Another trip, another story to tell! When we initially started our travel blog we said “yeah, let’s call the day we depart Day 0 as there’s nothing to report”. And the past few trips have proved otherwise, so we’re starting with Day 1 – the day we left KC.
We had an afternoon flight, which is such a treat! The other treat was that we had one layover. ONE layover to get to Europe! If you’re not from Kansas City, this means nothing. We are in the middle of the Midwest and, despite having an international airport, it takes 3-4 flights to get from Kansas City to Europe. The flight plan was simple – Kansas City to Minneapolis-St Paul, (MSP) with a 65 minute layover, and then off to Copenhagen! Great plan, right?
Passports in hand and suitcases in car, we set off to the airport to catch our on-time flight, departing at 4:12 pm. Well, it was on-time when we left home. Checking in at the airport, the desk agent said ‘your flight was delayed in Minneapolis as they were waiting for flight attendants’ but indicated that it was only a slight delay. After settling at the gate, there was another delay with an updated departure time of 4:41 pm. At 4:41, we were boarding but not departing and there was no concern about expediting boarding. By the time we pushed back, taxied, and got in the air it was after 5 pm. (to save you from “math-ing”, this shaved at least 48 minutes off our layover time)
In flight, the captain mentioned that several travelers had extremely tight layovers and asked if people would allow those to exit quickly. (Been there, done that, and it normally doesn’t happen.) As we landed at 6:15 pm boarding for our departing flight was in process and the doors should have been closing. Our inbound flight arrived at the gate at 6:30 pm. Fortunately we were in the first row behind first class, and the gentleman in our row offered to help get backpacks and basically block traffic to get us out, but we had to get to Concourse G from Concourse C so the odds were against us.
The captain said there would be agents at the gate to help with rebooking flights and we were going to beeline it to get rebooked (while secretly hoping the outbound flight was delayed). There were no agents at the gate and we decided to make a run for it. Okay, not a run…. But a very brisk pace through the airport (keep in mind we’re going from C to G), with quite a few others on our flight literally running past us to catch their flights. One man was doing a fabulous job of re-enacting the famous OJ commercial of sprinting through the airport around obstacles.
SO….. we get to concourse G and were rushing to gate G6, based on info given by the flight attendant. As we’re nearing gate G4 the agents yelled “Where are you going?”. Half-running at this point, we yelled back “Copenhagen”. They replied, “get your passports out and we’ll get you on”. A quick scan of the passports for us and one young man behind us (also from our KC flight), and the aircraft doors closed. Yes, we were THAT close to missing the flight. What’s impressive is that despite having three ‘stragglers’ the plane left three minutes early. And the utter magic… was that our bags made it as well. KUDO’s to MSP’s baggage handlers, true masters at their craft!
Of course flying into the east (Tim likes to call it into the future), we arrived at the start of our Day 2 in Copenhagen (CPH) without issue. (There is a 7 hour difference between KC and Copenhagen.) The fog was crazy, hanging maybe 50 feet above the runway, and we’re glad the airport wasn’t closed. Customs cleared (with a very pleasant agent!) and bags collected (less than 5 minute wait – of course they were obviously the absolute last ones on the plane, i.e. sitting in the front), leaving us 30 minutes before the hotel shuttle was to arrive. We headed to the shuttle area, and within a few minutes the hotel shuttle stopped to drop off a flight crew so our wait again was minimal. We’re quite thankful that, after having such a crazy/stressed start to the trip, that CPH was calm and welcoming!
The rest of the day was spent walking around the marina area near the airport, eating lunch at a small waterside bistro, and planning what to do with our remaining time in CPH. Copenhagen isn’t our end destination, but we have a half day tomorrow and two days at the end of our trip to explore.
Stay tuned – our big adventure starts tomorrow night!!
(We’ll get a few of the pictures below from walking around the marina area so this isn’t a total word-fest day tomorrow, it’s getting late at the moment.)
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