Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Day 95

Ooops, sorry didn't mean to leave you hanging. It's just been a busy week.

Anyway, back to the tale.

On the final morning of our cruise, we were to be back into New York. Hubby and I discussed it and elected to get up early (4:30) to be certain that we didn't miss the Statue of Liberty on the way in. Well, the alarm went off as planned, but we were still very far away from New York (according to the GPS) so I stayed in bed for another hour. I did however, get up and get dressed at 5:30 and made my way out to the deck. It was foggy!!! And the humidity was back. It was also still dark.

So we waited on deck and the sun finally started to come up just as we entered the Hudson River. We got some photos of the Staten Island Bridge (got it right that time) in the fog. We also got a bunch of photos of the Lady Liberty with the fog in the background. There was a wonderful few moments as the sun came up behind the Empire State Building and we caught those on film also. It was actually worth the early morning call to see it all. After the ship docked we elected to have one more breakfast in the dining room and to collect our few remaining belongings from the stateroom and say goodbye to the stewarts.

As VIP's we were able to leave the ship almost as soon as our breakfast was done. So we made our way to the Lobby and exited the ship with little or no trouble. Once back on American soil we had to go thru customs, but that was pretty easy also since we didn't bring much of anything with us. We collected our luggage and showed the customs agents our passports and other paper work and they let us back into the good ole USA.

We made our way thru the remained of the terminal, not nearly as impressive leaving as it was when we arrived. And found the location to wait for our transfer service back to the airport. Since so many more people were returning to the airport at the same time this transport was a full size bus. We were the last group to get off at the Delta terminal. Here is where things went sour. We got into the line to check our baggage and pick up our boarding passes for our 3:30 flight. Mind you it was around 10 a.m. and we were expecting to have to sit in the airport until our flight time. However, Hubby checked the luggage and picked up the passes and we started into the terminal. The baggage clerk came running after us and shouted that we were too early and he couldn't check us in yet. We explained that our flight was at 3:30, but he check his records to find that our 3:30 flight had been canceled and we would not be leavinig LaGuardia until 8 p.m. He was helpful in trying to find out why this occurred but just the same we were stuck in the airport for 10 hours. Then they tried to get us to take a $400 credit each, a hotel room for the night and first class accommodations on a 10:30 flight the next day since the 8:05 flight was overbooked! It would have been a sweet deal, except that I had to be at work at 8 a.m. Friday morning. So it would have been difficult to leave NY at 10:30 and get to Valdosta an hour and a half before that. As it was, we made the flight home, but were sitting on opposite sides of the plane and in different rows. Hubby ALWAYS flies in a window seat, well NOT this time. We were both stuck in the center seat while the folks at the window seats SLEPT all the way home. Although I don't really see how they slept as bumpy as the flight was.

Anyway, we landed in Jacksonville and picked up our car and headed home. Hubby was so sweet to drive all the way home and let me try to sleep. He had Friday off. We made it home around 1:30 a.m. Needless to say, I was exhausted Friday, but I made it to work on time and lasted the whole day. Then we both had to work Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon was spent napping. I think we are both back to normal (did I use the term normal in describing either of US?) although the housework has not been done and the laundry is still piled up. Next trip I plan to take advantage of the VIP laundry service.

Well that is it for our vacation. Hope you enjoyed it. We sure did (except for the return trip).
If you ever get the opportunity to visit Canada, GO. It is a lovely place.

Ta Ta for now.

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