On Thursday night I booked my hotel for Helsinki. I normally book hotels at this last minute. First, it limits my options if not many hotels are available – making my decision easier. Second, it allows me to receive good deals if the hotels discount their rooms since nobody will be staying in them. Third, if I change my plans I do not need to cancel one hotel room and rebook.

I made a reservation at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel. The rate was 67.20 euros per night which was not much more than the hostels I considered.

I had originally booked the 10:20 am flight from London Heathrow to Helsinki rather than the earlier flight because, as I wrote in a prior post, I was unaware whether Fulham or Everton would be home on Thursday night in a Europa League match. However, it was a good decision as the London underground would not have gotten me to the earlier flight on time. The tube does not open until 5:45 am so I would have needed to determine another way to get to Heathrow.

Instead I left Big Chris’ house around 7:45 am and was at Heathrow at 9:00 am. My only concern with the flight was that if it was late I might miss some of the Florida Panthers and Chicago Blackhawks game I was planning to attend Friday night. The puck dropped at 7 pm so there was not much wiggle room with my schedule.

The flight took off on time (10:20 am) and landed on time (3:15 pm). FinnAir runs a shuttle from the airport to the Helsinki train station for 5.90 euros. It runs frequently and is a convenient way to get from the airport to downtown Helsinki.