YouTube vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting their final days in Norway (their 95th country), travel logistics, and a long-haul flight home in Norwegian Premium. The video shows their aborted attempt to hike Pulpit Rock due to rain, booking flights (they saved $500 by using the Norwegian-language site/URL), a short domestic flight on a 737 Max 8, a seven-hour layover in Oslo using a lounge (American Express/Priority Pass), and an overnight Oslo–New York premium cabin experience (2-3-2 configuration) with complimentary drinks and a three-course boxed meal. The vlog also notes small on-trip details like parking cost, in-flight menu prices, and checked-bag/overweight charges encountered at the gate.
Questions this video answers
October 28, 2019
95th country
$25
$500
Boeing 737 Max 8
Chapters
If you missed our last video, we are currently in our 95th country of Norway. It's been an incredible trip, but we think we've saved the best for last. Pulpit Rock is probably the most popular hike in the entire country, so we woke up bright and early to hopefully beat the crowds to this incredible viewpoint of the Norwegian fjords.
Good morning.
Thank you.
I'm so not a morning person.
It's already raining. Not off to a good start.
It's gonna be so worth it. Everyone said, don't come in the fall, and we didn't list.
Huh.
Does that say $25 for parking? Does it?
Mmm.
Still waiting. How long do we wait?
I feel like I can't think straight until it's light outside. When does the sun come up?
An hour and 40 minutes.
Well, we had already packed up all of our stuff and moved out of this Airbnb, but an hour later, we're back. We're gonna attempt to wait out the rain.
Still po.
Ah. Oh, wow. We definitely made the right decision. It's been five hours since we got back to our Airbnb, and it is still pouring. Can you imagine if we were in the mountains right now?
I would be so mad at you.
Oh, my goodness. Get a car.
I'm just cracking up at the thought of us being on a hike right now.
That may have ended our marriage if I would have forced this hike. We made a good decision this morning. It was a sad decision, but it was the right decision.
Well said, brother.
Okay.
What was that? You can't kiss your brother now. This is getting weird.
Unfortunately, that brought our trip here to Norway to a pretty abrupt ending. We are currently in the Stavanger airport, and we are about to board our first flight of the day for Oslo. But before we do, the craziest thing happened when we were booking these flights.
Earlier this morning, I got on the computer to book these flights, and then I got distracted. I ended up not doing it. An hour later, I sat down to book the same flights, and they were so much more expensive. And I had always heard that, like, airlines might, like, track your activity somehow, and then they know you want that flight, so they're gonna. I've never really believed it. So I was playing around with the site in, like, an incognito window and a different browser, trying to figure out if it was, like, tracking me or something. But it turns out that the US version of the Norwegian website is charging 500 extra dollars for the exact same flight. I had the Norwegian version pulled up, and it's the Same cheap flight I saw this morning. I literally have the exact same flight pulled up in two different tabs.
This is crazy. The problem is, for some reason Google won't let me translate it and so.
If you or someone in your immediate family falls ill, you can cancel your ticket. This is so fun.
Alright, confirm if this works. Here we go. What's that say? Did it work?
Your reservation is confirmed.
No way. Absolutely crazy.
That is so wrong.
Long story short, the English version of the website was charging 500 more dollars for the exact same tickets by getting on the Norwegian website. Literally just a URL change, I saved $500. I've literally booked hundreds of flights in the last few years. How many times have I have I paid way too much?
Super quick flight to Oslo.
We survived our first flight on a 737 Max 8 after the crashes. Thankfully we didn't realize until about halfway through the flight that we were on that plane.
So we booked the flight with a seven hour layover in Oslo because it was the cheapest. But we're being honest, we probably would have booked this one anyways because now we get to go to the lounge for the next seven hours to work with free food and drinks.
So the Oslo airport doesn't have a lot of lounge options. So we just came to the only priority pass lounge that we had access to. And once we got in here we saw a sign that said business class section. And apparently our American Express Platinum card gets us access to the business side. Okay, pretty much the exact same. It's just a little prettier in here and very quiet, very excited to be here for seven hours.
Well, had a salad, there was waffles and I went with a salad. I'm not saying I'm going to be able to resist the temptation for the next seven hours, but we're off to a good start.
As usual, our time in the lounge went by way too quickly and we're very sad to leave. But at the same time, we are extra excited about the sleep flight.
Since we saved so much money on this flight, we have decided to upgrade ourselves to the premium cabin.
Since we booked these flights super last minute, the cost of premium wasn't that much more than economy. And I did a lot of research trying to figure out if it was worth the extra money. And ultimately what I learned was if we go in expecting business class, we're going to be really disappointed. But if we have our standard set somewhere around like economy plus on other airlines, then maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.
Okay. My expectations Are lowered. I'm not excited. It's just gonna be a normal flight.
Okay, first impression, we have a ton of space. Like I can straighten my legs all the way. This is crazy. I cannot believe how much room that we have. The actual seat seem a little aged. There's no screen on the headrest. You have to like pull out the screen. But that's okay. I have some nice blank. We got welcome drinks, which is just water, orange juice or apple juice. They offered us some headphones, but we already have some so we turned them down. I think my favorite part are the windows. They're like the new pretty windows that don't have shades. I feel like we have the whole cabin to ourselves. This is great.
So the thing that made me ultimately pull the trigger on booking premium was the cabin configuration. The Premium cabin is a 2, 3, 2 configuration. So we were guaranteed to have this row all to ourselves. And I'll say, say just between having this road to ourselves and all the leg room that we have, I think it's already totally worth it. But Norwegian is a low cost carrier, so everybody flying in economy is going to have to pay for water, they're going to have to pay for food. Whereas up here we have a three course meal included as well as free drinks throughout the whole flight. This is nice. Hi.
We are approaching our departure time and in about 10 minutes I can tell you everybody on board.
Okay, this screen is really.
This is probably what I've been looking forward to most. You can order your food and drinks from the screen. So they have what they call snack bar. They brought all the drinks. And because we're in premium, we have free beer, free wine, free water, juice. Looks like the liquors are the only thing they charge. Snacks, $8 for a sandwich, $5 for $5 for a bowl of ramen, $10 for a salad. I think that we can bring his food this time for you.
I did not eat enough in the lounge to last us his eight hour flight. I hope they're bringing this more food.
To be fair, we could have sat in a con. We could have ordered everything on the entire menu and it still would have been cheaper than sitting in premium. Is it worth it to fly premium, like for the money? Like you can dump it out for eight hours and you can save $200. That's probably the right decision. But if you're like us and you.
As an experience and something to be enjoyed. But like in that case, maybe it's. That's how I'm justifying it to myself.
Dinner is served in this big fancy box. I already had a little bit of the bread. From the looks of. Seems like more of an economy style meal. We do get three courses. They're just all at the same time. Chicken looks nice.
Look.
All right.
This is definitely not iconic.
Please remember to take all your personal belongings with you. We would like to remind you that.
Smoking and use of electronic cigarettes.
Not perfect.
We made it. Our bodies think it's 4am but we made it. Was it worth premium? Yeah, it was a pretty good point.
Yeah.
I was just filling up my water bottle and the lady next to me was like going through her bag and, like, kind of anxious about something. And I was just kind of like, are you okay? And she was like, well, I left my passport with them at the gate because they're weighing everyone's bag and charging 75 if you're overweight. So we need to go through our bags right now and take out all the heavy stuff and put it in our pockets.
What do you. What do you have in your pockets right now? Everything. All the drone batteries. All this day. Watch the batteries. I didn't wear pants.
Hi.
I love him. That was for sure. He was gonna tell me no more filming on this flight. Not saying it's not gonna happen. That I'm just not. I think it's not.
