182992_s

Preferably not my wife!

(Posted by Ron)

It’s 1:00am and our flight to Atlanta leaves in six hours.  In four hours we have to meet the van to take us to the airport.  We are also in a “luggage rich” environment.  Yes, we over-packed, as usual.  I manage a couple of hours sleep in the recliner.  Gayle doesn’t sleep at all.  She is on the couch with her computer on her lap and she’s connected to facebook.  Shorty is sleeping on her legs and Freddie is sleeping against her.  It’s the day we leave for the cruise of a lifetime.

At 3:00am we begin to get dressed and I finish loading the car.  At 4:30am we leave for the hotel to meet our van.  We arrive at the airport early and have time to eat breakfast.  So far, so good.  We are flying on Delta so it isn’t hard to find our flight.  We land uneventfully in Atlanta and everything begins to plummet from there.

That was how our first day of this cruise began.  Now I’m sitting beside the pool drinking a “Dirty Banana” (don’t ask.  I don’t know.)  The sea is calm, the weather is mild and the sun is bright.  It’s hard to remember that bad first day, but here is the rest of what happened.

In Atlanta, when we arrived at our departure gate there was no plane.  Soon there was an announcement that we were going to be delayed fifteen minutes.  No problem.  Then another announcement and another fifteen minute delay and another, and another, and…

It’s a two-hour flight to Ft. Lauderdale and the ship leaves at 5:00pm.  We’ve missed a 12:35pm flight because the Delta gate agent said they couldn’t get to our checked luggage and couldn’t guarantee it would meet us.  If it didn’t make it by the time the ship sailed they would send it to our first port of call but that was six days later in Portugal.  Naturally, we didn’t want to sail without the luggage in which almost all of our clothing was packed.

I (and many other cruise passengers) called the cruise line just to be told they couldn’t guarantee the ship would be held for us.  I called Travelocity, who booked the trip and they were no help.  Finally, I called the company that insured the investment we had in the trip.  Because we had begun the trip (we were in Atlanta, after all) they said the insurance would cover only a very small portion of the cost.

At this point Gayle came back from the restroom.  She could tell there was something wrong with me.  For the next several hours there was a great deal of frowning, a few sharp words, and lots of silence, including the time we were on the flight.

Delta finally decided they could transfer our luggage and we left Atlanta at 2:00pm on the 1:30 flight (yep, it was late, too.)  I have a history of being impatient and downright nasty whenever something important is totally out of my control.  This was one of those out-of-control times.  Historically, at those times, Gayle and I would take off the gloves and go for it.  Many good times were ruined by our unwillingness to get past our emotions and arrive at peace, but not this time.

We did something very simple on the flight to Florida.  We took quiet time to settle our nerves and then talked about what happened.  It’s a good thing we found a calm place in the storm, because we then arrived at Fort Lauderdale….

-continued tomorrow-

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