The Svalbard Triangle – Travel Vortex – Day 42

Up at 6 am to catch our 9:50 am flight out of Keflavik. We move like a well-oiled machine at this stage, donning our laid-out travel clothes and loading the bags into the car by 6:30 am. We paid our rooms at Hotel Berg in advance, so nothing to do but hand back the keys and depart for Keflavik Airport.

It takes time and space to gain perspective on a trip, but that trip to the airport often acts as a lightning rod for that first flash of insight. And on that score, this trip was excellent. Yes, we were fortunate that the initial phase – our time in Scotland, including a stint aboard the sailing yacht Zuza, turned out so well. But the meat of the trip – our 13 night cruise from Svalbard through to Jan Mayen, Greenland and then Iceland – so vastly exceeded our expectations that it’s hard to put it into words.

Still, I’ll try – 10 polar bears! Walrus! Reindeer! Arctic fox! Bowhead whales! Sperm whales! Blue whale! Fin whales! The list goes on, and on, and on. We were fortunate beyond our wildest dreams.

The hits kept coming in Iceland, too. Not only were we able to take a full ‘snow day’ to rest and recover after our cruise, but we had some more wildlife spottings – including a breaching minke whale – and some truly world-class scenery and hiking. We leave – as we often do – with our list longer than it was when we first arrived.

Except – it now seems likely that we will be cancelling our 2028 Thule cruise on Ponant, simply because we feel that it’s unlikely to deliver much that’s new and novel compared to the cruise we already experienced. (Doesn’t seem quite fair to Ponant – oh, you did an exceptional job, so we’re cancelling one of our cruises. But I expect we’ll make it up to them in spades in the years to come. And we do still have two other cruises on the books with them, so it’s not like we’re pulling up stakes entirely.)

Nits to pick? Well, there are always some. We wish we’d spent more time up in Highland Base for starters. (But where would that time have come from?) And – if we were to do it again – we would have simply paid for Blue Car Rental’s complete insurance rather than hoping and trusting that we could make it up with our credit card insurance should anything go pear-shaped. Those F roads can be awfully treacherous, though I am given the green light at drop-off from one of their agents – which is a relief.

I dropped my wife and kids off at the terminal (along with most of the bags) before heading off on my own to make the rental car drop off. The Blue drop-off point is located just a little bit further than the rest of the car rental companies, so they recommend this approach – and it works well for us too.

The Air Canada check-in desk is still closed by the time I catch up with my wife and kids, but a line is already forming. Air Canada had given me the chance to buy 25K status with them last year, and one of the perks is priority check-in and boarding – so while we’re flying economy this leg, at least we won’t have to endure the massive check-in line that’s already stretching into the Keflavik concourse and which has led one of the airport staffers to open the line barricades in advance.

Even second in the priority line, the process is slow – as a perk from my job, I’m entitled to three free 70 pound checked bags. However, the agent needs to get an override to deal with our lone overweight bag. So in the mean time, we check all of our duffles first.

Interestingly, Air Canada has created a new option in which customers can elect to check their carry-on bags at no cost when checking in 24 hours in advance. This is much better than simply asking at the airport, as customers can pack their bags in such a way as to ensure that they have carry-on bags without prohibited items like batteries and so on. So we check two of our carry-on roller bags at this stage, too.

We eventually get all seven bags checked – I know, but two of them were our usual carry-ons – and then head over to the money changing office to get our VAT refund. For non-residents, each receipt totalling 12,000 ISK (roughly USD$90) is eligible for a roughly 14% refund. (The actual VAT rate is 25%, but the refund broker gets to keep a percentage.)

The tax refund is a quick and easy process, though travellers are recommended to keep the items accessible so they can be viewed if needed and to fill out the forms in advance (which I failed to do). The broker does not ask to see the items, and getting the refund is as simple as tapping our credit card. We’re refunded close to CAD$200 so well worth the hassle.

Up to security. We’ve heard horror stories of delays for those flying out of Keflavik after the eclipse, but the lines at this time of day are somewhere between modest and non-existent. Even so, one pair of travellers gets yelled at for attempting to step over the ropes in the security line and are literally sent back to the beginning – do people never learn? Only major electronics like tablets and laptops need to come out, so it’s a relatively painless process.

From here we go and forage for breakfast. There aren’t a ton of sit-down restaurant options, we go with Elda:

Photo Credit: Keflavik Airport

My wife and I order the eggs benedict:

While the kids get the pancakes:

The eggs benedict are a little odd – there’s a strong mustard in the sauce, and it’s done overtop lettuce. Plus they use cold ham instead of peameal bacon. But at least they remember to toast the English muffin. Plus they have coffee, which is sorely needed.

My wife and daughter go off to do a bit of shopping, and pick up some more clothes from 66 North – a fleecy-sweater type shirt for our daughter, and a wool shirt for my wife. We’re always amazed at how well 100% merino wool holds up – plus, we save the tax by buying at the airport past security.

Our son goes off to see what else he can find – the playground is for little kids, but they come across a type of active-movement parkour simulator:

A nice idea for high-energy kids.

Then off to Gate Area D – which means crossing through Immigration first. The officer is somewhat puzzled that our fingerprints are in the system but not recorded for Iceland, but we explain that we entered the European Union via France and then travelled to Svalbard and Greenland. They’re a bit surprised by our circuitous route (and we have to explain more than once that Svalbard is part of Norway) but eventually they wave us through.

There’s another gift shop to pass through, which has the fattest puffins I’ve ever seen:

Strangely, there’s no seating by D21 so the kids sit on the floor while the adults stand. Boarding begins more-or-less on schedule, though some people seem a bit pushy to get to the very front of Zone 1. We’re Zone 2, so it’s no skin off our nose either way. There are two clearly marked entrances for Zones 1 to 2 and Zones 3 to 5 and thankfully everyone (mostly) lines up rather than milling around.

Air Canada’s economy seats offer decent legroom, and we have no issues finding overhead bin space – particularly now that two of our four roller bags have been checked. There are a few guests – as always – who seem keen on watching TikToks without their headphones in, but a little public shaming seems to resolve that quickly.

Farewell, Iceland!

One issue becomes apparent early into the flight – the sun-side of the plane is getting hot. As in, hurts-to-touch-the-wall hot. (I had no idea, with the kids being between us and myself safely ensconced in an aisle seat with no middle-seat passenger beside me.)

Otherwise, this flight is pretty much like most transatlantic flights. We get served a hot lunch:

I get a glass of white wine to go with it. The bread and cheese are the best part of the meal, and the mashed potatoes are fine too. There isn’t much actual chicken in with the “chicken”.

Finally I finish my second book of the trip – “All You Need is Kill”, the inspiration for the movie “Edge of Tomorrow”. I wondered if I’d like it having already watched the movie, but I genuinely liked the book better – and it’s significantly different.

And despite being a book about aliens and space marines, there’s a gentle poetry to it: “If there’s a heaven, it’s a cold place. A dark place. A lonely place.” I crush the book in perhaps two or three sittings.

The previous book I read was “The Light Brigade” – also a book about space marines – but with more of a class-conscious, anti-war sentiment. More brutal, too. It took a while to come together for me, as I read it in fits and starts while working on all those blog posts during our Svalbard cruise. But it stuck the landing in the end.

I’ve since moved on to “A Pretender’s Murder” by Christopher Huang. I can’t claim to be impartial as I know Christopher personally, but I’d highly recommend his work to anyone who enjoys Agatha Christie novels, period fiction, and complex-but-not-overly-complicated whodunnits. His debut – A Gentleman’s Murder – also has a great opener: “The Britannia Club stood on King Street, a respectable limestone facade among respectable limestone facades.”

I read for while, then nap for a spell. The economy seats understandably do not much have incline, and somehow my arms fall asleep.

They serve us a wrap as our second meal:

I didn’t particularly care for it – apart from the Prince Polo – so I have a ham and cheese sandwich that I’d bought at the airport:

It’s fine. Not much ham, not much cheese. The ones we picked up at Charles de Gaulle were a lot better – fresh with crispy baguette.

Hello, Toronto!

Another round of Shame-the-TikToker and we touch down at Pearson less than two hours after we took off, once time zone changes are factored in.

The moment we land, I open up the Park ‘n’ Fly app to request our vehicle be brought around. I’ll still have to catch a shuttle over to the Park ‘n’ Fly office, but at least there’s no need to hunt through a massive parking lot to find our car.

Despite having seven checked bags, they are out in record time. No issues with Canadian customs, and my wife and kids head off to get some Tim Hortons while I catch the shuttle out to Park ‘n’ Fly. The shuttle arrives in less than 10 minutes, and I’m soon paid up and on my way. I pick everyone up from Departures, load the bags, and then it’s a straight shot back home.

It feels strange, nearing home in the mid-afternoon when we were in Iceland earlier that morning. Before we know it, we’re home – sleeping in our own beds, showering in our own showers, and fixing our own food once more.

The trip already feels like a dream, but if I close my eyes and conentrate I’m back amidst the bubbling brash ice once more.

Thank you all for joining us! Til we meet again – which should be around December 9^th, as we ready ourselves to board the Silver Spirit in Barbados. In the meantime, stay tuned for a detailed review of our Ponant cruise along with a Ponant versus Silversea comparison.