On December 29th, my little brother's 47th birthday, they forced us to disembark. Apparently when you only pay for a 10 day cruise, they don't let you stay on an additional 10 days. I think it's very inconsiderate of them, personally. A funny story...Throughout the ship there are these interactive boards. You can use your Medallion to access your personal account on these boards, figure out where you are and where your shipmates are, look at the activities occurring on the ship. For the first 9 days, we noticed that it often turned into this big "Happy Birthday, Renee F!" sign when we were near it. We assumed, since Renee's birthday is in April, that there must be another Renee F. on this ship who is celebrating a birthday. Finally, we realized that when they customized their journey to include Chris' birthday, they must have accidentally indicated that they were celebrating Renee's instead. Poor Chris never did get a large acknowledgment though there was a birthday cake next to his name outside his stateroom door on his actual birthday (of course, Renee got that symbol too).
We were scheduled to disembark at 8:40 am so got up bright and early to go to the Dining Room for breakfast on our last day. Who knows when someone will make me Eggs Benedict for me again?
Once we were done breakfast, we returned to our staterooms one last time, to discover them made up again in spite of the fact that we would be leaving this morning and poor Jon would have to clean and make up the entire room again. We grabbed the rest of our belongings and headed to the Vista Lounge which was our meeting place. Upon arriving there, we discovered that the disembarkation was ahead of schedule and we were able to head to the gangway whenever we were ready to do so.
Once off the ship, we had to gather our luggage and make our way outside to get a couple of Ubers to the hotel my mom had booked for the day since our flight wasn't until that evening. We shopped a bit around the hotel, had a swim in the pool and walked for a late lunch/early supper for Chris' birthday before taking the shuttle to the airport.
At the airport, we checked our bags and got through customs/immigration without difficulty only to discover at the TSA security checkpoint that Danica had about 3 mouthfuls of water left in a water bottle she'd forgotten was in the bottom on her backpack. The security agent was actually going to send Danica back out of the secure area by herself to empty the bottle and then return through the entire process again. Once I said I wouldn't let her go alone, she then said that I could do it. I grabbed my passport and boarding pass, the gentleman that was required to accompany me out of the secure area picked up the water bottle (it was a Contigo one or we would have just allowed them to throw it out). Once he handed it to me, I gulped the water and returned to the Customs/Immigration line which was now super long and moving much more slowly as the drug sniffing dog and his handler were there so people had to walk 2 at a time through the line as if we were boarding the Ark. The TSA security line was much longer now too so the whole process took much longer than it had originally.
Finally, we were through and headed towards our gate. A few things Chris learned about the Fort Lauderdale airport: 1) Duty Free will not sell to Canadians right now because the flights are too late so they can't bring them to the gate. They close at 8 p.m. (good thing we got our duty free on the ship!). 2) The exact same store in 2 different locations has very different prices. I paid $6.49 for M&M's at the store I went in to. Chris paid $3.00 at the same store further away.
Our flight was delayed an hour, which in the grand scheme of things isn't horrible but by this point, we just wanted to get back to Canada. The flight itself was uneventful; we were sitting behind Chris and Renee this time so no one yelled at Danica for her knees touching their reclined seat. Also, the kids were so tired that they slept the entire way so there was no bickering or fighting either. We finally arrived to Toronto at 1:30 a.m. In going through our Customs/Immigration, I was asked if I was the legal guardian of the kids and when I said yes, she asked me if their other parent knew I was traveling with them. It was the first time I have ever been asked this and thought it strange to be asked as we were returning home and now when I was leaving the country with them. (Of course, we also thought it was strange that to reboard the ship in Barbados, Danica was the only one who didn't have to show ID yet you would think with all the human trafficking signs about, a 13 year old girl might be the one they'd be most worried about).
It felt very good to put our heads on the pillows at our hotel, even if it was 3 a.m. before we got back there and they didn't get to stay there for long. By 8:30 a.m., we were up and getting ready to head for breakfast so that we could be on the road (remember, our flight to Toronto was canceled so we had to drive, meaning we also had to drive back home) reasonably early. We weren't away quite as early as my Mom had hoped but we were saying our goodbyes to Chris and Renee and on the road by 11 a.m.
The drive initially was pretty rainy but by Parry Sound, the weather cleared except for weird patches of fog. The traffic was reasonably light and we made fairly good time getting home. Apparently when you don't stop to browse in stores and eat, the drive is pretty quick!
We have to mention that everyone home should maybe thank us as we noticed there wasn't as much snow any more as we'd been warned about and the temperatures were pretty mild. I think we brought back some of the Caribbean heat for all of you.
Hershey was happy to see us when we got home although she looked like she was treated pretty well by our dog-sitters while we were away. Who am I kidding? So were we as a plate of cake pop and peanut butter ball fails were left on the counter for us. It might be worth noticing that Kaila's baking fails are nicer than many of my successes!
Hopefully everyone had a very Happy New Year! Wishing everyone health and happiness for 2023!
