I’m putting this in IMHO, rather than Factual Questions, as I expect to elicit opinions and experiences, along with factual answers.
We have an overseas trip upcoming (US-Egypt), and the return flight we chose has a very long layover (in Vienna). We did this because the cost difference was worth it. We arrive in the early evening, and leave mid-morning the next day. Rather than remain in the airport and sleep on the benches, we would like to exit the airport and book a room at the airport hotel across the street. We understand that this would entail passing through customs/immigration, and that our checked bags would remain in the airline’s possession.
We don’t think there should be any problems, we would be able to show our airline tickets and hotel reservations to immigration.
Thoughts? Opinions? Experiences? Is this no-problem doable, or are there things we should be prepared for that I haven’t thought of?
It should not be any problem at all. Is it Moxy? Time-wise, treat it as an intl flight of course and make sure you’re back at the airport a minimum of 2-3 hours before your flight departs.
No facts or experiences, but if it were me, I’d be hoping for “early evening” to mean “enough time to get to an opera/a concert”. Might be unrealistic though, especially as I assume to see a top-class one, you’d have to book expensive, non-refundable tickets that you’re going to be annoyed about when the plane is late arriving. So perhaps just a short walk around the city admiring the architecture, before or after a good meal, would have to suffice (make sure you have plenty of warm clothes available if this is happening soon).
The bags don’t quite work that way.
I’ve never been to Vienna airport, but in the US , you must physically collect your bags at the carousel and take them with you through customs.(where theoretically you pay duty on that bottle of booze or gold bullion you are carrying) or even submit the bag to a search if the customs agent chooses to.)
And then you can return the bags to the airline-- at a different check-in location somewhere in the airport. But if your connecting flight is not the same day, you may have to wait till the next day to check in for that flight–so you might have to carry your bags to your hotel.
If you’re a US citizen, it just means you need a passport. If you’re not a US citizen, check the visa requirements for your country of citizenship.
But on the other hand, the EU allows transit without passing through customs or immigration.
I had a similarly long layover in London when flying home from Greece. When I checked my luggage in Greece the ticket agent asked my if I wanted to check it all the way to my final destination, or if I wanted to collect it in London. I chose to check them all the way to my destination. Admittedly my situation was a bit different, since this was pre-Brexit and I was arriving from another EU country, so no customs inspection would have been required in any case.
But, like I said before, the EU doesn’t require you to go through customs if you’re simply connecting onward to a third country. @Icarus may be planning on entering the EU, but the airline doesn’t know that (unless they tell them), so they wouldn’t even know they need to send the bags to the carousel. I suspect they’ll ask where they want to check their bags to, like they did for me.
And I see other people already answered those questions while I was typing my lengthy post.
Not a problem at all, provided you don’t need a visa - which as a US citizen you don’t need; a passport is enough, and the mandatory electronic pre-registration (“ETIAS”) hasn’t been introduced yet (but will probably come in late 2023). I’ve done something like that before, with an overnight stay in Dubai. It’s worth, however, to take a hotel close to the airport, preferably within walking distance or at least a shuttle bus run by the hotel; you don’t want to spend an hour the next morning just getting to the hotel.
