We woke up early this morning to get ready for the 20 minute ride to the airport, and the tenuous process of checking in, checking in the luggage, and getting through security. Thinking it would be easy and quick at a nice small airport early in the morning, it was not. The problem was that everyone in line at 6:00 AM was there for our flight to Atlanta, and there was limited security personnel there to process us. Somehow, Stephanie was selected to go through something call the TSA Pre Screen, which apparently is a randomly selected process that actually makes the security process much quicker, no taking off shoes, no unloading the computer from the backpack, no lines, no waiting. It was somehow keyed into her boarding pass.
Meanwhile, I was not so lucky, still having to go through the slow line for the normal security screening process. Finally, with both of us through security, we went to the gate, and within about 30 minutes we were seated on our plane. The flight to Atlanta was uneventful, and after getting to our connecting flight gate, and then waiting about 45 minutes, we boarded the plane for the 3 hour, twenty minute flight to Roatan. We were able to see our luggage being loaded onto the airplane while we were sitting inside the plane at the gate, so we knew we would not have any luggage issues when we arrived in Roatan. We thought we were getting a meal on the flight, so we did not purchase any food in the Atlanta airport before boarding the flight to Roatan. Unfortunately, we were wrong, and had to buy a “snack box” on the flight. We had not eaten any breakfast earlier, and so we had to have something to go with our two adult beverages.
Flight to Roatan
It was a nice smooth flight, but the service for drinks was slow, for the entire flight duration of over three hours, they only made one round for refreshments.
We flew past the island of Roatan, and turned back around to head into the wind for landing at the single runway airport, right along the coast. Of course, there was no elevated walkway for getting into the terminal from the plane, we had to walk down stairs out on the tarmac, then across to the small terminal where everyone headed to be processed through Immigration and collect their luggage.
Flying Past The Airport
Once we retrieved our two checked bags, which for some reason did not come out anywhere close to being together. It actually gave us a scare, we thought all of the bags had already been placed on the luggage carousel, and knowing both bags had been loaded on the plane, we were a little worried that someone may have accidentally taken Stephanie’s bag.
Our Plane in Roatan
While I was looking through the large piles of luggage retrieved for some of the large resorts, Stephanie’s bag actually came out onto the belt. I was getting worried because I did not see it anywhere in the piles of luggage, and was unaware she had subsequently retrieved it on the other side of the carousel. I think we were a little gun shy after our recent experience with luggage in Barcelona. And worst of all, there is only one flight coming in from each airline, only on Saturday’s and Wednesday’s. We thought we may be facing a the possibility of having a missing bag that might not get here before next Wednesday.
The Gang With Luggage Loaded Into Our Rental Truck
With bags in hand, we went through the “customs” which consisted of all bags going through x-ray, and handing over a form we had filled out to the agent.
While we were doing this, we saw the American Airlines flight land, which was the airline that Beth and Ryan were on. Bryan and Ashley had been in Roatan since Wednesday, and had rented a small extended cab truck. They were inside the terminal when we got through Customs. We waited for Beth and Ryan to go through the same processing, and then we all headed to the parking lot to drive to the rental house.
We stopped at the local grocery store to pick up some supplies, and then headed to the old cruise terminal to pick up some adult beverages from the duty free liquor store. Unfortunately, there were no cruise ships in port until Monday, and so the store was closed.
Sun Setting Seen From Our Porch
We then went to the house and checked in, and then unloaded all of the luggage and supplies. After doing some unpacking, we headed out to the porch, and relaxed after a fairly long day of travel.
Sunset From The Porch
Our group headed to a nearby beachfront restaurant for a late lunch, and then back to relax on the porch with some refreshments.
We watched the Sunset, which was a little obstructed by some low clouds out on the horizon.
Later, we were thinking about heading to get some dinner when the power went out for the entire area. Luckily, there was a large hotel a couple of blocks up the beach that had a back-up generator. We headed over there and had some dinner out on the beach, which was really nice other than it was pretty windy, and sand was blowing around some and getting onto our food at times. Before we finished dinner, which took a while with service being on island time, the power came back on. Apparently, the power is an issue here, there were several battery powered lights in the house for such events.
We were all tired by this time, and after staggering our showers to conserve water pressure and hot water supply, we turned in for the night.