Today is the least fun day of any cruise vacation, having to leave and having to go through customs and immigration in a US port. Although we had set a wake up call for 5:30 AM, I was up at 5:00 AM and went ahead and showered. The ship was already at the pier and tied up. I woke Stephanie up at 5:30 AM, and then I went down to the International Cafe for our usual breakfast sandwiches. Our designated walk off time was at 6:30 AM, and we did not want to be in a rush to make that.
After we finished our breakfast and packed up our remaining items, we still had to do a little weight shifting to get the suitcases within the 50 pound limit. After a couple of attempts everything was at or very near to 50 pounds on our luggage scale. We made one last inspection for any overlooked items and left the cabin at 6:30 AM and headed to our designated waiting area, Club 6 on Deck 6. As usual, there was some confusion in the announcement information for the different groups and one of the earlier groups had to walk through our area from another waiting area adding to the confusion and congestion. At about 6:40 AM, our group was called and we disembarked the ship.
There was already quite a line at the customs and immigration processing area, partly being caused by half of the available customs agents being utilized to process the crew through immigration. Since the ship had been in Europe for the summer season, everyone on the ship had to be processed through immigration since they were back in US Port for the first time since leaving in the Spring.
It only took us about 30 minutes and we were through the customs and immigration. We had declared our cheese from Italy that we had been keeping in the refrigerator, but the officer never really even looked at the form. Stephanie had it in her backpack, ready for any inspections, but that also never happened. We did have to pass by a dog on the way out of the building, we were not sure what he was trained to smell, drugs or food items, but we were not stopped, and were out of the terminal without any problems.
There was a little bit of a line for a taxi to the airport, and there were just a couple of taxis arriving. All of a sudden the taxi’s started to arrive en masse, so the line really moved quickly. Within ten minutes we were at the Delta Departure drop off, and paid our taxi driver. The fare was a reasonable $13.30, so we gave him $19.00 with a tip for handling our heavy bags. We did a self check-in at the kiosks and then went for the dreaded weigh-in. Both bags were around 22.5 kilograms, which is close to 50 pounds. We were not sure why the scale was displaying kilograms and not reading in pounds. At the desk next to us, a girl put on a bag that she knew exceeded the 50 pound limit, and was worried about the excess weight. It weighed 53 pounds, but the attendant did not make an issue about it and let it go through without any additional cost. Maybe they are a little more lenient here since there are mostly cruise passengers flying in and out, and being able to weigh bags after cruises is hard to do unless you have your own scale. You just never know what will be the case, so we try to make sure we don’t exceed the weight or are extremely close.
We got processed through an expedited security line for some reason, so we did not even have to take out our quart bag of liquids or computer, and did not have to take off our shoes. It was a little funny because we did not know we were in a special line and were looking for bins to hold our items for screening. Finally the security agent told us we did not need to take out anything from our bags.
It had only taken about an hour from the time we left the cabin to be at the gate for our flight. It was really nice to be at the airport early because there were not many passengers and therefore, no lines. The only issue was that we now had was over three hours to wait until our flight, but at least we were off the ship and not fighting any long lines through customs and immigration.
We waited for our 10:45 AM flight, which seemed like a long time, and it was, over three hours. The airport gradually became more crowded, and we were surprised at the number of persons arriving at the gate in wheelchairs, more than we have ever seen on one flight. We soon learned that this was also the gate for another flight, and not all of the people here, including all of the people in wheelchairs, were on this flight. However, there were several announcements about our flight being full and that overhead space was going to be an issue, and they were asking people to check their carry on luggage for free.
We were a little concerned because we were in boarding Zone 3. By the time all of the special groups boarded, such as all of the various Delta award program fliers, there were not a lot of people left at the gate. We got near the boarding entrance after they called for Zone 2, and were in the front for Zone 3 boarding. We were lucky, there was no baggage in the bins for our row, so we had plenty of space for our carry on items.
Just as they closed the door, a passenger a few rows in front of us was having some type of issue, and called the flight attendants to come to her row. She got out of her seat and went to the front of the plane. In a couple of minutes, the Captain came on the intercom and told us that the passenger had realized she had left her wallet at Starbucks. Somehow, someone had turned it in, and they were bringing the movable boarding passageway back to the plane so they could open the door and retrieve her wallet. This only caused a few minutes delay and as the Captain announced, we would all want the chance to get our wallet back if it were us. We were a little concerned because about the delay because we only have about 55 minutes for our layover in Atlanta.
The flight was nice, we enjoyed the in flight entertainment system in the headrests and watched movies. Unfortunately, the flight was not long enough to watch the entire move I had selected, but better than nothing. There had been a selection for in flight satellite TV, but none of the channels would work. I had hoped to watch some ESPN on the flight, but the movie was entertaining.
We landed just a few minutes late in Atlanta, but it seemed to take a long time for everyone to get off of the plane ahead of us, and we were only in row 22. It just takes a long time for everyone to retrieve their carry on luggage from the overhead bins, and there were quite a few people who had difficulty walking in the rows ahead of us, slowing down the deplaning process.
Once we were at the gate, we found that our next flight was two terminals away. We were at the end of the A terminal and needed to go to the end of the D terminal. We headed to the underground transport train and got to our gate just before they started to board. It was about 1:30 PM and we were hungry, only having had a snack on the previous flight. However, there was not enough time to get anything to eat with the short layover and long journey between terminals.
We boarded the smaller regional jet and left on time for Columbia. The flight time was only 35 minutes once we were in the air, so there was no snack or beverage service. The flight was uneventful, and we landed on time. The airport in Columbia was virtually deserted at that time, and we were surprised there was no one waiting at the gate to board the airplane we had come in on.
We headed to baggage claim, and in about ten minutes, our luggage came out onto the carousel. It is always nice when your baggage arrives, but less nerve wracking on a flight home since you don’t really need the suitcase full of dirty clothes, unlike at the beginning of a trip, especially an overseas flight.
Mom was waiting for us at the car wait parking area, so once we had our luggage, we sent her a text and within a few minutes, we had our bags loaded and were on the way home. It had been a good day of travel, but any travel day is tiring, especially when we had gotten up at 5:00 AM.
It was nice to be home earlier and not arriving late in the day. We stopped by Chic-fil-A on the way home for some late lunch to go and by 3:30 PM, we were home.
It was a fun trip, but it was also nice to be home.
We will make one or two more posts with some post trip thoughts and some statistical information about the cruise from the “Log of the Cruise” that we received this morning.