The last night of the cruise you have two options for getting ready to disembark the next morning. You can keep all your luggage with you and carry it yourself off the boat and do ‘express disembarking’ which means you will get off the boat first at 7 am. The other option is to leave your luggage outside your room the night before and they will take it down to the disembarking area for you. Then they dismiss you by number starting at 7:30 in 15 minute increments. We decided we weren’t in to big of a hurry because our flight wasn’t until the afternoon so we all left our luggage outside our room except for an over night bag. Our time for disembarking was at 8:45, Kenny and Sherri’s time was 9:15. They asked us to be out of our staterooms by 8 am so we met for breakfast at 7:30. We were enjoying one last breakfast at the Facejammer and at about 7:45 they made an announcement that said there was a ‘slight issue’ that needed to be resolved before they could begin the disembarking process. At 8:15 they came back on and explained that the ‘slight issue’ was that all the taxi drivers and luggage porters had gone on strike and were blocking the airport and cruise terminals so that Ubers and any other drivers couldn’t get in or out. Of course they were working to have the issue resolved as fast as possible, were sorry for any inconveniences this was causing, and would let us know as things changed. Sure enough we looked out along the pier and there were taxi’s as far as you could see blocking the roads. There wasn’t much we could do so we just stayed at the Facejammer and played a game of hearts. We also looked into how much an Uber would cost when we finally did get off the boat and it would be $12 for all four of us and our luggage (Ryan and I paid a taxi driver $18 for the two of us to our hotel when we arrived which was about a 2 mile trip). They continued to make the same announcement every fifteen minutes or so until sometime between 9-10 they started the express disembarkers and then slowly started calling the groups. Ryan was getting a little antsy about missing our flight so we decided we would get in line to leave the boat and by the time we were through the line hopefully our luggage would be ready. Our plan worked and they called our number about the time we entered the the luggage claiming area. Kenny and Sherri got theirs and got in the customs line and outside to start getting a taxi. Ryan and I went to our area and… could not find out bags. We asked someone about it and the look on their face was not encouraging. We ended up walking through all the luggage areas and found nothing. By that time two suitcases the same size as ours were the only suitcases left in our area. The luggage guy (we will call him Bob) called the number and LUCKILY someone answered the phone. Bob explained to whoever answered the phone that they had taken the wrong luggage. The person Bob was talking to did not believe him and kept saying, “I already have my luggage.” It took several minutes for Bob to convince him to just look at the name tag of the bags he took and he said, ‘Oh, I took the wrong bags!’ Ryan had progressed from antsy to irritable to angry and he only got angrier when we had to sit there and wait…and wait…and wait until every single other person had gotten their luggage and left the boat. Then after a little more waiting the person arrived with our luggage. Which other than being roughly the same size as ours looked nothing like our luggage. Different color and style. We then had to take it through customs again to make sure they didn’t do something to it. We got outside and luckily found a taxi quickly. When we got to the airport the driver told us it was $25…we only had $20 and some change on us so we had to stiff him a little. Apparently the solution for the taxi strike was to charge us more so I didn’t feel to bad. Sherri and Kenny were already there in line so we joined up with them. There were a lot of people that had missed their flight or were late like us so the airline split us into two lines, people leaving within 2 hours (we had about 45 minutes) and everyone else. However they forgot the let the people at the front know so they kept taking people from the wrong line. After 10 minutes of our line not moving Ryan went from angry to irate. He asked several different attendants to direct the line and none of them did so he took matters into his own hands and started directing traffic. He got a few fist bumps and high fives from the people in line with us, and some ‘watch our for the crazy guy’ looks from the airport workers. Miraculously we made it through the agricultural check and regular security and didn’t miss our flight. The rest of the way home went without any drama.
Roger picked us up at the airport and brought us home. It was a wonderful vacation but we were glad to be home. Grandma and Grandpa did a very good job taking care of the kids and gave them a good report too. They were better behaved for Grandma and Grandpa then they are for us, which is a little frustrating but I am glad they can pull out their manners and use them for someone. They caught us up on everything they had been doing and we showed them our pictures. Then it was back to real life.