Introduction – Christmas in Norway 2019

We had already spent summer holiday in Norway this year (trip report here), and since it is far and expensive to travel there I was just planning on bringing the kids to Hong Kong for Christmas. However, I did put my leave dates into google flights and kept an eye on the price, and when I found some surprisingly cheap tickets with Emirates in business class I decided to bring them to Norway for Christmas, and hopefully see some snow :

• Introduction – Christmas is Norway 2019
• Emirates Boeing 777-300ER Clark – Dubai business class
• Stopover in Dubai at Le Meridien
• Emirates Boeing 777ER Dubai – Oslo business class
• Christmas holiday in Norway
• Radisson Blu, Gardermoen, Norway
• Emirates Boeing 777ER Oslo – Dubai business class
• Emirates Boeing 777ER Dubai – Cebu business class
• Emirates Boeing 777ER Cebu – Clark business class

As I said, I kept an eye on the prices on google flights for my leave dates over Christmas, but I also did notice that Emirates didn’t appear in the list most of the time, so I also kept an eye on their website, and suddenly one day I found tickets for a total of 37.000 HKD for the three of us, so I decided to book it.

The tickets were booked in the cheapest business class, business Special, so that means we would just get the flight itself, but were not entitled to lounge access or chauffeur service, which was fine by me. However, I was surprised to see on the manage booking page that we were offered a free hotel stopover in Dubai as our layover there going to Oslo was 6 hours and 35 minutes – We were supposed to arrive at 01:10 and depart at 07:45. I wasn’t sure if it would be worth doing the stopover, as immigration in Dubai can take a very long time, and with only a bit more than 6 hours there would not be much time for sleep, but I booked it anyways and decided to see on the day of travel if we would take it or not. Also, the booking didn’t specify what hotel it was, or even if it was airside or landside, as I would only get the voucher on check-in in Clark.

Also, on this tickets we are not allowed to choose seats, so I was wondering if we were going to be seated together or not…

Further, with the timings of our flights I decided to book one night at Radisson Blu, Gardermoen for our return leg. I booked the room through Agoda.com, and was charged 1603 NOK for a standard room for 3 people including breakfast.

I also decided that I was going to need a rental car while we were there, so after monitoring the prices at most rental places for a while, I decided to book a car in Group J (Volvo V40 or similar) for 7379 NOK for the 11 days we were there.

Anyways, with ticket booked I was ready for the Christmas holiday, and after I finished my nightshift I went straight to my first flight, Cebu Pacific 150, which departed at 09:20 and arrived in Clark at 11:30. As this was a very un-eventful flight and I have reviewed it before here, I will not do so this time.

After arriving in Clark I headed to my house, where I had a quick nap before we were picked up and heading towards the airport at 17:00,