This is the first in a series of blog posts documenting our 2023 summer holiday: a wonderful road-trip around Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
Day 1: July 24 2023
Today was the day we set off on our exciting journey across Scandinavia as we left Waddon and flew, via London Heathrow, to Billund in Denmark.
We weighed up all the options about how to get from our pocket of London to Heathrow and in the end decided to drive and leave our car with Maple Parking Meet and Greet, booked via Holiday Extras for about £150. Services like this come with pretty bad reputations but despite that we figured our 19 year old Focus would be safe enough. And thankfully it was.
We were flying to Billund because the starting point for our decision to go to Scandinavia for our holiday was to visit OG Legoland in Billund. So our round trip starts and ends in Billund – with Legoland as the grand finale.
We booked directly with British Airways at an average cost of £80 per person per flight including baggage. Helpfully British Airways made it easy to take our own car seats for the kids (which was one of the most persuasive arguments for taking our own car and leaving it at Heathrow rather than needing to hire seats from Avis).
Because we made the decision to do this holiday in early July we only booked the car 14 days before picking it up. And that might mean that the £40 per day was a little over the odds for 22 days. On top of that we upgraded to the full Roadside Assistance Plus package, and hired a ‘full tech package’ that gave us an additional device and localised MiFi which did come in handy (though we could probably have coped without).
The American Express lounge in Heathrow Terminal 3 was worth the wait for access and helped pass the time before we boarded our 1h 42m flight . The kids were well entertained watching The Lion Guard on their shared Kindle Fire and daisy-chainable headphones (this SIMOLIO double set was a good deal at £37 when we bought them).
Everything went smoothly at Billund – we retrieved our bags, the car seats and picked up our hire car. Through our Avis Preferred membership we had had a category upgrade and picked up the Red Ford Focus Hybrid Estate which was to be our trusty stead for the next few weeks.
And off we set from Billund to Copenhagen on the first leg of many miles, pylons and bridges.
In Copenhagen we had been slightly nervous about the cost of parking but were delighted to find that we arrived late enough that the cost was free. The experience of using the EasyPark app was an absolute delight so top marks to the ease and simplicity of that.
Our four nights in Copenhagen were spent staying Bed and Breakfast at Cabinn Scandinavia. It was a pretty no frills experience modelled on being aboard ship. Our room had 4 separate single bunks with Ezra sleeping way up close to the ceiling. The self-contained toilet/wet room wasn’t spacious but it was a clever use of space. It was clean and comfortable, the breakfast was solid, and really it was just what we needed for what worked out at around £110 per night.
