    
Chaplaingil
Member
Username: Chaplaingil
Post Number: 36
Registered: 08-2009
Posted From: 70.161.236.152
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - 03:08 pm: | |
Had promised by daughter a trip to Europe since I made a deployment to Rota in 2000 with the Seabees, as my retirement is in August and the XO would not let me have all 100 days of leave at the same time he allowed me to take June off so I could take her to Europe. I had been stalking Pepperd’s site since I found it last year. Great advice found here and shared the website with all SPATs that I ran into on this trip. So here is my first (and hopefully not my last) Trip Report.
Day One, 7 Jun – planned to ride the Tidewater/DC Shuttle from Langley to Andrews and have an old shipmate take us to BWI to catch the PatEX to Ramstien. First glitch, crew decide to go back to Chambers Field (NOB Norfolk) since there was limited ramp space at Langley for them to wait for the next rotation. I had already booked Southwest Airlines Norfolk to BWI several weeks ago just in case, so we used those, and arrived at BWI at 1604. Proceed to AMC desk to check in present and waited for the 1520 roll call. We made the cut as about number 20 of the Cat III, roll call did not get out of Cat III for this flight. Processed, paid the $30.80 for the two of us to go to Ramstein and off we went to clear security and board the plane. On the taxi to runway the plane develop some maintenance issue, spent over two hours attempting to fix the problem when the decision to cancel and try again tomorrow. Glad I had study the Pepperd’s website and knew that Omni Air International now had control of us and that they were responsible for our care and feeding. They put us up in a hotel, provide three meals for each of us, so for my $30.80 I got a flight to Germany, hotel in Baltimore, Breakfast at the hotel, lunch at a restaurant and dinner in the airport.
Day Two, 8 Jun – Departed BWI 2000ish and arrive at Ramstien 1200ish 9 Jun.
Day Three, 9 Jun – We made our way to RTT to get train reservations since I had already purchase a five day rail pass for Germany, France and Italy. I did not want to try and figure out how to get the reservation as we only had a short time to get to the Station in K-town for our 1405 train to Paris.
Day Four, 10 Jun – Finished touring Paris, and when to the Bercy Train Station for the overnight train to Rome.
Day Five, 11 Jun – Arrive in Rome
Day Six, 12 Jun – Toured Rome.
Day Seven, 13 Jun - Train ride from Rome to Vincenz,(made my own reservation at the train station from the self service kiosk) spend the night at the Ederle Inn $91.50 for a suite.
Day Eight, 14 Jun – Caught the Med Evac Bus from Vincenz to Landstuhl at 0700 in the Commissary Parking Lot and 12 hours 15 minutes latter we were dropped off in front of the Ramstien Terminal. Just missed roll-call for a flight to Charleston/McChord, but an upcoming flight was going to Charleston with roll-call at 2300 if the plane was repaired. Spend a few hours hoping and praying for the plane to get fixed, which it did. We were the only Cat III on board, all that wanted to go were manifested. As luck would have it the Charleston/McChord flight had issues and we left before they did. Took off at 0100ish and arrived in Charleston 0700ish.
Day Nine, 15 Jun – Shared a one-way rental with a fellow SPATs family to Norfolk and arrived safe at home 1600.
Cost of trip – Just shy of $3,000 told (hotel in Rome killed the budget) spending a week in Europe with my darling daughter “priceless”
Pictures and a Blog can be found at http://alannaandgilseuropeanadventure.blogspot.com/
Thank to all who contribute to this site it is a great help, if anyone as specific question about please feel free to contact me.
V/R and Blessing,
Chaps |
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