A dear friend of ours recently said if you want God to laugh, make plans. She could not have been more right, although in the beginning of the day, most of those plans went just fine. More about that later.
After a less-than-peaceful night onboard the ship, we began our day around 5am. Due to the luggage being carted down the hallway, it was quite noisy, especially when the cart tripped up on a threshold, and his luggage crashed against our wall. More than once too. This was about 11:30pm, towards the end of their time for the last pick-up.
Breakfast for us was in the dining room, beginning at 6:30am. Only, they were using one side of the dining room, and our usual table was not available. We did get a table for two, but squeezed in between other tables very close. Guess we were lucky to have had such a nice table upstairs on the railing for dinner. It was by request, since we dined there last year. Service was a bit slow, because we learned that 17 waiters were going home today, and they were off duty. Sure made a difference.
Our time for departure was 8:15 to 8:30am, so we had time to try to finish the rest of our megabytes that we had left. It was so slow, we gave up. Perhaps all of the folks that paid for plans were doing the same thing, choking the system. Hope it works better on the Amsterdam’s world cruise.
Fudging it a little, we ended behind the color tags right before pink # 1. Not a problem, since we had the perk of getting off any time we wished. The only drawback to that is the luggage might not be there yet in the terminal. As it turned out we were within seconds of the staff opening up that color-coded row of suitcase that all look alike. Ours have to be the most traveled (beat up), so they were easy to locate.
The crew working this debarkation process have it down pat. We were lined up, then eventually led to a waiting bus for the Vancouver airport, a 40 minute ride away. There are no freeways to whisk you there, but only downtown streets, which were full of commuters on this Wednesday morning.
Once at the airport, the driver let out the folks who were flying international, along with their suitcases. The nice thing here is that the luggage carts are free, so we took advantage of that to lug everything to a waiting kiosk to check in. That would have worked fine if we had picked one that the sun did not interfere with reading the passports. An agent saw our dilemma, and came to assist. She had no luck either, so we went directly to the counter, where the Westjet agent did all of the work. Our bags were all under the limit of 50#, and they were tagged and put back on our cart. Then we took them to a belt where they went into oblivion, where we hope to see them again in SFO. So far so good.
Even though we both got the pre-check TSA OK, it meant nothing here in Canada. We assume since we are US citizens, we are required to empty out our stuff and take the shoes off. Drats! Now we recall that same scenario happened last year on our way back home. At least, the camera bag did not have to be screened closer, like they did in SF.
Finally, we went through the US Customs area, where we scanned our passports at a kiosk, had photos taken, answered several questions, then proceeded with our printed receipt to the agent. The process was easy with good directions, and we passed, so to speak.
The last set of doors dropped us right into a myriad of duty-free shops in hopes we still had the desire to part with more money before we left the country. We have to add that Vancouver’s airport is modern, clean, and offers free wifi. We were able to download all of the required security stuff within minutes….really fast compared to the ship’s speed. So nothing has really changed there.
Our flight was on time and scheduled to leave at 12:45pm. Up to now, everything had gone according to our plans. The flight was mostly full, but quick and uneventful. The complimentary soda, cookies, and pretzels were meager, but better than nothing. In fact, one of us had squirreled some crackers and ship candies just in case we needed it. We did, and it would do until we got home.
Now this is when things went awry. After landing around 3pm, we found our luggage easily, loaded it up, and went to find our pre-arranged ride and driver. This is when “God laughed”. We had emailed a service we have used only twice this last year, and it was set up and confirmed just a week ago online. We did not feel the need to re-confirm today. In hindsight, that would have been wise. Turns out, no one was waiting near the baggage pick-up, or anywhere near there.
Calling at the courtesy airport phone, we discovered our reservation had slipped through the cracks. This was not what we wanted to hear, although the boss said call him back in 10 minutes, and he will advise us if he has a driver in this area. He apologized, and said a driver was on the way from Lafayette (in the east bay), and would arrive in about one hour. That was better news, but with commute traffic, who knows?
We hauled our stuff to one of those desks with a plug, where we could charge the computer while typing this report. No free wifi here, unless we went through Starbucks, located right behind us. Thinking we had to at least 5pm to wait for the driver, a nice young fellow showed up at 4:30pm. This is when a cell phone would have been handy. Other than having us paged, like we suggested, the driver was simply searching for two people, looking lost and desperate. Took him 15 minutes to figure out we were the right ones, just keeping busy while waiting.
We don’t think this fellow works for the car service, but is a friend of the owner from Clayton. Located in San Francisco, he was not familiar with where we lived, although he had a nifty GPS screen in his town car. By the time we reached his vehicle in the parking garage, it was after 5pm, and right in the middle of the worst commute time. Truthfully, this can occur from 2pm onwards, so nothing new to us. What should take over one hour, took two hours, getting us home by 7pm. Not bad considering we have been stuck for three hours on the last two trips back from SFO. That can become torture with sore backs and knees, but better than having to over-night in town. We were totally grateful to have a ride home, no matter what extra time it took.
So when we rolled into our driveway, it was a shock to find someone waiting in his car for us. Turned out the owner came out to apology for the mix-up, and absolutely refused payment for the ride. No matter how much we insisted, he said it was on him. But Bill did chase down the driver and gave him a tip despite being told not to. We had made use of the extra time at the airport while we waited, and chilled out thinking of the song, Don’t Worry…Be Happy. A good stress reliever. We told the owner that we would be customers for life.
Good to be home, even though we had to scrounge for something to eat. Keeping it light for a few months now in preparation for the big one in January will be wise.
Once again, thanks for trekking along with us….and we will be back!
Bill & Mary Ann
PS We shall be back with quick thoughts about what we liked, but also what we did not like….there were a few things along the way.
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Report # 27 October 17, 2018 Wednesday Sunny & 72 degrees
