Well, the cruise is finally over. We got up at 4:45 AM so that we could complete the last of our packing, eat some breakfast from the International Cafe, and be ready to get off the ship at our designated disembarkation time of 6:15 AM.
We are doing the “walk off” disembarkation, so it it always the first group to get off of the ship, soon after the ship docks. The ship docked on time at around 6:00 AM, and we could actually see us enter the port from our balcony. It had not taken us as long to get ready as we thought, so we had a few extra minutes before we needed to head to our designated dining room to wait for our scheduled time to get off of the ship.
We wanted to head down a little early, we had a few more bags than normal, and knew we needed extra space on the elevators. We actually got an elevator that was empty, so we headed down to Deck 5.
There was a line of people starting to form at the exit, but we bypassed the line and went to the designated holding area nearby. On past cruises, the staff had not allowed anyone to wait in line in the entry/exit areas, they were always told to go to the designated dining room to wait to be called. However, this time, the crew did not make the people in line move, so eventually, we left the dining room and got in line also, but were much farther back in the line than we would have been when we first got there, and decided to follow the rules.
It was a good move because once the line to get off the ship started moving, they would not let the “rule followers” out of the dining room until the line disappeared. It was unfortunate that they were punished for following the written instructions. I was just glad we had left the dining room when we did.
There is always a back-up getting from the level you are at in the terminal when disembarking the ship, to the bottom floor for Customs and Immigration. there is an escalator, but you can only ride it if you have a free hand to hold onto the rail. Otherwise, you have to wait in line to ride one of the two elevators. We had too many bags to qualify for the escalator, so we waited in line to ride the elevator.
There was not much of a line for Customs and Immigration, and this time, we went through without any issues or questions. we headed outside to wait for the shuttle to the airport to get our rental car from Hertz. We waited about twenty minutes, and someone else had called about the shuttle. They told everyone that the shuttle would not start until 8:00 PM, over an hour’s wait. I had asked the shuttle driver on the ride over at the beginning of the cruise and had been told the shuttle starts at 6:00 AM. Maybe there was a different schedule for Sunday.
We decided to go ahead and take a taxi to the airport to save time since we had a nine hour drive home. We waited in a short line for about ten minutes, and got into a taxi and headed for the airport rental car terminal. The fare was only $12.00 plus a little tip for handling the baggage. We had had trouble with shuttles in the past, so I think now we will just get a taxi if we need to get to the airport and just skip the shuttle and the delays. We had already wasted about 35 minutes.
When we got to Hertz, we asked about the shuttle and the representative did not know anything about the airport shuttle schedule from the port. Apparently they have their own shuttle, and it will meet you at the port if you request that, which was news to me.
We got our rental car and were on the road by about 7:30 AM. The drive was nice, traffic in south Florida was light since it was Sunday. The only issues we had was the traffic in South Carolina. Interstate 95 was closed at Interstate 26 due to the flooding, and all of the I-95 traffic had to merge and exit onto I-26, which was our normal route. It only took us about eight minutes to make the merge and get onto I-26, and the traffic was moving smoothly. However, in about ten miles it started to back up. We some some electronic signs indicating there was an incident somewhere ahead, but there was nothing at the designated mile marker when we finally got there. Traffic began to move again, only to be stopped again in a few miles, this time due to a wreck we could see in the other direction. Once past that, the traffic move along at a good speed, but still less than the speed limit. We had a few other slow downs, but finally made it to Columbia. It had taken an extra hour to get from I-95 to Columbia with the traffic, but much worse since it was on the end of our nine hour drive, that turned into a little over ten hours.
We were glad to be home, and got a chance to see how high the lake was, even though it had already reseeded some from the peak.
The cruise had been fun, but we were ready to be home. of course, we will post some additional thoughts on the cruise in a subsequent Epilogue Post, and will add pictures to the existing posts, and to the photo albums.
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