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We are now on the ship heading to Bermuda. On Saturday we flew to Newark. We had a 11:30am flight from Colorado Springs to Chicago. The flight, which was full, loaded on time but then the fun began. The captain, who should be fired, announced that the plane was overweight and 8 people would have to get off before we could take off. In Colorado it is common for flights to be weight restricted, because of the heat and altitude. It was supposed to be 90 that day. The weight problem should have been calculated before we loaded the plane. The poor gate attendant was now responsible to get 8 people off in a very short time. I got off with my papers along with a few others. I needed to get to Newark, a major city, that day. Many others wanted connecting flight to minor cities, a much bigger problem. I handed my schedule to the gate attendant and even though I was not the first off, I was the first processed. After about 45 minutes the mess was straightened out. United Airlines put Jan and I, along with another young man, on a taxi ($250) to Denver. We also
now had $800 in United Airlines coupons that we will use to get to Spokane for Christmas. If I didn't tell you we did not buy the tickets for this trip, we cashed in frequent flyer miles. We arrived at Newark at midnight about 1.5 hours later than our original schedule. Our luggage was already in Newark since it went on the original flight. We than waited over one hour for the shuttle to the Ramada Inn. I pre-booked a Holiday Inn last winter for a $75, nonrefundable rate. The hotels near JFK were about $300 per night, which was why we flew to Newark. When I called HolidAY Inn to confirm out reservation, I discovered that the hotel was now a Ramada Inn. When we got to the Ramada Inn, we were told that the hotel was full, but we were being shuttled to the Sheridan net door, a much more expensive hotel. We finally got to our room at 1:30 am.
We slept in the next morning. We then took the airport shuttle back to Newark Airport and booked a Super Shuttle for $33 to the Manhattan Cruise port. We got to pier at about 12:30 pm. We
walked across the street to the pier and took the escalator up. We got in a long line with our luggage and were curious as to why we were the only people with luggage. When we checked in, we asked about our luggage and were asked "didn't you give your luggage to the porters"? What porters, we asked?. There weren't any where we came in. We are now sitting waiting to board and they start boarding using the code on the blue boarding passes. What boarding passes? We didn't get any. They finally found us some.
We had a great sunny, warm view of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty on our way out of NYC.
Jan's family from Boston arrived on board about 2 hours after we boarded.
The ship has wireless at $75 per minute
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Lee
non-member comment
Flying
Isn't flying the friendly skies a real thrill nowadays? We did the Panama Canal trip in April and had a great time. When we got off the ship in Ft Lauterdale bright and early to get to the airport, we found that the flight was delayed. It didn't matter because we had a four hour layover in Atlanta. Needless to say we got home that evening at 10:30pm. Took a few days to recoup from the day long flight. So much can be said for frequent flyer miles. HA Enjoy the cruise.