Well, our adventure is over, the ship docked promptly at 6:00 AM, about the time we were waking up.
Stephanie is better today, which is good. No one likes to travel and feel bad.
We got ready and finished up our packing, squeezing the last items into the suitcases. Unfortunately, Edgardo, our cabin steward, no longer had access to a luggage scale, so we will have to weigh our baggage at the airport, and make any necessary adjustments once we know the weights.
Back in the Port of Los Angeles
It is a cool and mostly sunny morning, with calm winds. There are also calm seas, finally. It was pretty bumpy at times last night, even though the winds were not that bad, only 25 knots. There may be some currents nearer to the coast that cause the waves to be bigger than they would be just from the wind.
After getting dressed, and finalizing the packing, we headed to get a light breakfast at the buffet.
We got back to the room about 7:15 AM, and watched some ESPN Game Day on the TV before heading to our designated waiting area for the luggage self carry off at 8:05 AM. The departure was prompt, and we headed the the disembarkation ramp. This was where some of the fun began, when I tried to get off, my cruise card was not correct, it was indicating some type of problem. I had gotten a new card a few days ago, and apparently, it was not done correctly. We had to go to a security console so that the ship’s security officer could get my cabin number and name, and make the appropriate entry to show I was leaving.
The next stop was Immigration. We were waiting in one line, and then the lady directing everyone asked us to go into another line, there was another officer setting up to check out the passengers. One issue was that he was not ready, so we waited behind another couple for about 5 minutes or more until he was finally set up and ready to process passengers. Of course, had we not been directed to that different line, we would have already gone through in the original line.
Then, during the customs processing, we had our next little hiccup. We were trying to get a form processed for a VAT (Value Added Tax) for a jewelry purchase we made in Tahiti. The instructions on the form indicated we were supposed to get it stamped once the ship left Tahiti, but in actuality, and unknown to us, we were supposed to get it stamped by a customs person on-board the ship in Tahiti before the ship left there, and the ship would have mailed it back to the Jeweler. The tax is not a cost to us, this paperwork allows the jeweler in Tahiti to recover the tax that they already deducted from the purchase. However, we were not aware of that, and were not able to do it the easy way. The form then instructed us to get it stamped when we arrived at our final destination, which was today going through Customs & Immigration.
The officer processing us through Immigration stamped our Custom’s form with a date stamp, but indicated we needed to get this other stamping done when we handed over the form to the Custom’s agents later in the process.
We headed to Customs, and they had no idea what to do. We then went to an office and explained the whole situation to another officer, who finally stamped it, although he indicated he was not supposed to stamp “foreign documents”. That all took about 20 minutes, and we hope it will all work, but again it is not any money to us.
We finally headed out of the terminal and easily found the Super Shuttle Van to take us to the airport. There were two seats remaining, they took our reservation, and we boarded the van to head to the airport. I had thought it would be a direct service, but no, we had one man on board that lived in Redondo Beach, nearby to the port. Basically, the entire van load of passengers went to his house, he had to give the driver directions on how to get there. So much for the direct route we had hoped for. It was actually not too bad, maybe about 10 minutes out of the way.
Arriving at the airport, all of the other passengers on the van got off at the West Jet Terminal, we were the final passengers to get off when we departed at the Delta terminal.
We used the outside Sky Cap scale to weight the two checked bags, we did a good job of matching the weights, the only problem was that they both weighed in at 54 lbs.
We went inside the terminal to begin the reduction process, we finally got one bag below the 50 lb limit after two attempts. We were weighting the second bag for the second time when the Sky Cap outside told Stephanie he would take care of us, not to worry about the slight weight overage. He got us checked in and we thanked him and gave him a nice tip for helping us out, he also got the free bag reservation issue worked out too, the same issue we faced on the way out with our two reservations having been made separately due to the frequent flyer miles usage.
We headed to security and once again, there were troubles. Apparently, due to how densely packed the carry-on bags were, we got flagged for additional screenings. That was what the security agent indicated, but it was also due to the sand we had in a couple of zip lock bags, it showed up as suspicious on the x-ray. They had to go into the bags, of course, messing up all of the packing effort we did to squeeze all of the items inside. They had to x-ray again, with out the sand and some chocolates in the luggage, then run a explosives test on the sand itself. All passed on my bag, but Stephanie’s bag had been flagged for a sharp object, in the confusion of trying to squeeze everything in the luggage, I had inadvertently packed a small utility tool in that carry-on bag, instead of normally placing it in a checked bag. Of course, we had to give that up multi-tool, or pay the fee to check the bag. It was cheap and free…it is now gone forever…..
Then we spent about 15 minutes repacking the two carry-on bags there at the security gate. All I can say is next time, we will have a shoe limit, we just have too many shoes and they take up a LOT of space in a suitcase, even with the reduction from the pairs we left on the ship.
We finally made it to the gate for our flight, and now we had about 3 hours to wait for our flight, so we updated this post at the airport thanks to our iPhone Wi-Fi Hot Spot.
We will try and board the flight as early as possible, we now have the carry-on’s to get into an overhead bin, plus two back packs, and a Ukulele. Maybe they will offer to check the carry-on’s through like we did on the flights out here, but since this is a larger plane for this leg, we are doubtful.
We will get a bite to eat before we board, and hopefully, not have any issues with the 5 hour flight to Atlanta. If we ever take a cruise out of Los Angeles again, we will try for an earlier flight now that we know we can get off the ship quickly with the carry-off program, and make it to the airport much sooner than noon. The cruise line had recommended that the flights be scheduled after 1:00 PM, which is why we scheduled this 1:15 PM flight departure time.
The flight from Los Angeles left on time, and actually arrived early in Atlanta. We had a really strong tail wind, so we made up some time, the flight was only 3 hours and 18 minutes long, compared to almost 5 hours on the way out to Los Angeles. It was smooth, and everything went well. We were able to check our carry on luggage in Los Angeles because the flight was overbooked, and they were concerned about space in the overhead bins. It was as we thought, an older 767 with the really small bins. It surely made it easier, we did not have to worry about space, and we don’t have to worry in Atlanta either, as the bags are checked through to our final destination.
Once we arrived in Atlanta, we had to change terminals, and found a Chick-Fil-A to eat at for dinner. It was really good to get some “fast food” after all of the cruise food. We had about 90 minutes to wait until we boarded our connecting flight home. The flight was not full, so we had some extra room to spread out. The flight was uneventful, we actually arrived about 15 minutes early because we did not have to wait at all to take off from the Atlanta airport, which is usually not the case.
All of our baggage arrived without incident, which is always good when you arrive home late at night. That is the last thing you want to deal with after a long day of travel. Joey and Kim arrived to pick us up just as we exited the terminal.
It is good to be home. Once the vacation was over, that was really all we were thinking about. Since our bodies and minds were still on Los Angeles time, we actually unloaded all of our suitcases after we got home from the airport, we were just not ready to sleep yet.
Tomorrow will be a laundry day, and of course, putting all of the travel gear away. We will be going through all of the photos, and proof reading all of the postings. For everyone that followed along, thanks. Hopefully you enjoyed reading about our adventures. Eventually, I will put the postings in normal chronological order, it will make more sense for anyone reading about the trip after it has been concluded.
Bon Voyage.