Day 8 - Disembark in Basel, Switzerland

This morning we had to be off the ship by 4:20am for a transfer to the Basel airport for a 7am flight to London. The galley prepared a nice, hot buffet breakfast in Aquavit Terrace that we enjoyed before disembarking the vessel. We boarded the motor coach for the 15 minute drive to the airport.

Boarding the motor coach at 4:20am

When we arrived at the airport, we learned that our flight to London had been delayed for four hours. Our 7am departure was now bumped to 11am. The delay was due to a sick pilot who could not fly that morning. British Airways was having to fly another pilot in from London for our flight.

This delay meant that we were going to miss our 10:45am flight connection on American Airlines to DFW. BA said they would re-book us, but we never heard back from BA. So, after contacting the Platinum desk at American, we were rebooked on a 3pm BA flight from LHR to DFW. Unfortunately, we were downgraded from Premium Economy to Economy on the LHR-DFW flight. American Airlines did refund a portion of the ticket price to us due to the downgrade.

Not happy about being downgraded to Economy

We had booked our own air through American Airlines and this experience, once again, emphasized the value of booking your air through the cruise line or a travel agent.