Advertisement
Published: February 10th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Bye Bye cruising life
Bye Explorer of the Seas
Day full of goodbyes.
We had an early morning start this morning and were amongst the first set of people to be able to disembark the Ship at 7AM. There was a bit of delay with passing through Immigration because they were having computer problems. That gave us a little bit more time to say our goodbyes and thank you’s to Christie.
Since Laura and I were sharing the same last name and the same address we were able to fill in one immigration form. Technically Laura and Alice were in transit and would be flying into Seattle and then driving home to Vancouver on the same day. I was going to be flying into Atlanta and hanging out there for a couple more weeks. But since we were sharing the same form, in the section where it says “US Address” we put “In transit.” So when the Immigration official asked when we’d be going home…I let Laura and Alice do the talking…I didn’t want to start lying! 😊
After our passports were stamped we proceeded to carousel #1 to go look for our bags. This took a bit
of time because there were a lot of bags going by. A piece of advice, there are a lot of black and red luggage out there, so get something in a different colour and pattern! It’s a good thing I tied a bright green with flowers bandana to the handle of my luggage to help make it a bit more “unique” since it was clashing with the red. HAHA Once we had secured all six pieces of luggage that we “checked” in with the cruise line, we headed outside to the tour bus that was waiting for us to take us over to the Florida Everglades. It only took about 45 minutes to drive out there. Boy can our tour guide talk! I would have to say that he talked for at least 44 minutes and 30 seconds of that time! Some of it was informative but some it not so interesting.
Once checked in for our tour we got onto our airboats for about a ¾ of an hour tour in the Everglades hoping to spot some gators and other wildlife. The airboat didn’t seem to go that fast when we were sitting on it but when you
look at other airboats they seem to be going really fast. Oh well, I guess it is all about perception. We spotted a few gators, turtles and fish while out there on the saw grass. Pretty cool.
After our airboat tour we were treated to a little show with the Alligators and were even given a chance to take photos with the gators. We stopped for some lunch before heading over to the airport. Boy was it hot sitting outside. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the humidity.
It is interesting that all of the guides are not shy what so ever in asking for tips! First the airboat operator, then the guy at the show and then the bus tour guide and he also talked it up for the bus driver. I hate being reminded that “tips would be appreciated.” I’ll tip if I damn well think that they deserve it!!!
At the airport we had more than plenty of time to check in. It as just after noon and our flights were set for about 6PM. Lots of waiting around ahead for us! Laura and Alice were flying Continental and I was flying
on American. So Laura and Alice checked in first in the G gates. Can you believe that Alice’s big red bag that she checked in ended up being 86 pounds! Scary thing is, Laura and I could have packed in more if we had wanted to! Then it was Laura’s turn to check in her two bags. The limit is 50 pounds per bag. One weighed in at 57 and the other at 44 so the airline attendant made her shift some stuff from the heavier bag to the lighter bag. Well, I guess Laura over did it a bit and the lighter bag was now too heavy. Doh! So to make things easier, Laura just pulled out one of my packets containing my clothes and decided to carry that on the plane! Lucky for Laura and Alice and they were able to change flights and leave earlier than 6PM.
Then it was my turn to check in. American is by the D gates so we had to trek over there. It was pretty easy to check in but I was not so lucky and had to wait until 6PM. Oh well. I have stuff to read in my
bag. My music to listen to and there’s always the blog to update. Lol
It’s a bummer that we were at different gates. We thought that once checked in all of the terminals were connected and we’d be able to meet up on the “inside.” Wrong! I quickly went through my gate and found out that between E and F there are two separate terminals. DOH! I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Laura and Alice! So I left the secured area where I was and headed over to the G gates. I didn’t think that they’d let me in…and I was right. But the nice security guard suggested that I have Laura paged so I did. I started to feel really bad that I didn’t say a proper goodbye. Then I started to feel a little sad too.
So when I was waiting for Laura to hear the page and then hopefully come back to the entrance/exit of the G gates I was feeling a little teary. I know, it seems a bit silly but it goes to show that I do have a heart…and it’s not steel. Haha After about 5 or 10 minutes of waiting I saw Laura and her animated arm motions on the other side of the security gate talking to a security guard when she saw me standing outside. I felt a little silly that I was crying but soon got over that! Lol We said a proper goodbye and hugged and chatted briefly before Laura headed through the security gates again. 😊
Feeling much better, I headed back to the D gates and went through the security check again and found my way to my gate. Hmm, I’ve got lots of waiting ahead of me. So I headed to one of the newsstands to check out all of the magazines on offer. I was going to buy one to read on the plane but there wasn’t really anything that I was willing to shell out money for. Besides, I had finished reading all of them. Lol Sometime while I was in the newsstand my gate had changed so I had a bit of a walk over to my new gate. Anything to kill 5 minutes! The flight was pretty uneventful.
I met these two interesting ladies as we were all getting off of the plane that had just been cruising down in the Caribbean as well. But they were on one of the Carnival ships. We chatted at the baggage carousel since we had to wait at least 10 or 15 minutes for the bags to start coming out. Lucky for me, my bag was one of the first ones to come off of the conveyor. I was soon on my way and headed towards the Marta. Once again, I don’t know how these conversations start, but I started talking to this girl who was visiting her boyfriend. I also met a guy from New York that comes down to Atlanta for business quite a bit.
At this point I thought I was going to have to catch a cab to get into Anita’s apartment complex since she was going to be away for a couple of days on business. But when I was on the train I decided to check to see if I had any text messages waiting for me. Oh, I have one. It’s from Anita. What, she didn’t make her flight and she’ll be able to pick me up from the Marta station? Hmm, wonder what happened there! A nice pleasant surprise for me but I’m sure a bit of a headache for Anita workwise…
It was nice to be greeted “home” and be able to chat all about the past week’s activities….
Advertisement
Tot: 0.179s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0956s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb