…….sometimes you get more of an adventure than you bargained for.
Have you ever seen that episode of I Love Lucy where she and the gang were going on a cruise? You know, the one where Lucy somehow misses the boat and has to take a helicopter out to meet the boat. Well, I wish catching a chopper to meet the ship had been an option over these past few days because let me tell you, catching a ship once it’s left the port is not an easy task.
So, once and for all, YES, we missed the ship…..and YES, I’m serious. In fact, as I’m writing this, it’s Monday night, and we’re still not on that ship. We’re in St. Thomas…..and as of right now it looks like we’ll be able to make the ship on Wednesday when it docks here. Before I explain what our plan is for the next few days, let me explain how we got here.
It all started out easy enough yesterday morning. We left the house on time (for the most part). Checking the bags at the airport was simple, and security was a breeze. We got down to our gate, and settled in for what we expected to be an hour or so wait before we could start boarding out plane. The way things worked out was that Mom, Angie, Cal, and I were all leaving about 9:30 on an American Airlines flight from NKY/Cincinnati airport to Miami. Kendra had booked everything at a different time so she was leaving about a half hour ahead of us on Delta. We were going to meet up at the Miami airport and take a shuttle to the Port of Miami to catch the Carnival Glory.
We were texting Kendra right up until she boarded the plane and was on her way. It was about that time we heard an announcement that our flight was going to be delayed by about 45 minutes. We figured, oh well, no big deal, since we’ve got a little more time, let’s go grab a little bite to eat. In the time it took us to eat our sandwiches, our flight was delayed several more times so that we we weren’t even scheduled to leave until 11:45.
Kendra would be landing in Miami before we even left NKY. So, we left a message for her to go ahead and catch the shuttle to the port. After all, it was beginning to look like we wouldn’t land in time to make the last shuttle, so we’d have to take a taxi anyway. There wasn’t any point in all of us trying to cram into the taxi when Kendra could just go on and take the shuttle.
We thought we caught a break when they moved us to another gate and actually moved our flight time to around 11:20. Turns out we were waiting on the plane and crew to get in from Chicago. It was delayed due to some mechanical issue on the original plane. Anyway, the plane did arrive, but there was no way we were making an 11:20 departure. By the time we managed to leave the ground it was 12:15. It was aggravating (to say the least), but still no reason to panic. The flight was a little over two hours, and since the cruise departed Miami at 4:00, we still had plenty of time.
Well, “plenty of time” turned into “no way are we making the ship” before we had time to really process what was happening. Our two hour flight to Miami turned into a three hour flight to Ft. Myers……and there was nothing we could do about it. Mother Nature decided to mess with us a little and throw some nasty weather right over Miami. So, even though we had started our initial descent into Miami, we were forced to land in good ole’ Ft. Myers instead.
Now, I don’t know how much you know about the locations of different cities in Florida, so let me give you a quick lesson. Miami is on the Atlantic coast of Florida, and Ft. Myers sits on the Gulf. That fact coupled with the fact that we landed in Ft. Myers at 3:40 led to Carnival Glory leaving port as scheduled at 4:00 without us on it……Kendra, however, was on board.
Will we ever make our ship? Will Kendra make the most of her time on board the Glory on her own? Check the next post when I’ll explain how we got from Ft. Myers to the beautiful island of St. Thomas…..before the ship.
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