Homeward Bound

Sunday, August 21 - Homeward Bound

The next morning we awoke in Miami. I immediately used the cell phone to call Northwest Airlines to check on the status of our flight. The recorded message said there were no changes due to the strike but I was still a little on edge.

Being nervous about the flight situation, I wanted to do the self disembark. I wasn’t sure if we could handle all of our luggage, but I was willing to try. I thought maybe getting to the airport early would be a good idea if we were going to have to look for another flight. Unfortunately when we attended the debarkation talk the previous day they told that if you had bought over the amount of duty free liquor allowed then you could not take advantage of the self disembark (it had something to do with dealing with customs agents to pay duty tax on the extra bottles.) Oldest son had been so excited by the low prices on liquor he had bought way too much so that meant the self debarkation was not an option for us. The night before we had set our luggage out into the hallway and that meant we would get to play the game of “luggage, luggage, where are you?” once we got off the ship.

Passengers with flights at 1:00 or earlier qualified for the privilege of getting off the ship first…our flight was scheduled for exactly l:00. We had gone to the Purser’s desk to inquire about what needed to be done and without even looking at our tickets were told to just grab some Spa Deck luggage tags and be at the Ionion Lounge by 8:30.

When we arrived there were so many people in the lounge that they were spilling out into the area around the elevators. Eventually they announced that we would be getting off the ship. This process sort of resembled “follow the leader”…we formed a long, long line and went through the Ionion Lounge, past the internet library, through some strange hallways, through the Atlantic Dining Room, down the stairs and finally out the doors on Deck 3. This probably took a half an hour at least. Customs agents were waiting to collect our declaration forms, but no one even looked at them…and no one even mentioned the extra duty tax that our son was supposed to pay.

Finding our luggage amongst the thousands of pieces didn’t prove to be too difficult. (I had tied bright green ribbons to the all of the handles…otherwise every piece of black luggage looks just like the next.) Outside we got a couple of cabs without much of a wait and it was off to the airport.

My fears about NWA were for naught. I do believe that checking in our luggage and getting to the gate was about the easiest that I’ve been through (at least since 9/11). There were picketers outside the airport, but the NWA employees we encountered were overly friendly and helpful. It was almost like they were compensating for all of the bad press that NWA had been getting.

After grabbing some food from the airport Burger King, we enjoyed watching a slide show of all of our cruise pictures on oldest son’s laptop computer while waiting on the flight. The trip home was uneventful but seemed so much longer than the trip down…all of the anticipation was over and we knew it was back to “real life” once again.

Note from the future: I am happy to report that this family cruise was not our last. If you would like to read about our next adventure together, you can check out the blog posts from our 2010 Family Cruise on the Carnival Legend.