I packed for Copenhagen yesterday!!
We don’t leave until Wednesday night. 🤣 But I despise packing and am really quite bad at it, so lately I have been trying to pack EARLY to avoid last minute panicking. I have room to spare in both my carryon and my backpack (which is good, because not everything is in there yet- chargers, wallet, passports, etc.).
I pulled my maroon travel purse out for the pic, but that will lay on top before I close the suitcase up.
It is MUCH easier for me to pack for warmer weather trips versus trips where boots and sweaters are needed. Weather looks to be warm-ish with highs in the 60s-70s. Currently…. calling for sunshine!!! ☀️☀️☀️ Cross your fingers and toes that this forecast holds, please.
Of course, you never know with the weather, so I have a rain jacket packed and a couple sweatshirts and layering pieces. I believe Denmark is one of those places where it can sometimes “feel” colder than it really is? Someone can correct me if I’m wrong on that. 🙂
You know me, though. If I’m not worrying about the weather, I’ll find something else to fret about! 😉
Currently, I have 2 travel concerns:
1: Our layover
We only have a 1 hour 15 minute layover (in Reykjavik, Iceland!!!). Being another country and all, we’ll have to proceed through passport control before heading to our connecting flight. With an international layover, I really would have preferred at least 2 hours! But given the flights and prices and schedules etc, this is just how it worked out. If there’s any delay out of Chicago, we could have an issue!! Eek.
Oh well, nothing to do about it now. It is what it is. Aren’t Nordics known for being prompt?? Let’s hope the Icelandair folks get that plane in the air right on time. 😉
2: Our carry-ons
We all have standard Samsonite carry ons, the 22 x 9 size. These do not seem…. particularly large, at all.
However, I recently noticed that apparently Icelandair’s carry-on size requirement is 21.6 inches in length. (I vaguely remember checking the carry-on size when I booked the flight, but I think I glanced at the “21.6” and in my head I just rounded that up to 22 and figured, ok, yep, standard carry-on size.)
After consulting the internet (and Reddit threads), it seems the consensus on how strict they are is: Are you feeling lucky? 🤨
Many people report that they put everyone’s bags in those awful metal sizers at the gate and/or measure AND weigh them, strictly enforcing the size limit. 😳 Others, however, report a relaxed approach, with no checks and no issues at all taking a “slightly” larger bag.
Basically, it’s a crap shoot! Great.
Reports are also conflicting about what happens if your bags do not fit in the sizer. Many say they just gate check them (for free), with other people saying you might get charged (I think Icelandair might charge $100 for a bag each way?!). If the latter were true, we could be facing an unexpected $800 fee for all of us?? omg.
Currently not entirely sure what to do. We do not actually own any smaller carry-on size bags. (In fact, I just bought the new one, above!)
I did a quick glance on Amazon just to see what’s out there, and it doesn’t even seem that easy to find carry-on luggage in a 21.6x 7.5 inch size! I saw a couple small “backpack” style carry-ons that would work, but they look more meant for a weekend trip. Besides, I want to take a little backpack as my personal item, so I wanted a roller bag for my carryon…
My mom and I were talking yesterday, and we both agree- between increasing baggage fees, stricter luggage sizes, charging a small fortune to even choose your seat sometimes, the high cost for flights in general…. the travel industry is really sucking some of the fun out of traveling!!!
Anyway, I guess stay tuned…. lol.
*I AM excited to fly into Iceland, though, even if Icelandair is making my life difficult right now! Hoping we get some nice birds eyes views! Iceland is SUPER high on my list of places to go. Was just trying to convince Ivan the other day that maybe our next summer trip should be Iceland… we’ll see. 😉
Alright, off to enjoy the day! We have a gloriously open weekend here, which is a true gift pre-vacation! We calmly cleaned the house yesterday, ran a few errands, and I packed. Asher had lifeguard training for the summer pool and Ethan worked 4-9 pm. (Side note- he keeps coming home from Panera with armfuls of NOT HEALTHY treats… the other day they sent him home with a box of leftover brownies and sweets, and last night he came home with mac n cheese and a huge baguette!!! Um, we may need to put a stop to this…. dangerous…..)
Today my main goals are to do a massive EMAIL purge, go buy contact solution and package a return. And workout, and do some other misc. stuff, I’m sure!
I already spent 20 minutes reading the beginning of Meditations for Mortals outside with Charlie, which was extremely peaceful and enjoyable:
Now off to run Asher to another lifeguard training shift! Have a great Sunday. 💗
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for getting my trip things packed in advance, even if I maybe put them all into a slightly too-large suitcase…. 😫
GRATEFUL KAE 
I recently bought a new carryon for work as my 1999 HS graduation gift carryon was looking extremely shabby! I got a TravelPro one and noticed they had some branded as international carryons. I hope it all works out for you! Paying all those extra fees would suck! I’ll send all the good vibes that your bags go on the plane with no issues and the weather forecast holds!
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We’re still deciding what to do!! I did go ahead and order 4 of the small carryons I saw on Amazon, mostly bc if I didn’t order them right away they wouldn’t arrive by Tuesday! We can decide and always send them back if we decide to just go ahead with ours. Also, we realized our Osprey backpacks I think would fit, since they’re more “squishable”, especially if we had the boys use them and just not fill them up all the way. Since we only have one destination, I hadn’t wanted to lug the Ospreys around this trip, but might be an option. The Amazon carryons are Rockland brand (never heard of it) and probably not high quality, but for the price, it might be worth it at least for this trip! I think a lower quality bag wouldn’t be “as” big of a deal for a carryon- it’s more the checked suitcases that take a real beating! I suppose then we’d at least own smaller bags for if we do more inter-Europe travel in the future?
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there’s a strategy to this. Approach the gate looking as together as possible, everything neatly tucked away, like you’re not going to hold up the queue trying to get a too big bag in the overhead bin. They are looking for people with obviously too much stuff / overstuffed bags, not people a tiny bit over.
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This is great advice!! My only concern is that if they are flat out checking EVERYONE, then I think we’d be screwed. It sounds very hit or miss from the reports I’ve seen!! Argh!! I was so happy to have my new carryon and just a little black backpack for my personal item and was feeling so proud of fitting all my stuff in with some breathing room….We ordered some (cheap!) smaller bags that someone linked on Reddit that would comply- only $35 a piece, lol. Clearly not high quality but maybe good enough for very occasional use. It seems nearly impossible to even find the correct dimensions! Most of the nicer “small” carryons are still 9 inch depth, and Icelandair requires 7.8″!
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Please go to Iceland so I can copy your itinerary and do it with my own family a year or two later 🙂 🙂 (as I am currently doing in Costa Rica and having an AMAZING time!!).
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Oh yay!!!! I have been thinking of you! I actually pulled your email address up on Friday and was going to email you and see how your trip is going!!! But then I got interrupted and forgot later. 🤪 I need to hear all about it!! Email me when you get back! gratefulkae@gmail.com! (I think originally I emailed you from my work email but I can’t check that one on my phone 😉
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I will definitely email you details when we get home but in the meantime I have to comment publicly on your blog that everyone with teens and tweens should copy your CR itinerary and DO IT! I essentially did your entire Fortuna itinerary and stayed at the same resort and we LOVED everything. My kids say this is their favorite vacation ever.
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SO HAPPY to hear this! It always makes me a little nervous to give travel recs just because everyone has different opinions and travel styles, so I’m always aware that what WE might love might not necessarily work for everyone! I’m so relieved that you’re loving everything and the kids are having a blast!! Pura vida!! 😎
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I have flown Iceland Air and do remember having a hard time finding a bag size to fit. We did eventually and they are nice but definitely on the small size. I hope it works out! They did measure bags on our flight but it was several years ago.
We had a two day layover in Iceland and then went to Copenhagen in June as well. We loved Denmark! And had beautiful weather. The canals are great and we loved a little island with lots of food trucks and a Mikkeler beer.
Hope you have a great trip!
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Thanks for the tips! I’m super excited! I knew nothing of Denmark and to be honest raised my eyebrow a little when Ivan was insistent that he really wanted to go there. I was like… what’s even there?! haha. But now that I’ve researched more, it seems amazing!! I have a feeling we’re going to love it.
It was VERY hard to find smaller bags, but I found some last night on Amazon and ordered them. For the price, I doubt they’re super high quality, lol, but seem to have good reviews and would probably get the job done. They arrive tomorrow, so I guess we have a day or so to decide if we should use those or risk ours! So many reports do seem to indicate they check pretty often… though with our luck, we’ll use the little ones only to get there and find out that no one is checking the size that day. 🤪
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Yay that the trip is almost here! Gah that you have to fret about a potential $800 charge over 0.4″. I am sure that you will be in luck that day.
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I know, it’s so annoying! I was really excited to use my nice, new, green Samsonite! And it’s already packed! LOL. Now we ordered some smaller ones, just to at least get them here (they arrive tuesday), but are still debating….
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You know I’m so excited for you to go to Denmark. We went the end of August/early September. My parents had been there the same time the year before and it was hot. So I packed thinking it would be the same and it was freezing. I wore the same things on repeat over and over (we were there 3 weeks) and even had to buy some extra stuff. Ha. I usually find it’s easier to take off layers than it is to struggle through the cold, so you’re wise to go prepared.
It’s been years since we flew Iceland Air, but we didn’t have extra small carry-ons at all and made it fine. Sometimes it really does depend who the ticket agent is, but I think Coree’s advice is perfect. If you look like you’re expecting to march right on and be able to put it right in the overhead bin, I’m sure you’ll be less likely to be pulled aside.
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I’ve been watching the weather closely! Looks like they’ve had a cooler rainy snap this past week, but a sunny warm up looks to be on the horizon… hope it holds! It’s so much nicer to have WARM weather while wandering around European cities. 60s-70s is Ivan’s ideal- he also doesn’t like to be super hot…. ha. So hoping it will be “just right”. I would be very frustrated if it were somehow way colder than what I’m anticipating! I do have summer type tops along… but hoping I can just layer with hoodies and/or a light jacket. Decided to not pack dresses or sandals as even if it’s warm, I don’t think it will be THAT warm that I’d be hot in pants and sneakers!
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I would be quite stress out with the luggage size situation. I’m super risk averse so I’d either use a back pack or another luggage to avoid my own stress. But it’s mostly likely okay with a big smile.
Excited for your trip.
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I know!!! Ugh it’s stressful! I’m super annoyed. We did order 4 smaller suitcases last night. I was tempted to just use our regular ones and hope for the best, but I also really don’t want our bags checked (even if they would gate check them for free). With our short layover, it always makes me nervous that the bags somehow wouldn’t make the next flight and then we’d have a huge issue!! Probably best to just take the small ones and be safe
The whole thing makes me think of your situation with trying to get the cat crate for Cookie sorted out for your flight! haha.
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Never commented before but wanted to mention we are on the way home to the US from Oslo and are on Icelandic. Same size carry ons as you and I was a bit worried about the size although I knew we were OK with weight. Outbound it did seem to be a matter of which agent you encountered – we had to visit the check in desk for passports to be verified and our agent offered to check our bags for free, I saw other agents having people try to fit their bags into the boxes for checking. Heading out of Oslo, we headed straight to the gate with our carry ons. At the gate, I saw that agents were checking bags for free as long as you did it before the flight was boarding, so we went ahead (since I was afraid of having a problem with an agent measuring bags as we boarded which I saw them doing when we changed planes in Reykjavik). HTH, have a great time!
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Oh hi! Thanks so much for the comment! This is super helpful. It does seem to match some of the other reports I’ve seen, which is basically- it depends! Ugh. It does seem like we’d have a good chance of getting them checked for free, so that’s good. BUT, I’m not sure I want them checked at all, because we have a shorter layover and that always makes me nervous that maybe the bags won’t make the next flight… Hmm.
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to update – we did see some people getting stopped to get their bags checked boarding in Oslo but they had huge backpacks and they were told it was free. Passport control and security in Keflavík when you pass through are fast in my experience and the international terminal is not massive or super crowded – although today is a Monday. We had the same layover time as you in the way to Oslo and had not trouble making the connection. So you likely will be good with your carry ons in my opinion! Now I’ve got to mention they are very particular about your liquids fitting into a zippo’s back and being small sizes as I did see many people having larger tubes or products thrown out! And no I did not mean to type a zippos back it should have been ziplock bag but my phone is having fits connecting to the airport WiFi so I am just going to post this. Amd then read your London recap as my daughter is planing England and Scotland for our next trip.
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Hi Kae,
I believe I’ve flown Icelandair?… it’s a popular airline to DK. I also remember from DK that I was cold- but we were there in March. I am fretting about Turkish Airlines and Aeroflot – I have a carryon but who knows…
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Yes, I went back to your posts recently and remember I think your apartment hosts even loaned you a big long jacket! Haha! It doesn’t look that cold during our days- it’s showing highs in the upper 60s/low 70s and sunny! Hoping that holds.
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Every time I fly I think, “Remember when a plane flight used to feel luxurious?” HAHAHAHAHAHA. I agree, it’s just a never ending, uncomfortable hassle now. I would also be stressing about both those things… but, there’s nothing you can do about it. If you ran out to buy all new carryons you would also be spending money, so you might as well go with the flow. Everything will work out, SOMEHOW- you’ll end up in Copenhagen and have an amazing time. And oh yes- I’ll keep my fingers crossed on the weather! 60s and sunny sounds amazing.
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