Cruise 2017: Coming Home

Well, the day came and we had to finally go home.  Sob. We were up bright and early, despite not needing to be at the airport too early this time.   I always get some great shots of the sunrise...I usually only see the sunrise on the day we leave Canada, if we have an early flight, and the day we fly home :)

 One of the glass blowers said she was at the end of her contract and was going home when we got to Miami. I wonder if that's her U-Haul? LOL. Or, maybe if you have a group of people, it's cheaper to rent a U-Haul for luggage and then everyone goes in a big van?

 Some hurricane damage

 No editing! It's so calm there in the morning!

 They vacuum up the grass clippings! LOL!!

 We got in the terminal and of course, Rob starts stressing that our luggage hadn't arrived yet. Of course, it took a little while, but it all showed up. We got a scary taxi ride over to the airport (all our taxi rides in Florida are scary. Really. It's a scary place to drive). Did our airport stuff and walked around. The airport was totally different than I remembered from 2008.  This time it was much nicer.

 We went to TGIFridays and I had something awesome and saucy. Thankfully I actually had another shirt in my carryon. Well, technically, it was the pajama top I wore the night before. But I sewed it from a t-shirt pattern, so I think I was fine. And it even went with my pants. In the future, I must think about this, because it always happens.

 Walking around, we found this Service Dog Relief Area. I'm not sure where you're supposed to go if you have a dog that isn't a service dog.
While waiting, Erica and her entourage appeared at our gate. I guess her sister and her husband were on our flight. There seemed to be some juicy gossip, regarding a foot under the table and other fun stuff. Fun way to pass the time while charging our devices. Then I walked all over trying to find a decent price cup of coffee. Got to a tiny Dunkin Donuts in the back of a newspaper shop, and was 10-20 cents short. Walked all the way back, got the money and head back for my java. It actually wasn't too bad!
Somehow, we got lucky, and the ONLY empty seat on the plane was our window seat! Not sure how that worked out, but I love the window seat! And Rob loves the aisle LOL.

Damn, that's some big plane we're on!

 Coming into the Toronto area

 Got in, off the plane, got luggage and went to customs. It was confusing. There were extra lines and machines to put in passport and get a photo scan done and it said something about expedited service. The woman working wasn't very clear, but basically said you still end up in the long line with everyone. We did it anyway. Only it couldn't get a photo of Rob. We don't know if it was because he had his hat and glasses on the first try and maybe it used up all it's tries. Or maybe because of his nystagmus (uncontrollable eye movements). Of course, he stressed and fretted all the way through the customs line. There were a couple people in a panic--one who didn't speak great English--because they had connecting flights and needed to get through. People were really nice though and let them move up the line. When we got up there, the customs officer just said "sometimes the photo doesn't work, especially with blue eyes", stamped our receipts, and off we went (oh, the trip down was the first time we ever got stamps in our passports!).

The Park N Fly shuttle stop was chaos. Only the valet parking bus was showing up, but it was full. We finally all just jammed on one van. Got to our truck, it was still in one piece, and off we went. Missed the turns for the highway, Rob got cranky and stressed again but we finally made it home. Yes, it was a bit of a slow drive due to the timing, but that's life. And that's the end of the cruise, the "last one for ten years" (until all the kids are through university). I hope not!