’t even buy a cup of coffee or bottle of water. I kept asking what time it would open and the other employees said, “they will open when a lot of people are here”. Huh? If no one is there, how will they know a lot of people are here?
They finally opened up and there was a long line of customers waiting. I got in line and there was a group of guys in front of me….all buying beer at 10:30 am. Ugh! I guess they were still partying from the night before because one guy ordered a sandwich and when it was ready, the sales clerk had to call out his order for about 10 minutes before he could focus enough to realize it was his! They were all sitting at a high table in front of me and one guy’s pants were “way low” in the back showing me the dreaded Plumber’s crack! I was trying to covertly take a photo of him when I suppose he felt a breeze and pulled his pants up…somewhat. I still got a photo for Facebook. HA!
Just before we boarded the short flight to Amsterdam, Galen’s name was called. KLM had bumped him up to Business Class. Guess they got tired of hearing me whine. Howard, David and I were also in Business Class and when we got on the plane, all the overhead space was taken. Several coach passengers had put their bags in our overhead bins on their way to their seats and the flight attendants had not stopped them from doing that. We had a 3 ½ hour layover in Amsterdam and I spent all my time in the Lounge working. Sure wasn’t eating in thee because they really didn’t have anything. Terrible Lounge but the Wi-Fi is good.
Our flight was delayed by 15 minutes and we were all sitting in the gate area. There were plenty of empty seats but “like a magnet”, a large man came and plopped down right beside me…spilling over into my seat as well. As if that were not enough, he reeked of smoke. Within a couple of minutes, my eyes, nose and throat were itching. I got up and moved but when we started to board the flight, he came and stood next to me again. I was so worried that he would be sitting next to me on the flight and I’d have to move because there is no way I could have smelled that “smoke” for an hour and a half!
We were seated by the time he boarded and when he got on, he opened the storage space in the front of the airplane where the pilots and flight attendants store their bags. He began slamming his bag into that space and the flight attendant kept telling him he could not store it there. He ignored her, finally got it pushed into the space and headed to his seat! Thankfully, he was not seated by or near me.
Once we landed in Aalborg, there was a long wait for our bags. When they finally came in, Rocky’s suitcase was missing! There was no one in the baggage claim area where he could file a report so we went outside Customs. Our promoter Stig was waiting for us and had a large tour bus to take us to the hotel. Stig had his car there so he offered to take Rocky to file his claim in another part of the airport and let us leave to have dinner at a nearby restaurant.
We had “pre-ordered” our meals and the food was excellent! It was so nice to have some time to chat with Stig. He has a wicked sense of humor! It was still a 45 minute drive to our hotel in Randers and was around 9 pm when we arrived. It’s a really nice hotel and the desk clerk had our keys ready for us. Howard’s room was supposed to have a refrigerator in it but he called and said it didn’t. And even though they had given each of us a “fan” for our rooms, it was brutally hot. We all opened our windows but Howard’s was right on the street and incredibly noisy. I talked to the desk clerk and we found another room for him on the 4th floor with a refrigerator and a lot less noise!
The hotel is in a “square” around a courtyard. If your room is in the 200’s, you push the button for the 1st floor in the elevator, 300’s push 2nd floor, etc. Then, when the elevator stops, doors on both sides open and you have to exit according to what your room number is. Stig and I decided to take the stairs after we got Howard situated and we ended up doing “laps” around the hotel floors. If you somehow get on the opposite side, there’s no way to get to your room without going back to the lobby and starting all over again. At least that was what happened to us. Reminded me of the movie “Spinal Tap”.
I unpacked as few things as possible since we are only here for 2 nights. Got things situated and turned on my fan. It sounded like a bird was being tortured! Called the front desk and they brought me a new one.
I’m sure there are things I’ve left out but it’s almost 3 am and I need to sleep for a few hours. Have to be ready for an “early” sound check at 9 am!
Jude
SATURDAY, JUNE 30TH – PERFORMANCE AT RANDERS COUNTRY FESTIVAL, DENMARK:
Was very difficult to sleep last night. The room is very hot, even with the fan. It’s the perfect temperature with the windows open but I’m on the 2nd floor overlooking the main road and it’s very noisy.
Had breakfast with some of the guys and checked on Rocky’s bag. Supposedly, it arrived at the Aalborg Airport last night. Since no one ever answers the phone in “Lost Bag” offices, I sent an email explaining that he has to perform tonight and has items in the bag that are critical to the concert. I got an email back saying the bag was going to be delivered sometime today.
We had to leave for sound check at 8:45 am because doors open at noon. The concert is held on the “grounds” of the Memphis Mansion (a museum filled with Eivis memorabilla). While the guys were doing their sound check, Stig gave me a tour of the museum. I share the same birthday as Elvis, so I loved seeing all the items on display. There is also a grand piano owned by Milton Berle and “The Rat Pack” played it years ago. And there is a small area dedicated to Johnny Cash.
Stig’s family – Lucy (his beautiful wife), Angelina (5 year old daughter) and Timmy (1 ½ year old son) came to the festival. Stig’s wife was performing in a group called “Country Sisters” when he met her years ago. She now performs in a different group comprised of girls who were also former members of the Country Sisters. I haven’t seen her since Angelina was a little baby and Timmy had not even been born. It was so good to see them all again.
We received the message that Rocky’s bag was en route to the hotel just as we were leaving sound check. So glad he will have it before tonight! I walked over to a grocery store behind the venue and bought water and fruit. The restaurant hotel is closed tonight, so I walked downtown to see if I could locate a restaurant where I could eat later on in the day. It’s a pretty long walk! There is a Jazz Festival taking place on the walking streets, so I have a feeling it might be pretty crowded down there tonight!
I came back to the hotel and worked for a while and then remembered that today is Galen’s birthday. I had asked the lady helping with backstage to have a “cake” for him tonight. All she has is a cheese cake and I told her that’s fine! I forgot to look for candles while I was out walking, so went back to the grocery store in hopes of finding those. No Luck. Went to 2 grocery stores and neither one had birthday candles. I finally purchased one large candle and will improvise!
I spent a long time trying to check everyone in for the flights tomorrow. We booked the flights through Delta but they are still considered KLM flights. The guys have no “status” on KLM, so they don’t have great seats home. Our travel agent had booked everyone a good seat months ago when we purchased the tickets. But, KLM moved everyone to much farther back in the airplane. Not happy about this and nothing I can do because it’s a full flight.
I decided to order a gluten free pizza for dinner since they will deliver to the hotel! Left for the show at 7:45 pm and the Bellamys had a short “meet and greet” in the backstage area for 30 minutes. My dear friends from the Silkeborg Festival – Jytte (festival organizer) and Peter (our driver) were there and it was great to see them again. It’s so sad that their festival isn’t taking place any longer.
The festival sold over 1,000 tickets and were thrilled with this number for a first year event. They have already committed to another event next year.
The Bellamy’s show was great! They performed for 90 minutes and then did a couple of encores. We closed out the event with a “birthday cake” and having the audience sing “Happy Birthday” to Galen.
Was back at the hotel by 11 pm and trying to get in bed by midnight for a 7:30 am departure to the airport!
Jude
SUNDAY, JULY 1ST (WHERE DOES THE TIME GO???) – DENMARK TO NASHVILLE:
The breakfast hours at the hotel restaurant begin at 7:30 am. I asked Henrik to call the hotel and see if they would open at 7:15 am so we could eat there instead of having them prepare breakfast boxes to go. The breakfast boxes never work – they have a “sandwich” in them and who wants a sandwich at 7:30 am? The hotel agreed and we were able to eat a quick breakfast before the 1 hour drive to the airport. Since it was a small airport, we all assumed that check in would go really quickly and smoothly….wrong!
I got worried about David when he didn’t come down at 7:15 because I know he wanted to eat some cereal. When he did come down, he said he had been throwing up since 5:30 am! He looked really pale. I had some great nausea pills that don’t make you drowsy (used for chemo patients), so I gave him some of those.
We arrived at the airport about 1 hour and 10 minutes before our flight time. There was one person working the Priority Line and the customers they were helping evidently had problems because they were not moving. A nice young man finally came over to us and opened up another counter. He began checking us in but said he could only check our bags through to Atlanta – not to Nashville and he could not print our boarding passes for Atlanta/Nashville! After all the problems I had checking everyone in on KLM throughout this entire trip, I was not surprised!
We made the decision that since we only had a 2 hour layover in Atlanta and a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam, we would only check our bags to Amsterdam. I was worried that we would pick up all the bags in one terminal and have to take a shuttle bus to another terminal to check in again. But, we decided to take that risk. The strange thing is, the desk agent was able to check Rocky’s bags all the way through to Nashville!
We landed on time (although “sideways and up and down” because of the wind!!) and all our bags made it. Fortunately we only had to take the elevator up one level for check in…..where the REAL trouble began (back to normal, Frank!)
The lady at the ticket counter was young and said she could only check our bags to Atlanta and could only print the boarding passes to Atlanta. I told her that was unacceptable as we had a short connection. She fiddled around on the computer for a while and I told her to call a supervisor. She called “someone” but said it was definitely not possible. I asked her why when we were all booked on the same day, same flights, that Rocky could check all the way through and we couldn’t. She had no explanation for that. She even said it was because we were originally booked to Detroit — which was absurd!
I called my Delta Diamond Line and got a wonderful, helpful lady named Kathleen on the line. She told me that KLM should be able to manually enter our flights into the record so we could check bags all the way through and print boarding passes. As I said, the girl helping us was “young” and is from the generation who relies totally on computers. She had no CLUE how to enter anything manually!
I told Kathleen our problem and she put me on hold several times while talking to “experts” about what our problem might be. She was able to get my record changed so that KLM could see my Delta flight from Atlanta to Nashville but that left 7 other passengers who needed their records fixed. Jim had spotted a lady with a KLM uniform working nearby and she seemed to be a “supervisor”. He went over to her and explained the problem and she came to the counter to try and assist. I handed my phone to her and told her to listen to Delta so she could fix the problems. She did. I just looked at my call records and the call to Delta lasted 47 minutes and 52 seconds at 20 cents a minute. I’ll be sending that bill to KLM!
The “supervisor” was able to fix all the records with the assistance of the Delta rep. When she hung up, she literally did a little “dance” and pushed her hands up in the air and said, “I fixed it all by myself”! Hmmmm….maybe I need some of whatever she’s on?
As luck would have it, the young girl’s shift was over before we checked the 18 bags! A new person took over and immediately wanted to charge us for excess. I had to go through the entire explanation again – We have 3 business class and 6 coach and as a Diamond Medallion Member, I am allowed 3 bags weighing 70 pounds each and so are up to 8 people flying with me. After a bit of back and forth, she complied.
I don’t know how long this process took but I know we had less than 2 hours left to go into the lounge!
THEN we had to clear security. After I went through the scanner, the lady said she needed to “manually search” me. I promise you, she touched every part of my body and even pulled out the waistband of my pants and stuck her hand inside my pants! Never been searched that thoroughly before and she had a “wand” lying right beside her that she could have used instead of a manual search.
Next was passport control. I got in line and spotted Howard, Bart and Tim next in line beside me but they were in the line for EU passports only! Of course, the were turned away but I let them get in front of me.
We FINALLY escaped all the searches, etc. and headed to the Lounge. I think it’s about a half mile hike and definitely not worth it. I came in only to check emails and type this report. In year’s past, I was able to bring in at least one guest and so could Howard and David. But these last few trips, we were told we could not have guests. The Lounge also no longer allows individuals with Platinum American Express cards to access the lounge. But, we tried it again this time, and we were each able to bring in a guest.
We boarded our flight on time and it is a really OLD KLM plane. My seat cushion sinks in from where people have been sitting on it. When it was time to take off, the pilot made an announcement that he was going to delay our flight by about an hour to wait for 46 passengers with a late arrival from Barcelona! Never has any airline ever held a plane for me and my groups when we arrived late. I was furious because we only have 2 hours in Atlanta and have to go through Immigration, pick up our checked bags, go through Customs, and clear a security check before going to our gate. I asked the lead flight attendant if we landed late and didn’t have enough time to make our connection, would they hold our plane to Nashville for us. She said, “of course” and when I looked at her like she had lost her mind, she backtracked and said we would still land at the originally scheduled time. SURE we will. So we sat for an hour with no air conditioning and they never offered us anything to drink. I watched half a movie while we were waiting.
The meal was just “okay” and I tried to sleep but the seat was just too uncomfortable. I finally gave up and watched another movie. It was extremely turbulent all the way to Atlanta. The pilot announced that we would be landing on time but he didn’t know how long it would take to taxi to the gate!
Howard, David and I were able to go through Global Entry and into the baggage hall quickly. Our bags started coming through before any of the other guys made it out. I was looking everywhere for carts to put the luggage/equipment on and there were none anywhere in the area. Over a period of 33 minutes, I asked 8 different staff members if they could please have someone bring carts for us and no one seemed to be capable of making that happen. I was walking behind one of the staff members I had just asked about the carts and he had an ear piece in and was talking. I thought he was asking someone to bring carts but then I overheard him say, “Baby, you need to come back to Atlanta and let me take care of you”!
We finally got the carts and rushed through Customs and Security and made it to the gate about 3 minutes before we were supposed to board the plane. Of course, they were late boarding and while waiting, I noticed that my seat assignment was correct on the boarding pass that was issued to me by KLM in Amsterdam but my Delta App had me in bulkhead in a window seat – two places I do not sit! I went to the counter and politely asked to check it. The agent barely spoke to me but printed out a new boarding pass with the bulkhead window seat on it. That’s when I lost it and used my Diamond Medallion status to re-claim my original seat. KLM has done this to us the entire trip – we all reserve specific seats and they move us to wherever they want us to sit!
Finally made it home a little before 11 pm and Lindsey picked me up. Zac and Zoe are still visiting their Dad so I won’t get to see them until Saturday. Then I have to leave again on July 12th to go to Norway with Tanya Tucker. But GLAD to be home right now.
Jude