2024 Crossroads of the Adriatic - Day #20 - To Carmichael

Day 18 Return to U.S. or begin post-trip extension

• Included Meals: Breakfast

Breakfast: Included at the hotel.

Morning: After breakfast, depart to the airport for your return flight home. Or, transfer to the airport and begin your post-trip extension to Serbia: Novi Sad & Belgrade.

We set our alarms for 3:50 am, but were up and moving about 3:30 am. We met the tour guide in the hotel lobby at 4:50 am. There were six of us going to the airport: Susan, Diane, Joan, Holly, Van, Sharon and I. OATS gave us a breakfast box.

Loading in a van, it took about 25 minutes to get to the small Ljubljana airport. Checking the bags went quickly. There was no one in line at security!

The six of us caught a 6:55 am flight to Frankfurt. It left a little early. We were on the ground in Frankfurt ahead of schedule at 8:15 am.

After taking a busfrom the plane to the terminal, it was about a twenty minute walk to the Z gates for our flight. We had a nice short two hour layover that went by quickly.

They loaded our flight to San Francisco about 15 minutes late. Holly, Van, Sharon and I all had premium economy seats. It was the same odd configuration that we had on the way over. The premium economy seats were sandwiched between two sections of economy seats. Holly and Van had the same exit row seats that we had before.

Like the way over, I was very disappointed with the premium economy service. Although they gave us a special menu with food and beverage options, I tried to order a drink and they didn't have any hard alcohol on the cart... United has much better service for their premium economy seats. I am going to try and avoid Lufthansa in the future.

With Sharon feeling under the weather, I let her have the aisle seat. Although I got restless during the 11 1/2 hour flight, it went fairly fast. I didn't sleep. I worked on my blog, finished my book (Chain Gang All-Stars) and listened to a Bill Simmons podcast.

We were on the ground on schedule about 12:50 pm. Using Global Entry, the four of us breezed through passport control. It took almost an hour for us to get our luggage.

Holly had arranged for El Dorado Express to pick us up. In the shuttle about 2:00 pm, we were home in Carmichael at 3:45 pm.

It was just about exactly 18 hours door to door. This is pretty quick. For comparison, coming home from the Scandinavian trip was about 25 hours door to door.

It was a great time. We are planning a couple of other trips with Holly and Van. Additionally, I am very interested in doing another Overseas Adventure Travel Trip. More thoughts on all of this in the future.