Looking back, the ordeal of returning home seems to exist as its own story, separate from the recollections of our fabulous cruise, and that's the way I'd like to keep it.

The return home started off well enough: a uneventful bus ride from the pier to Kastrop airport, and then check-in. The place was crazy busy, as a couple of large flights had just arrived, and arrivals and departures are all on the same level. It seemed like the agent at the SAS check-in desk took an inordinately long time to process us (perhaps a harbinger of things to come). Then we wound our way to the gate, a crowded room separate from the main concourse, and waited for boarding. The gate attendant basically said there was zero chance of a seat upgrade to SAS Plus, regardless that we had spent a good deal of money several months in advance for that possibility. This is one of the reasons that we really disliked SAS. On a domestic airline, say United (since that's the one we use almost exclusively), you book a flight on-line and select your seat, and if there's an up-charge for that seat the cost is simply added to your fare at booking. SAS farms out their seat-upgrade process to a third party called Optiontown. You pay them several hundred dollars up front for the privelege of even being considered for an upgrade, but the final seat assignments are done by the agent at the gate, and the selection criteria is unfathomable to the passenger. The system is positively medieval. Anyway, Jill and Mark ended up in the next-to-last seats on the port side, where the fuselage begins to taper so there are only two seats at the window instead of three, and not nearly enough leg room for six-footers. Lauri had been seated nearby, but was rudely informed by the flight attendant that she'd been swapped with someone farther forward so that a family could sit together. (What about our family?) At least legroom isn't a concern for her.

We toughed it out for the 8-hour flight to Dulles, wistfully reminiscing of our First Class seats on the Continental 777 during our return from Rome in 2008. Once we landed in Dulles, things went downhill. Our SAS agent had not processed all of us through to Houston, as Jill and Mark found out when they were directed to the 'final destination' shuttle and not the 'connecting flights' shuttle as we disembarked the plane. (Dulles uses mobile lounges instead of jetways to ferry people between the terminal and wide-bodied aircraft.) They had to return to the ticketing counter to get things straightened out, plus had to recheck a couple of the suitcases. That delay would have put them at the Houston gate after boarding commenced, except that the flight was delayed 30 minutes due a to a maintenance issue. And then it was delayed again. Listening to the PA, we could tell that ours wasn't the only outbound flight with mechanical problems; a jet to Paris was also delayed. United eventually moved us to a different gate, but while en route we heard the PA system announce that the Paris-bound flight was now reassigned to the gate we just left. That did not give us any warm feelings. The PA continued to spew occasional updates, if you can call them that, and the waiting horde started to get cranky. Mark sprawled out on a section of seats with no armrests because he was too tired to sit up, and everyone waited for the one PA announcement that would bring real news. Finally, United announced the cancellation of the flight, which meant that something could now happen. We trudged down the concourse to the Customer Service desk, and filed through the lines while agents rebooked us on a morning flight and assigned hotel vouchers. Meanwhile, the airport was shutting down for the night, so there was no way even to get a cup of coffee. Lauri and Mark were among the last to be processed. From there to a waiting vehicle. Or vehicles, as Jill was booked at a different hotel because she had an early flight out of Reagan National in order to connect to her original Houston-to-Seattle flight. There we parted ways. Lauri and Mark rode their van to Lansdowne in Virginia, and managed to prop each other up in the line at the registration desk until rooms were assigned and keys handed out. Fortunately, we were in the first of two vans so were in the front half of the line. Then up to the rooms to catch what sleep we could before an early wake-up call. Still, even a few hours helped.

We took advantage of the hotel's breakfast buffet. It certainly wasn't covered by the meager $7 meal voucher from United, but we didn't care. Being greeted with honest-to-God iced tea and pans of biscuits and gravy confirmed that we were indeed back in the US, and it was the first time—maybe the only time—in our trip home that we felt things were going our way. Although we'd been told our hotel had a free airport shuttle, that was only true to Dulles, not Reagan, so I had to spring for cab fare on top of everything else. Our taxi (a Lincoln Town Car) arrived on time, and we settled in for a comfortable ride east to Reagan airport with the sun coming up ahead of us. The cabbie detoured just a bit to take advantage of the access road between Dulles and Reagan which is not open to normal traffic. Got brief glimpses of DC across the river as we passed the Pentagon and arrived at the airport. Our frustrations were not yet over, as Lauri received conflicting information from TSA agents that almost got her in trouble. My boarding pass was stamped TSA-Pre, but since we were traveling together, the first agent sent us both down the Pre security line. Whereupon the agent farther down the line demanded that Lauri leave the line at once and use the regular line, and wouldn't even let her inform me of the change, even though I was still within earshot. So I lost sight of her for a while and didn't know where she had gone. That was compounded by the fact that, coming back from Europe, the seams on Lauri's carry-on had given up the ghost, and she had to carry it with both hands in front of her to keep things from falling out, which made extra walking around that much more troublesome. Eventually, we boarded our flight and had an uneventful, if uncomfortable, flight to Houston on a United A319. Why does Airbus make their seat cushions so hard and small? And why is there no room to stash even a small water bottle in the seat back in front of you?

Meanwhile, Jill's car had taken her to a hotel near Reagan, a longer drive than the van to Lansdowne, so she didn't get checked in until at least 1 a.m., but received really nice service from the staff. She caught an early hotel shuttle to the airport, and cashed in a meal voucher for breakfast at McDonalds. Her flight to IAH was without incident. Somewhere along the way she learned that our bags had actually flown to Houston ahead of us—on which plane, I wonder?—and she passed that info on to Lauri after verifying that all our luggage was accounted for. She spent her second voucher for lunch before boarding her Seattle flight, which was also without incident.

We arrived in Houston and headed directly to the unclaimed baggage area. Found our suitcases (although one was tagged with Jill's name, thanks to SAS), and then departed the airport, where Bill picked us up and brought us home.

In retrospect, I find a few lessons learned that we can take away from the experience:

• We refuse to fly SAS again, thanks to archaic reservations systems, uncomfortable planes, rude flight attendants, and ticketing agents who can't get seem to get even the littlest details right. For this particular cruise, we let Holland America select the flights, unlike the 2008 European cruise where we handled the airline reservations ourselves. We said we'd never do that again, but we've since learned that it's possible to book air travel through the cruise line while still selecting the itinerary, airlines, and fare class.
• Speaking of fare class, it is worth the extra expense to book Business First (or whatever that particular airline calls their upgraded seating) for transatlantic flights. Sitting in economy class to cross the pond is no way to spend your vacation time.
• Speaking of flying across the pond, we now know that for those trips where you face the possibility of overnighting without your luggage, it's a good idea to pack a change of clothes in your carry-on, at the very least underwear, socks and a tee. They don't take up much space, and there's a big difference between arriving at your destination in fresh clothes vs those you've had on for 36 hours.
• We determined that it's not necessary for us to meet up before flying to our cruise embarkation port if we start from different cities. Certainly it was nice to all be together on the same plane to Copenhagen, but on the return, it would have been much more convenient and practical for Jill to have flown from Dulles directly to Sea-Tac.
• I don't fault United Airlines for having maintenance issues with our plane, nor for reassigning the repaired aircraft to the Paris flight. (I understand the logic of giving priority to the transatlantic route over the domestic one.) But where United totally screwed the pooch was waiting way too long to officially cancel our flight. They should have called it at 8 pm, when there was still time to get everyone into a hotel room for a good night's sleep while they were still coherent.