Cruise Vacation - Part 1

We are now back from our spring break cruise! Wow! We had great fun!

But let's back up to BEFORE the fun began....

With the arrival of the first day of spring, came an odd downpour of freezing rain in Springfield, MO. The night before our plane was to take off for Florida, the temperatures dropped and Mother Nature decided to be ironic. We didn't appreciate it as we woke up at 3:00 in the morning to make our 5:50 flight at the airport. Slush covered the ground. And rain was still coming down, heavy. Once at the airport, the airline boarded its passengers only to deplane a few minutes later. We stalled in the airport for awhile with the assurances from the flight attendants that "the sun just needed to come up and warm things up so that we could get underway." Sugary and false, those assurances.

A little while later we boarded the plane again as the moderate freezing rain conditions were downgraded. We sat on the plane. We sat on the plane. We sat on the plane. The occasional announcements made by the captain explained the delay. "We're just waiting on the de-icing trucks, folks." Apparently, Springfield, MO (a city that had experienced temperature in the 70's only days before) was not prepared for a line up of ice coated planes to cramp their schedule that morning.

We started to really worry at 7:30 a.m. Dallas had a connecting flight to Orlando that simply would not wait, and this, we knew. Around 8:30, we had finally gotten our turn with the de-icing trucks. The guys worked and worked on the wing opposite our seats, spraying us down with pink soapy foam. But then, when the work suspiciously paused, we were told that they had run out of fluid while working on our plane. Another delay of AT LEAST 30 minutes while they went for more. Yep, we were going to miss the Dallas flight. For sure now.

At this realization, I hopped on the phone to enlist the help of my friends and family with computers. The venting (via text) to Danavee, Angela, and ANYONE WHO WOULD LISTEN on Facebook was no longer sufficient. More than a little stressed, I called and begged Danavee to look up information on the various lead-footed shuttle services that could drive us to Port Canaveral from Orlando if we happened to miss the cruiseline's last shuttle bus. On the other end of Jim's phone, Kim looked up any other flights that could get us anywhere close in a quicker way. Other passengers started to eavesdrop and offer us advice. The college boys in front of us offered to drink our sorrows away with us at the nearest airport bar. The Equador bound man adjacent to us urged me to practice my fake tear production and pitiful speech making skills for use in the hours ahead, when I would deal with indifferent rebooking staff. Other cruise missers in the surrounding seats wanted to comiserate about the unfortunate chain of events. "What are you gonna do?" "I don't know, what are YOU gonna do?" At least we made some new temporary friends.

At some point, after a bumping into in the aisle, the captain got real with Jim. "You're not getting out of here before 11:30." What? Say that again? Our stomachs sank. We were going to miss our Dallas to Orlando flight, the next Dallas-to-Orlando flight, and the next. Even better, we were going to miss our boat.

We were made to get off and back on the plane one more time after that. Several hours had passed. And THEN, we got a little slaphappy when we heard the following, "Passengers, may I have your attention. Springfield weather conditions have improved, but Dallas airport has issued a groundstop due to high winds."

Of course, Dallas has issued a groundstop. Anything less than a full groundstop would have been just disappointing. How did they even make that announcement without incredulous laughing, I wondered.

In the end, we flew to Dallas at around 1 p.m. There, we re-routed ourselves to Miami for a night's stay. The next morning we flew to Montego Bay, Jamaica to wait two days for the boat to port in Ocho Rios (about an hour and a half east of Montego Bay). We were so bummed to have missed two and a half days on our boat. But we still had hope... Jamaica! Boy, that doesn't sound like a shabby place to wait. It couldn't be bad. Could it? That's not so subtle foreshadowing. Stay tuned.

At least Miami airport offered entertainment. Birds. Wild birds flying around your head at the gate. It was fun to watch people be startled, duck, and then look around to see if anyone had been watching.

The face sums up our overall experience in airports this trip. What a great start to our vacation...