PHOTOS: I’ve posted some of my photos on google photos.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gGrGhGB8A4kerZHAA
BACKGROUND: This trip was for me, my sister and her husband. I planned the trip to make things easy for my sister, who has some health issues that I have mentioned in previous trip reports. The ones that give her the most trouble when traveling are mobility issues (due to steel rods in her back from scoliosis surgery) and anxiety over the availability of toilets. That, plus the fact that I did not want to rent a car, made itinerary planning a little challenging. That being said, the itinerary I planned was perfect for us and this was a fabulous trip. We all fell in love with everything Iceland. Well, except maybe the prices. :-) More on late later.
FLIGHTS / AIRPORT EXPERINCE: We flew nonstop on Icelandair. We had the cheap seats, so food was not included. We preordered sandwiches and they were really good. They are very strict with luggage and were checking both at the check-in counter and at the gate. At O’Hare, they must have announced at least 30 times that you had to get a paper boarding pass from the airport. They would not accept passes printed at home or displayed on phones.
Thanks to mikliz97 on the forum, I knew to expect chaos with the boarding process. Preboarding is first and then it’s a free-for-all. So, we knew to line up early.
At O’Hare, I forgot to take off my money belt before going through security. It’s not the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time. I was so preoccupied with making sure my brother-in-law (BIL) had everything out his pockets that I completely forgot about it. No harm done, it’s just super embarrassing. I apologized a bunch of times.
When we landed at Keflavík airport, we were bused to the terminal building with what must have been 30 other flights as the passport control line was so long. You just never know how long that is going to take. The agent was nice, just asked how long we were staying. When I said a week in Reykjavik, she asked if we were staying in an apartment. She smiled when I said, no we have a hotel. She was probably thinking “suckers” as hotels are not cheap.
When departing the Keflavík airport in Iceland, they refused to let us check in with a person. So, we had to use the machines. I prefer to go to a person so I can find out early if there is an issue. Boy, did we have an issue this time. We printed out the boarding passes and I always use the flight aware app for gate info. as some airports do not post this info. early for some reason.
Everything was fine until we tried to board the plane. My sister and I got through the boarding gates, but not my BIL. Apparently, he was picked for the Secondary Security Screening Selection (SSSS) screening. If they had let us check in with a person, I’m sure they would have told us this. The SSSS was printed at the bottom of the boarding pass, but we didn’t notice this and wouldn’t have known where to go. So, they took my BIL away, while my sister and stood there in a panic, worried he wasn’t going to be back in time. My sister told me to get on the plane, but I wasn’t going to leave them behind. So, we waited, and waited, and waited. With minutes to spare, my BIL made it back and we were the last to bard the plane. That was a little too close for us, but it’s always nice to have an interesting story or two for the trip report. We will certainly be on the look out in the future for the SSSS on the boarding passes, but I don’t understand why we weren’t alerted sooner, either on the computer screen when we checked in, or one of the multiple times we had to insert the boarding passes as we moved through the airport.