Let me begin by again saying that we both enjoyed the cruise and the people that we went with. We had a great time. Let me also preface the rest of this story by letting you know that I was either still a little drunk from the night before or just really hung over (I vote for the still drunk.)
It came to a crashing end as soon as we stepped off the boat and encountered the lovely people of Broward County. I think Celebrity Cruises needs to have a little training course for those folks.
We opted to carry our bags off (2 bags, 1 carry on and a box of liquor - "lick her, I hardly knew her." <- private joke) which we probably didn't have to do , but our experience on Carnival led us to carry them off this time.
So here we are balanced precariously with our bags and we are plodding down the gangway and into the terminal where I had to switch the liquor box to another hand, and in the process this snotty bitch (wearing a cheap security uniform) says "You can't stop here."
Well that didn't sit to well with me since I had moved out of the general path of traffic and the only other people near me were Cheryl and Val. So I retorted "I will move when I am damn ready."
So I continued down the escalators and into the general line for customs which was very quick, thank you US Customs. As we walked out of the door to find a taxi we needed to switch hands again and some other a-hole from Broward County yelled at us. (Mark also had someone yell at him about stopping and his retort involved sprouting another hand, he can recount that on his own blog).
So we get in a taxi and get to the airport (we arrived back in on Sunday March 18th, the last Sunday of Spring Break and there had been a storm along the East coast which had cancelled flights Friday and Saturday) and the airport was CRAZY.
Ft Lauderdale is not the biggest airport and the two airlines that have the most flights were US Airways and AirTran which had lines wrapped around the entire terminal. The wait on those lines was four hours. Well thankfully we were not in that mess, but we had our own interesting situation.
We dragged our bags inside to attempt to check in (it was about 930am, and our flight was at 140pm) and there was a guy (Broward County employee) at the entrance to the American Airlines line and asked what time our flight was. We said 140pm and he said we could not check in. I was a little perturbed by this turn of events. All I wanted to do was go check in and fall asleep near the gate. Now here was the kicker we couldn't go check in inside but we could drag our crap back out the door and check in outside with the skycap! So I dropped my bags right at the front entrance of the American Airlines check in line and called American Airlines. (we originally wanted to see if there was an earlier flight out, again we still didn't really understand the whole storm issue and why there were thousands of people hanging out at the airport). So I stood there and some guy was bitching at me as he climbed over my bags so I told him to fuck off. (remember still drunk.)
I spoke to a nice guy at American Airlines and he let me know that there was only the one flight (yes you heard me, one flight) from Ft Lauderdale to NYC and then on to Washington National. If we had gone to Miami then we might have been able to get out, but probably not based on all the people that were trying to get back home.
So eventually we dragged the crap back outside and waited in line to check our bags in and pay the guy $2 per bag for the "convenience" of having the skycap take our bags. Then they wanted $80 for the extra bag. We had 2 bags each, one carry on each and the box of liquor. The extra "bag" of liquor only cost me $120 and there was no way were paying the extra money for it so we checked the liquor in and carried on the smaller of the two hanging bags. It was pretty slim so it made it on pretty easily.
Ok so now our bags are checked in and all I want to do is go lay down... so we all go to security and walk right up to the front of the line (there was no one in line, was kind of weird) and they look at our boarding passes and the one woman says, "you can't go to the gate yet, only two hours before your flight." I was pissed. Where the hell did you want us to go? There were people camped out everywhere. So we trudged over to the Chili's that was in the terminal and took up a booth (after the snotty girl at the door told us we couldn't sit at the bar, which wasn't open yet) and suffered through some food and mediocre service.
We waited until exactly two hours before our flights and went through security, which was still quiet. The lines were still out of control for US Air and AirTran. I almost felt bad for those folks but I was more concerned about falling asleep somewhere.
We found some seats (the gate area was not very busy) and I proceeded to fall asleep for a little while. Finally it was getting time for our flights and we saw Cheryl and Val get on their flight so we went over and waited for ours.
Mark and I get on the flight and get settled and I am about ready to go to sleep again. We could see them pull back the gate and get ready to push us out when the captain comes on and says that due to weather problems in NY we are going to sit there for about an hour. At this point I didn't really care about much and just wanted to go to sleep, and I didn't have to sit next to the really fat guy that got on at the last minute. I thought the guy who was stuck next to him was going to go ballistic. He just stood up and pointed at the fat guy who I am guessing was spilling over into his seat. The flight attendant called a supervisor who basically told the guy it's the only seat and if you don't take this flight you won't get out today. It made the wait time somewhat interesting. So finally we get off the ground and to NY where we had an uneventful layover in LaGuardia and an uneventful flight to DC.
So needless to say I was a bit pissed about the events after the cruise, but it all can't be a rose garden I guess. I just think back to the blue waters of the Caribbean and make it all go away.
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