Today is the dreaded Disembarkation Day, and the always tiring travel home day.
The alarm went off at 5:30 AM, and I got up and showered and dressed. We had found out that the coffee bar on Deck 1 was scheduled to open early this morning, so I headed down there at about 5:40 AM to get some fresh made coffee and a raspberry croissant. There were a few other people already there, and it was taking the barista a long time to make the coffee’s for those ahead of me. He had a helper, but the helper was trying to figure out which placards describing the pastries went with which pastries. It was a little comical, apparently, he had no idea at all which descriptions went to which pastry.
I knew room service was scheduled for 6:00 AM, and was concerned Stephanie may be in the shower when they showed up, so I gave up on the fresh brewed coffee, and was just going to have the coffee that came with the room service, as well as the blueberry muffin we had ordered.
I got back to the room a coupe of minutes before 6:00 AM, only to find Stephanie was still laying in the bed, and not yet showering. OK, I could have waited for the fresh coffee……
Stephanie got up and was getting ready to take her shower when room service arrived, just a little past 6:00 AM. They were always punctual before, and today was no exception.
After Stephanie was ready, we ate the breakfast, which was good. Along with my muffin, we had ordered plain croissants for Stephanie. Stephanie had one of her two remaining Diet Cokes with her breakfast while I had the room service coffee.
We were all dressed, fed and packed by about 6:40 AM, and ready to leave the cabin once our time slot of 7:15 arrived. We were surprised at the number of ships in port today being a Thursday. There were at least six other ships in port, and some were still arriving. I guess all of the cruise lines have a Christmas Cruise on their schedule, and were slated to have those passengers arrive a day before Christmas Eve, and that was why there were so many ships in port this morning. What this really meant was that the airport was really going to be crowded with all of the passengers heading home and all of the new passengers arriving.
Yesterday, the Captain had said that the Harbor Pilot would be onboard by 4:30 AM, but when I had gotten up at 5:30 AM, we were still in the process of docking, which seemed late, and apparently was. We knew the crew was scheduled for Immigration at 6:00 AM, and that would need to be completed before the ship was cleared for us to disembark.
At 7:05 AM, we headed out and down to the meeting area in the Atrium. There were two groups scheduled for 7:00 AM ahead of us, and two groups at 7:15, including ours. When we got to the Atrium on Deck 2, there was quite a crowd gathered and we learned that the ship was not yet cleared to disembark passengers. Now it was becoming a mess. There was not a lot of space on Deck 2, and now there were four groups waiting, and more scheduled to be there at 7:30 AM. Everyone was getting restless, and they were not making any announcements giving any progress updates.
Our plan was to try and get to the Ft. Lauderdale Airport as quickly as possible, hoping to try and get our flight departure time moved up to the 10:15AM flight to Charlotte. If we could get that flight and the connecting flight to Columbia, we would get home by 3:30 PM instead of 7:30 PM. Our reservation was for a 1:10 PM flight, and that did not get us home until 7:30 PM. We could see online that there were just a few seats available on the earlier flight, but were not willing to make the change until we got to the airport and knew we could make the earlier flight.
At about 7:35 AM, the ship was finally cleared and disembarkation started. Luckily, we were at the front of the disorganized line/mass of people now congregating on Deck 2, and we were near the exit. We were cleared through security and off the ship in about 5 minutes. We headed out the passageway and into the terminal, and then proceeded to go down an escalator to the baggage staging area. We were designated as Green 3, and so we headed over to the Green 3 designated baggage area and found our one remaining suitcase.
With our bags in tow, we went over to immigration and custom’s. There was only one agent working the immigration counter, but luckily, there were just a few people ahead of us. I had already filed our Custom’s Form though the Custom’s App on my phone while we were still in the room this morning, but the immigration agent did not seem to care about that when I asked. He scanned our passports and took a photo for facial recognition verification, and immigration was completed. I asked about the Customs form, and the QCR code I had on my phone, but he did not need any of that. We though the next step would be customs, but when we got around the wall in the hallway, all we saw was the exit out of the terminal.
We were directed to our Viking arranged Green 3 bus transfer to the Ft. Lauderdale Airport, and we boarded. Then, the waiting began. The buses at the terminal were all arranged according to their designated color and number, and Green 1 and 2 were ahead of our Green 3 bus. We were the first people on the Green 3 bus and we sat in the second row from the front. I told Stephanie that maybe we needed to be a little farther back, the front rows are usually “reserved” for mobility impaired passengers, but we did not move.
We were on the bus waiting for the rest of the passengers for Green 3 for almost 45 minutes. In the meantime, as I had anticipated, there were quite a few people boarding that really needed to sit near the front. Eventually, we got up and made room for people who needed our forward seats, and headed to the rear of the bus. It was actually better in the rear, we were now more separated from people. We were surprised how many people that got on the bus were coughing and sneezing. We knew that a lot of people had gotten colds on the cruise, we had seen a lot of people coughing during the cruise. So far, we had lucked out, but now we were worried about catching something sitting on the cramped bus for so long around so many people that were coughing.
As is usually the case, we were apparently now waiting on just one remaining passenger to board before we could head to the airport. Finally, the last passenger arrived after we had waited at least 15 more minutes from the time the last people boarded before her. Obviously, this person had not ever intended to be on time, and now everyone else was having to wait for her. People are just so irresponsible and selfish at times.
The bus driver was giving us some instructions on what stops at the airport were for which airlines when someone yelled out that they could not hear, in a very rude manner. It was the lady that had boarded last that we had all waited on, go figure, rude and selfish.
We finally headed to the airport, which was only about a ten minute drive away. We stropped first for a few people to get off for the rental car area, and then headed to the one stop for buses to drop off passengers between the two terminals. When we arrived, the bus drop off parking was full, and we had to circle around the whole terminal again. We were able to get a parking spot the second time around and pulled in. The bus driver told everyone to stay seated on the bus while he unloaded the luggage from under the bus. That took quite a while since he had to unload it all by himself, and the bus was almost full.
We were finally able to get off the bus, found our suitcases outside the bus, and headed to the Terminal for American Airlines. It was now about 9:15 AM, and it had already taken two hours from the time we left the room until we arrived at the airport located just ten minutes away from the cruise terminal. It was now looking just about impossible for us to make the earlier flight. It was just an hour until that departure, and we had not yet checked our bags or gone through security. It was a terrible exercise in patience, and we were failing.
We headed inside the terminal and used the restroom. Afterward, we could not locate the ticket desk on the ground floor. Apparently, all of the ticket counters are on the second floor at this airport, and we only saw escalators coming down in the middle of the terminal. There was an up escalator at the far end of the ground floor, and we took that upstairs and then had to walk to the other end, back from the directions we entered the terminal, to get to the American Airlines desk. When we arrived at the ticket desk, we saw that there was another escalator at that end of the terminal, we had just missed it when we had headed to the restrooms, apparently passing right by it.
We got in line to check in, we bypassed the kiosks for electronic check in because we knew we might have issues trying to get our bags checked for free. We had gotten an American Airlines credit card for another trip to get free bags and a $400 credit as perks for that trip’s flight. Since we had booked these flights through Viking, we had not used the credit card to purchase these flights, so we needed to request that the bag charges be waives as credit card holders. It only worked for Stephanie’s bag since she was the primary card holder. When we upgraded our flights to Barcelona on Delts, we had to split the Delta reservation so we could each use our miles for the upgrade. However, that had resulted in a split of our return flights also, and the agent was telling us since they were not on the same reservation, my bag would still cost $30.00. We tried to get it waived, but she would not make it happen, so we paid for my checked bag and got our boarding passes. I had an inkling this might happen, which was why we needed to check in with an agent. It still took some intervention on the agent’s part to even get Stephanie’s bag fee waived.
We did not even try to see if we could get on the earlier flight, by this time it was only about 40 minutes from departure, and we still needed to get through security and get to the gate. There had only been a few seats available on that flight when we looked early this morning, and with the crowds at the airport this morning, I just though that those seats would have already been filled this close to departure.
We learned a valuable lesson, we will NEVER ride a transfer bus to the airport again unless we can get on the very first bus, and than maybe not even then. We could have just taken a taxi and been better off mentally, and gotten to the airport earlier to have a chance at getting on the earlier flight. I was more upset with Viking for having changed our flights in the beginning, we could easily have made an 11:15 flight, even with the delays. In hindsight, after these flights were ticketed, we should have tried to change them directly with American, Viking would not have been involved after the flights were ticketed 90 days ahead of the flights. We had done the upgrade with Delta on our own, and should have looked at rescheduling these return flights with American on our own.
The line for security was not that long even though the airport was crowded. Stephanie had to be patted down for some reason, and then the Christmas tree we had purchased in Barcelona had to be swabbed and checked for possible explosives due to whatever material was in the pot holding the base of the tree.
After security, we headed out to our gate and it was packed with people waiting on the earlier 10:15 AM flight to Charlotte. Apparently it had been delayed on departure due to weather in Charlotte. We did see some other passengers we recognized from the cruise waiting in line to board, they had somehow managed to get on that earlier flight, maybe they booked it themselves or were smart enough to get it changed, which did not make me any happier, we obviously could have made it happen too.
Now we had about three hours to wait in a very crowded airport. We headed back toward the terminal and found a gate without many people sitting at it. We happened to see Shawn and Julian in the terminal, they were waiting on their flight home to Arlington, Texas, which was leaving a little after ours. At least they have a direct flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport and will be home long before we are this afternoon.
We got a bite to eat at a bagel/coffee shop and impatiently waited for our flight. The plane we are flying to Charlotte on is coming from there, it is probably the same airplane that was used on the 10:15 AM flight. Our plane was showing a slight delay in arriving, it had been delayed departing from Charlotte, apparently they were still having some weather issues just like earlier this morning. Luckily (ha ha), we have a three hour layover in Charlotte, so the delay was not bothering us other than we would rather be in the Charlotte Airport than here in Ft. Lauderdale with all of the crowds.
Our plane finally arrived and after it was cleaned, we boarded. Of course, the flight was full, but at least the plane was fairly new, and we were in Boarding Group 5, which was about half way through the boarding process, so we were able to get overhead bin space without any issue.
This was the first flight we have been on in a while that had the entertainment system set up on Wi-Fi to stream to your own device. All we had were our phones to watch movies on, but we could also use our Beats Pro Earbuds for listening to the audio with noise cancellation on.
We both watched movies, for the duration of the flight. We were surprised that there was no beverage service on the flight since it was about two hours in duration. It was not rough, so we don’t really know why. Maybe they were expecting more turbulence since the weather was not that good in Charlotte, and the pilots had suspended the beverage service in anticipation of more turbulence.
The flight was uneventful, but as we approached Charlotte, it was really foggy and the visibility ceiling at the airport was pretty low, we were almost landing before we actually saw the ground.
We got off of the plane and saw that the Charlotte Airport was just as crowded as the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. I guess it is the holidays. We needed to get something for a late lunch/early dinner, and decided on Taquerria, a Mexican Restaurant we have eaten at before in the Charlotte Airport. We had to wait a few minutes for a table, but got a table for two next to the wall, It appeared that the tables were spread out more than normal for social distancing. We were actually surprised that there were quite a few people in the airports today wearing masks. We had ours, but no one on our first flight near us was coughing, so we had not worn them on the plane.
We ordered two large Dos Eques Beers, an order of chips and salsa, and one chicken/cheese quesadilla to split. Everything was pretty good. We ordered another round of beers and enjoyed relaxing at the table. The relaxation quickly ended when we got the bill. Of course, we expected airport prices, but were a little shocked that the beers were almost $12.00 each, ouch. With tip, the “snack” we had was $95.00. Talk about inflation…….
We headed out to our gate in the E Terminal, which is quite a distance out from the main area in the airport. The E Terminal is specifically set up for the smaller regional jets, and is quite long. At least it was not very crowded as compared to the main terminal area. We found some seats at a charging station and charged our phone batteries, which had run down while watching the movies on the earlier flight. We did not have easy access to our USB charging cords on that flight, they were in the overhead bin. We did not want to disturb the fellow passenger in the aisle seat to get them out of the overhead bin, so we were not able to charge the phones during that flight.
The plane for our flight home was originating in Roanoke, Virginia, and apparently, the weather there was not great because it was late departing from there, and late arriving in Charlotte. Luckily, it is small, so it was not hard to get it cleaned, and we were just a few minutes late leaving the gate after we boarded. We had to actually go outside and walk over to the pane and walk up an exterior ramp to board. It was cold and misty outside, but luckily, it was a short walk.
On this flight, we did wear our masks, there was a passenger in front of us that was trying to extract her lungs by coughing. We pointed our air vents forward to try and blow any germs away, and were glad we had our masks available to wear.
It was a short flight and we actually landed early, but there was not an attendant available at the gate, so we had to wait about 8-9 minutes until we could get off of the plane, great, more exposure to the cougher in front of us.
Once inside the terminal, we headed to baggage claim, first stopping off for a restroom break. We did not have to wait long before our suitcases came out on to the carousel, and we collected them. It was now time for us to use Uber for the first time to get home. We used the app hail a ride, and we happened to get a driver named Stephen, who had registered almost 3,000 Uber rides.
He was only a few minutes away, and we watched his arrival progress on the App. He arrived and loaded our suitcases into the trunk, which was barely big enough to hold them with some other items he already had in it. Luckily they fit.
He was really nice and we told him it was our first Uber. It was interesting that the route he took, which was apparently given to him through some type of Uber Navigation system, was much longer than the route we would have taken to get home. It was the most straightforward, but certainty not the shortest. The fee is based on their route, so maybe they don’t use the shortest one, who knows.
We arrived home and were glad the day’s travels were finally over. It was about 7:45 PM, and it had been a long day to go a relatively short distance to get home from the port in Ft. Lauderdale.
We headed inside and found Sophie, our cat. She was asleep on the couch and a little groggy. She finally realized who we were and was glad to see us. She was verry chatty and followed us all around the house as we settled in.
We went ahead and unloaded the suitcases, we needed a few items out of them for tonight, mainly our toiletries. We separated all of the clothing into piles for doing laundry, which will not start until tomorrow. We took showers to remove all of the travel grime, and settled in to relax with an adult beverage, finally being able to once again have a Seagram’s VO and Ginger Ale, with fresh home grown Key Limes.
There was a really bad winter storm arriving, but not until tomorrow, so we did not have to worry about getting the house ready for the super low temperatures forecasted for this area until tomorrow. Tomorrow night’s low is forecast to be 12 degrees F, maybe the lowest we have ever seen in our 10 years living here.
We were glad to be home.
We will be going through the posts and doing some proof reading, and usually doing some slight additions after having a chance to read them over and having more time for editing. We will add some photos to the posts and to the photo albums, although many of the sea day posts won’t have many photos, there was nothing much to take pictures of on those days.
We will be doing a couple of post trip write-ups, mainly about our experience on the Viking Ocean Cruise. This was our first chance to evaluate Viking as a cruise line, and we will be writing a post specific to out insights on the pluses and minuses we saw on this cruise with Viking.
For now, Bon Voyage!