Up the proverbial without a paddle!!

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**SPOILER ALERT** For those of you who follow Roisin on Facebook, you may know how this day panned out. Here are how the events unfolded.

Checked the Delta Airline delayed bags app: 7^th April 2017 4:52am Bags set up for delivery. 'Have the baggage handlers been working through the night?' I thought. As most baggage handlers have difficulty working through the day, I very much doubted it (!) but…we have to remain positive.

At 09:00 we received the same response from the Hotel – no deliveries!

Our river cruise was not scheduled until 13:30 so we had plenty of time for some more exploring. Hailing the first sun trolley of the day, we took the bus along the beach where final preparations were being made for the music festival. Although the route was taking us along the beach front, this particular sun trolley was known as the Las Olas route which travels from the beach area in the east, terminating at the science and technology museum in the west of the city.

The Las Olas district is a straight road 3 miles in length. There are several bridges that span the network of manmade and natural waterways. The shop facades are a mix of both modern and colonial design. There seems to be an estate agent on every corner or as they're know in the USA – Reality. We stopped to take a look at the value of properties in this area…just in case. You never know!! Our dream of retiring to these parts soon came plummeting down to earth with an almighty thud as the cheapest ‘shack' started at about $3.9m. This is what they must mean by a ‘reality' check!!!

Back at the quay waiting to board the Jungle Queen, the sound check for the music festival was in full swing. ‘One-eh, Two-eh, three-eh. Testing testing. Uno e dos e tres.' Not sure why the sound engineer thought it necessary to repeat the sound check in Spanish. If the sound levels were not good in one language I'm sure repeating the check in another language wouldn't improve the quality!! It's a good job that the music festival wasn't sponsored by MSC otherwise the sound check would have been in about six different languages!!!

We managed to secure a front row seat on the upper deck of the Jungle Queen paddle steamer river boat. Unlike the cruise ships we are used to, this river cruise didn't perform ‘muster' where a demonstration of life jacket and what to do in an emergency is given. We had the alternative version: ‘We have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that if you look above you, you will notice hundreds of life preservers. The bad news is they've never been tested so we don't know if they work!! If the ship springs a leak, you'll find a couple of buckets in the corner!!' Maritime Law states that safety briefings must be provided on all public pleasure craft but doesn't stipulate on how this should be delivered. We just happened to have the briefing in the style of Groucho Marx!!

This was a fully narrated cruise down the "Venice of America," Fort Lauderdale's New River. Every city that has a few waterways is always compared to Venice; Stockholm and Amsterdam– ‘the Venice of the North'. It is a well-known fact that Birmingham (Warwickshire – not Alabama!!) has more canal per mile than Venice but you never hear them refer to Venice – the Birmingham of the South!!

We sailed through Millionaire's Row with homes of the Rich and Famous. For example: Lee Majors (the six million dollar man), Scotty Pippin (who?? – apparently he was a basketball player for the Chicago Bulls and won six NBA titles!) and Al Capone (just another tax dodger!!) We were mighty impressed by their homes and spectacular Mega Yachts until our commentator advised us that we were still in the poor part of town and as we sailed around an island that is shaped like the state of Florida we saw where the ‘real' money was spent! These yachts made our millionaires yachts look like something our gazillionaires would play with in the bath!!

After an hour of interesting commentary the Jungle Queen docked at what the brochure refers to as a tropical island. We all disembarked and wandered around admiring an array of exotic birds, monkeys and lemurs. Typically tropical food was available such as hamburgers, hotdogs and nachos with cheese!! We were treated to a free alligator show which involved a Steve Irwin wanabee in a self-contained pit. A pool of water several inches deep was enough to keep the larger of the two alligators quiet whilst ‘Steve' dragged the other poor alligator around by the tail. Not too sure if this was to piss the alligator off so it would lash out to the gasp of the audience. It seemed to work but this was down to some very clever choreography!!

Back to the Delta delayed luggage app!! Two new entries: 7^th April 2017 12:56pm Bags to be set up for delivery; 7^th April 2017 01:07pm Bags to be set up for delivery. We need to find what this ‘to be set up for delivery means'. That settled it. Roisin and I agreed to pop back down to the airport tonight and get to the bottom of this mystery. We're still a little worried that if our bags have been loaded on to a trolley with fifty other cases awaiting transportation to the rightful owners we may not be allowed to search for them. We're hoping that the whizzy technology Delta possess should pinpoint the location of our bags within the airport providing they haven't been taken somewhere out of reach from any concerned owners.

Back on land, spring break was in full swing with parties of scantily clad ladies and gents meandering from bar to bar. As we passed one group, I was ‘high fived' by a rather excitable youth. However, I extended my hand to give the young fellah a hearty hand shake. I think this form of greeting has yet to catch on in these parts!!

At 7pm, back in the hotel lobby, I didn't even have to ask the reception. A shake of the head said all we needed to know!! We asked the hotel reception to order us a cab to take us to the airport.

‘A cab will cost $20. If you can wait for ten minutes you can take our shuttle to the airport. Free of charge.' A service that normally costs $6 per person.

My mind was still registering the first part of that sentence. I was back in the taxi that brought us here two days ago. ‘$20? Who tried to swindle who? We could have sworn the meter on the back headrest of the cab said $6.50, the driver having switched off the main meter on the dash board several minutes before arriving at our destination. After offering $10 and telling him to keep the change it now became clear as to why he looked at me strange and said that the fare was $20. It's still odd, though, that after pointing to the screen showing the $6.50, he told us to forget it and drove off. Either he WAS up to something or else he was just shite at winning arguments!!!

Our hotel is situated only a few miles from Ft. Lauderdale International Airport. The last half mile was slow due to the amount of traffic merging from several highways. We asked the driver to drop us by the Delta arrivals hall. This looked all too familiar. There were several lanes of parked courtesy shuttles picking up passengers. Each shuttle seemed to have its own reserved piece of road! We passed a long row of taxis expecting to hear an ‘Oi! There they are. Get ‘em lads!!' My mind then turned to a Benny Hill montage as we were chased through the arrivals hall by an array of taxi drivers, a few cabin crew, porters, cleaners being joined by baggage handlers, car rental staff and the odd irate passenger. All zig zagging through the luggage carousels to the background music of Yakkity-Yak!! I was still chuckling to myself as we walked through the automatic door that led in to the arrivals hall. To the left of us were several luggage carousels and straight ahead of us, seventy or eighty pieces of luggage, cordoned off by a rope.

‘Before we ask at the counter', I said to Roisin, ‘let's just take one last look'. Both our bags are four wheeled, medium size hard cases. Roisin's is turquoise and mine is burgundy. After only a few paces, my eyes locked on to the smallest slither of burgundy, hiding behind a large brown soft case. I rushed over albeit with low expectations. Will this be a case of mistaken identity (sorry about the pun!!) As more of the case became visible, I recognised those dents and scratches anywhere. I turned to Roisin who was already wheeling her case towards me. We had finally brought home the proverbial bacon!! Fresh proverbial meat? Should we have declared this on our proverbial customs declaration??! So, our luggage had been sitting in the arrivals hall for two day!!. There was no sign that any effort was being made to reunite the cases with their owners. How many people would have kept the faith that Delta would deliver on time?? If you want something doing, do it yourself. We have still been advised to submit a claim for the clothes and essentials we bought. Before we left the airport, we told the counter that we had collected our luggage so they may want to update their records.

The taxi back to the hotel cost $15. With a $5 tip that was the sweetest $20 we'd ever spent. Our vacation is now officially back on track!

What does DELTA mean to you?

DELTA – Doesn't Even Leave The Airport?? or Don't Expect Luggage To Arrive?? You decide…

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Comments

[Sharon Newbould]

Gutted!!!! Wanted those Benidorm Kaftan photos!! Ha, glad you got them back in time, have a great rest of the trip!! Xx