My Passport’s Travels

Just like that, the cruise is over.

We purchased this fantastic cruise map showing our actual path from Holland America:

And this one from Cruise Globe with more stats:

We disembarked in Reykjavik. The MSC Virtuosa is here. She’s the first full-sized cruise ship we’ve seen this entire cruise, although there’s been a small, luxury ship in almost every port with us.

We enjoyed breakfast in the main dining room and were called to disembark shortly after we finished. I’m still not sure when we went through Icelandic Customs and Immigration. It wasn’t on the first day in Iceland and we didn’t stop today either. Our luggage wasn’t in the baggage hall when we arrived, but it was brought in just about the time we confirmed our bags weren’t in there yet, so no time lost. We joined our excursion group outside, luggage packed safely under the bus and headed out for our tour of Reykjavik!

We drove past Holði House, the former French embassy building – which is where President Regan and Mr. Gorbachev met to end the Cold War.

The first official stop was the Harpa Concert Hall which was stunning! It was brisk, though. There was steam coming off the water around the cellist statue.

Loved this Viking ship sculpture!

The Hallgrimskirkja Church was not open for visitors, but we enjoyed walking around the building.

The bronze statue of Leif Eriksson was a gift from the US to Iceland to commemorate the 1,000 anniversary of Iceland’s parliament. The church made a wonderful backdrop.

This neighboring building had a faux bell!

We drove through town towards our next destination.

We cut through the University of Iceland.

Gas was $10.14/gallon!

Our next stop was Perlan, an interactive nature museum. Our ticket only included the 360 degree observation deck, but we really wouldn’t have had time to explore more of the museum inside.

The weather was beautiful today, so we could see quite a ways! There’s our ship and the church we visited earlier!

On our way back down in the museum, the geyser went off!

The final stop was the Open-Air Museum of Araber. They’ve gathered more than 20 buildings from around Iceland – some almost 200 years old. Our guide was Edmund and he explained a lot of what life would have been like in the various time periods.

This church is from the early 1800’s. It’s still used for baptisms and weddings today. I was surprised to see the screen at the front, hindering the view of the alter, but the pulpit was on the side of the screen where the congregation sits.

Icelandic Ponies!!

I stood at the door of the Smithy so you could see how low the entrance is. The low roofs help keep the warmth in.

In the more modern houses (early 1900s), we learned that many would have two stories – but each story would be occupied by a different family. Some would have 12 people living on their floor! But, the more people, the warmer the house would be in the wintertime.

Finally time to head to the airport. We passed a huge field of lava rocks on the way.

We were so glad we could change to the excursion that included the city tour. Especially when we arrived at the airport and learned that Finnair does not start check in until 2 1/2 hours before the flight – and we were there 5 hours before our flight. We grabbed sandwiches from the only food available outside of security and ended up sitting outside to eat them because we couldn’t find a seat indoors. Actually, I ate mine which was ok, but Mom only ate a little of hers – it was a gas station, prepackaged sandwich. After a while, we were able to move indoors for the rest of our wait. (Insult to injury – our flight was delayed an hour.).

When the time came to check in, we joined the line, but one of the many, many helpful airport ambassadors grabbed us and walked us to a kiosk, where she helped us tag our bags. Thankfully she was helping us since Mom’s tag did not print properly. She got us settled and in the drop off line and went off to help another passenger. In Reykjavik, you put your bag on the belt and scan it yourself. It confirms you’re checked in for the flight, weighs and measures the bag and – when all is good, the bag belt whisks it away. They’re checked all the way through to DFW! It will be nice not having to stop and claim bags before heading to the hotel tonight. (We packed everything we need tomorrow morning in our carry ons.) I did realize that no one had actually asked to see any identification at this point. I had scanned our passports during check in the evening before, but that’s it.

We continued upstairs to security, where we scanned our boarding passes and the gate opened automatically for us. (Again, we didn’t show passports. Maybe there was a biometric check against the passport picture yesterday? But it never asked us to look at a camera.) In the xray line, I realized that I hadn’t pulled out liquids – in my defense, with TSA precheck, I don’t have to do that at home. I pulled over to the side and got everything out and the nice security agent said I didn’t need to repackage into a quart bag.

We’re finally in! Security dumps you immediately into the Duty Free shop. As soon as we exited, we found a restaurant so Mom could get a real meal. I had a caramel latte and a croissant to keep her company! They served my hot latte in a lovely glass.

Similar to London, you don’t learn your gate until 30-45 minutes before boarding. But we found a comfortable place to sit while we waited. Boarding went smoothly – but again, no passport check. Maybe because we’re traveling between Shengen countries? But overall – I don’t know that we ever showed ID today, from disembarking the Rotterdam through boarding our flight.

We enjoyed the quiet flight into Helsinki, arriving at 12:45 am local time. (Yes, that was sunset at 1am.)

Since our big bags were checked through, we walked right out past bag claim and started following signs for the Comfort Hotel Xpress Helsinki Airport. Down a long corridor, down a floor, down another long corrodor and finally into a warm, modern “Barception” area. For the wrong hotel. Our reservation was at the Comfort Hotel Helsinki AirPort (no Xpress). Thankfully it was a quick walk, once we got back to the baggage claim exit. Even better, it was past Burger King, which was still open!! We had a Picnic in the hotel room and went straight to bed!!

Note to self: runway views aren’t worth the upcharge when you arrive at 1:15am and leave at 9 the next morning.

Monday, June 15, 2026

Not many pictures today. We awoke around 8:30, got ourselves together and made the short walk over to security. There was no line and we breezed through.

First stop, the bookstore! We wanted to get Scott another installment of the Finnish Donald Duck comics. Then, a lovely breakfast at a cafe. It’s going to be hard missing the daily croissants!

We wandered through the shopping, only picking up a small treat for Kassie and Scott’s puppies – reindeer jerky! We also made a pitstop, which normally wouldn’t be something discussed here, but the restrooms played birdsong! So lively and relaxing

Finally – Someone wanted to see a passport! Because we were leaving the Schengen Zone, we had to go through departure inspection. I think this is the first time we had to show a passport since Scotland!

Time to board the flight. We had changed seats on Friday so Mom and I both had an aisle seat next to each other and the middle seat showed open for both of us – and they stayed empty!! Lunch was chicken and rice with a slaw of some sort and a chocolate bar for dessert. I enjoyed mine while watching Singing in the Rain on the setback! Even with the movie, my iPad battery gave out about 6 hours into the flight. I couldn’t get the seat outlet to work, even when I tried using Mom’s cord and outlet. Finnair does not allow use of any charging blocks. I played on my phone and enjoyed the movie music channel on the setback entertainment. I did finally watch Wonka as well!

Look! Stephenville! And the super cool downward view on approach to DFW.

Arrival at DFW was easy. Global Entry allowed us to zip through Customs, only to be caught by a broken luggage belt. We had to split up to watch two different carousels. Eventually our bags arrived, Scott and Tucker picked us up, and we were home!

Miscellaneous thoughts about the trip:

Rotterdam is an interesting mix of traditional European and modern industry. If we had more time, it would have been fun to take a tour down the river to Delft or the traditional windmills. There are several hotels very close to the cruise port, so even though it’s a drive in from Amsterdam, it’s easy for cruising.

Something strange – we seem to have encountered more than our fair share of weird uncomfortable chairs. They were high stools at Wolfgang Puck’s in DFW, but the table was also too high, so we felt like children at the adult table. The banquette at the Doubletree breakfast had so many pillows on it, you almost had to sit on one to have room to sit. And to be honest, we found very few chairs on the Rotterdam that could be easily moved while you were sitting in them. We struggled to pull them up to the table throughout the cruise.

The water on board the Rotterdam is in small cans with pop-tops. It’s hard to get the last of the water out of the can because of the shape. It’s also hard to take on excursions because once it’s open, you don’t have a way to reseal it. I ended up buying a screw-top can of water in Scotland (bottled from Loch Ness!) and refilling it with the pop-top cans on board for carrying ashore.

Always ask on board if you have a question! Prior to the cruise, I found an airport transfer excursion that included a city tour in Reykjavik but I couldn’t book it. We were too close to the cruise to cancel our original transfers online and I didn’t want to double pay for transfers. I stopped at the shore excursion desk and asked if it was possible to change to the excursion and have the original transfers refunded and she quickly made it happen for us!

I found not having sunset and sunrise made it a little harder to go to sleep at night. I love having the curtains pulled back, so when it doesn’t get dark, time slips away and suddenly it’s after 11pm.

We loved our introduction to cruising on Holland America and have booked another cruise with them next year!

Thanks for reading!

Trip Report Index

Thursday – Saturday, June 4-6, 2026 – Flight over and Rotterdam

Sunday June 7, 2026 – Embarkation day

Monday June 8, 2026 – Day at Sea

Tuesday June 9, 2026 – Invergorden, Scotland

Wednesday June 10, 2026 – Day at Sea

Thursday June 11, 2026 – Seydisfjördur, Iceland

Friday June 12, 2026 – Akureyri, Iceland

Saturday June 13, 2026 – ľsafjörður, Iceland

Sunday – Monday, June 14-15, 2026 – Reykjavik, Iceland and Helsinki, Finland