Austria & Germany 2024 - Day 1 / Airports

Fun and games right from the start!

When booking our flights, I hemmed and hawed about booking a direct flight from Montreal to Vienna because it was about 300$ more than any other price I found. After lots of flip-flopping I decided to go for it. Direct flights are always simpler and we'd arrive in Vienna nice and early at 8:30 AM giving us a full day from the start. Good investment.

Our flight was at 6:30PM, so we left home good and early in order to have our tradition departure meal at Bijou, and maybe even time for a drink before take off.

The meal was good, every time we decide to go somewhere other than Bijou for whatever reason, we ALWAYS regret it...  at the same time, I like trying new places. Thankfully I think we've done them all now, so there is no FOMO anymore when we stick to our tradition.

After our meal, we passed through to the Gates, and had a drink at UBar. From far away their pink light-up bar looks cool, but when sitting at it it hurts your eyes after a while!

We enjoyed our drinks, then a stroll through the terminal.... and then this:  Flight delays THREE HOURS! UGH.  

I was annoyed that this would take a 3-hour chunk out of our first planned full day, but was thanking my lucky stars that we had a direct flight and so this delay would not impact any further connections.  

I found the plane in the distance...

So, 3 hours to kill now, ok - back to that glowing pink bar for another drink!

By about 7PM, we were done and about to start another aimless stroll through the terminal when this bombshell landed on my phone: FLIGHT CANCELLED! 

I froze to the spot, what now? Then moments later we got another notice that we were rebooked on a flight through Geneva that was leaving in less than an hour! 

The app told me to download the boarding passes, then needed a code, then would not take the code... I was shaking so much with rush-stress, it was hard to type! What Gate???  Then I remembered we'd seen the gate when strolling around so we rushed to it....  and the staff at the counter had no clue this was going on! More stress. Phone calls, heart palpitations, other people being turned away...  we were finally confirmed and given our boarding passes only after confirming TWICE that we had no checked luggage.  Carry-on only wins the day!

We were SO RELIEVED to be leaving the same night, but at the same time, flying through Geneva made me regret paying extra for a direct flight from the start!! PLUS the extra 100$ to select my seats. In addition, we'd arrive in Geneva at 9:30AM but the connecting flight to Vienna was at 5:50PM. An almost 9-hour layover. UGH. Full day lost.

We debated going to Geneva for the day, but decided against it in the end. We've been a few times so we didn't feel like we were missing out, and I was DONE with unexpected delays and surprises - what if we didn't get back to the airport in time?

So, we spent the longest day ever at the airport, and finally left for Vienna a half an hour late...  beautiful shots over lake Geneva as we left!

We landed just before 8PM and got to the hotel by 9PM. We dumped our bags and had supper at the hotel next door (ours didn't have a restaurant). Of course: Schnitzel! and it was delicious.

So it wasn't the Day One we had in mind, we lost a vacation day, but at least we made it!