Europe

Welcome to my next trip report! This year’s big international trip was to Scandinavia, which was the choice of one of my two main traveling companions. We spent about a week in Copenhagen, Denmark and in southern & central Sweden before going to Stockholm where we were joined by our German friend. We spent a few days there before winding up our trip in Oslo, Norway.

We were gone for two weeks and covered a lot of ground so I have lots to share! It was also a lesson in trip planning and how to adjust on the fly.

Introduction: Late Summer in Scandinavia
Flight Review: American Airlines B737-800 First Class, MEM-DFW
Flight Review: Finnair A350-900 Business Class, DFW-HEL
Flight Review: Finnair E190 Business Class, HEL-CPH
Lodging Review: Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn
Our Time in Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Best Western Hotel Hebron, Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Next House, Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Story Hotel Studio Malmö
Our Time in Malmö and Ystad, Sweden
Lodging Review: IKEA Hotell, Älmhult, Sweden
Our Time in Älmhult, Sweden and High-Speed Train to Stockholm
Lodging Review: Motel L Älvsjö, Stockholm
Our Time in Stockholm
Flight Review: SAS A320neo Economy Class, ARN-OSL
Lodging Review: Comfort Hotel Grand Central, Oslo
Our Time in Oslo
Lounge Review: SAS Lounge, Oslo airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A320-200 Business Class, OSL-FRA
Flight Review: Lufthansa 787-9 Business Class, FRA-MSP
Flight Review: Delta B737-800 First Class, MSP-MEM

On this trip I only got to try one new-to-me airline but stayed at several new-to-me hotel brands. I had two positioning flights in US domestic first class, two two-segment international flights in business class and one short international segment in economy.

I’ll review Finnair’s A350-900 long-haul business class as well as their Embraer 190 short-haul business class along with Lufthansa’s A320-200 short-haul business class and long-haul B787-9 business class. I’ll also review a short SAS A320neo economy flight.

As far as hotels, we were all over the place on this one. We ended up using points for some hotels and paying cash for others due to various factors.

I had intended to review five lounges on this trip but that did not work out as expected and I’ll have just one lounge review.

Why Scandinavia?

I have a couple of friends I often travel with and we have a deal that whoever has a birthday ending with a “0” or a “5” gets to pick the destination for that year’s big trip. This year’s birthday girl picked Scandinavia as the destination. Our next task was to narrow down the things we could reasonably see in a two-week period. We realized that we wouldn’t be able to see all of the region so unfortunately we’ll have to save Finland for another trip. As we plotted things out we realized that Copenhagen and Oslo would be our starting and ending points, we just had to figure out which direction to travel. And that was based on finding award space. Continue reading →