Passage to Eastern Europe: Trip Introduction

Passage to Eastern Europe: Trip Introduction
Flight Review: LOT Polish Airlines 797-9 Business Class, ORD-WAW
Lodging Review: Hampton by Hilton Krakow
Our Time in Krakow, Poland
Flixbus from Krakow to Budapest
Lodging Review: Corinthia Budapest Hotel
Our Time in Budapest, Hungary
Our Time in Kalocsa, Hungary
Our Time in Osijek and Vukovar, Croatia
Our Time in Belgrade, Serbia
Our Time in Golubac, Serbia
Our Time in Vidin, Bulgaria
Our Time in Ruse, Bulgaria
Our Time in Bucharest, Romania
Lodging Review: JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel
Flight Review: SWISS Airlines 777-300 ZRH-ORD

I’m kicking off year 12 of this blog with my next trip report and this one includes some eastern European countries I’d never visited.

This year’s trip centered around a river cruise on the eastern part of the Danube. We’d previously cruised the western part of the river back in 2016. That trip left from Erlangen, Germany (just outside of Nuremburg) and ended in Budapest, Hungary. This trip departed from Budapest and ended in Bucharest, Romania.

As the cruise/tour was only 10 days, we decided to go to Krakow, Poland for a few days ahead of the cruise to visit yet another country we’d not been to.

Transportation

I flew from Memphis to Chicago to meet up with my friend who lives in the area. I used cash for a round-trip positioning flight on American Airlines. From there we flew LOT Polish Airlines to Warsaw and connected to Krakow. The government shutdown in October meant our flight out of Chicago was delayed causing us to miss our connection. Fortunately we were accommodated on the next flight to Krakow and even ended up in exit row seats. I used 70K Air Canada Aeroplan miles + $78.03 for my business class seat which would have sold for about $3064, giving me a fantastic value of about 4.38 cents per point. My friend used 40K Aeroplan miles + $78.03 for her seat in economy. While her ticket “only” worked out to about 1.4 cents per point, it still saved her over $500 out of pocket.

To get from Krakow to Budapest via air we’d have had to connect in Warsaw (or elsewhere) so we decided to try out the Flixbus which was only about $25 per person. We drove pretty much directly south through Slovakia, knocking off another country from our list, though I’m not sure if the rest stops really count as a “visit”, much like changing planes does not count as “visiting a country”, at least to my way of thinking.

On the return flight my friend used 27.5K Flying Blue points (transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards) + $168 for her economy seat on KLM via Amsterdam. I used an additional 70K Aeroplan miles + $109.61 (which worked out to be about 4.12 cents per point) for what I thought was the perfect itinerary on SWISS back to Chicago and then planned to use the return leg of my round-trip flight on American back to Memphis.

My international flight initially left Bucharest early in the morning, had a reasonable connection in Zurich and then landed in Chicago just before noon. This was fantastic as there was an American flight back to Memphis that departed around 3:40 PM and would get me home around 6 PM. About 6 months out I noticed that SWISS was no longer selling tickets on the ZRH-ORD flight and I got concerned. They hadn’t canceled my ticket yet so I just kept an eye on things. Next thing I knew they had rolled my ticket over to a flight that left Zurich in the 1 PM hour and arrived in Chicago about 3:50 PM, or 10 minutes after my return leg to Memphis took off. Sigh.

I kept hoping that earlier ZRH-ORD flight would be reinstated but eventually I saw that United added a flight at the time of my original flight and it did not have award availability on it, so there was no way I could change my ticket. I eventually canceled the second half of my positioning flight (the next ORD-MEM flight on AA did not depart until after 10 PM) and bought a flight on United that got me home in the 9 PM hour. Prices were initially so expensive that I used miles for that flight but eventually they came down and I was able to save the miles and paid cash for it.

Sadly the government shutdown was still ongoing for our return flight and shortly after arriving in Zurich I was notified that my trans-Atlantic SWISS flight was delayed 45 minutes, due to weather in Europe impacting passengers whose flights were connecting to this one. I had originally been quite upset for a four-hour layover in Chicago but with the shutdown, that became a blessing. Fortunately the final leg of my journey from Chicago to Memphis was on time and I believe we even landed a little early.

Hotels

We stayed in three hotels on this trip: the Hampton by Hilton Krakow, the Corinthia Budapest, and the JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel. The latter two hotels were included with our river cruise package. We used points at the Hampton and while it probably wasn’t the greatest value on a per-point basis, we’re pretty points-rich when it comes to Hilton so it made sense to use them while we can.

Lounges

As my friend was flying economy, we didn’t visit the lounge used by LOT (and other airlines) in Chicago. Since we were flying different airlines on the way home, I stayed with her prior to our flights out of Bucharest instead of visiting the lounge there. I did spend a considerable amount of time at the SWISS Lounge A in Zurich. However, it was quite busy and I did not feel comfortable taking photos. Plus, I couldn’t properly sample the food as the hotel provided us a breakfast box and there was a quite good breakfast on the flight from Bucharest so I simply wasn’t hungry during my visit. Unfortunately I’ve given up all my cards that came with Priority Pass so I no longer had access to any of those lounges or restaurants in O’Hare when I returned home. I did later realize I had a couple of complimentary United lounge passes I could have used but I’d forgotten I had them.

Viking

Our river cruise ship was the Viking Ullur, named for the Norse god of snow. I thought that was appropriate for me, someone who loves to snow ski, and I tried to get some of my ski club buddies to come with me but I couldn’t seem to make it happen before the whole ship was sold out. This was our fifth river cruise with Viking and our sixth cruise overall with them. Since the river cruise boat is identical to the ones we sailed on our other European river cruises, I won’t be reviewing the ship itself.

The Viking Ullur at its dock in Budapest

In the end

We had a wonderful trip and got to visit a lot of new-to-us countries. I hope you’ll enjoy the ride along with us!