Mitsugirly takes great PRIDE in bringing her Spring Break extreme review
Day 9: Going Home
Day 8-Time to be kicked off the ship!
It seemed so weird sailing away on a Sun instead of the Saturday and even weirder getting off the ship on a Sunday. It almost felt like we had an extra day on the ship I don't know why.
I got up and headed out to the balcony to check on the weather. The water was so calm.
The sun was up and it was chilly outside, but not as cold as I thought it would be.
I headed down do deck 3 when I seen this...I knew that meant the bridge was coming up and I wanted to get a good shot of it.
Once again, we made it under the bridge with no problems wink wink
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I really liked the view after we passed under it.
...And on we headed to the port.
I headed back to the room to get the family up and we headed up to the buffet area for our last Pride meal. I had the normal eggs and bacon and then we were off to our rooms to gather our belongings and head down to the Alchemy Bar where they told us to wait to disembark.
I was in contact with Kendra, who informed me that she had decided NOT to put her luggage out the night before and she would be getting off with the first batch of people that could walk off...while rubbing it in my face that she would be off the ship before me without FTTF. I'm honestly not sure what her hurry was. She was not flying home with us that day, so she didn't have a flight to catch. She had booked another stay at the Best Western and was flying home the next day. But, it was a race with her.
We sat around for quite some time waiting for them to call us. It seemed to take forever for all of the people that were walk-offs to get off the ship. I'm honestly not use to getting off so late. But then again, I'm not use to not pulling into port until 9am either.
So we waited, and we waited and then Kendra text me a picture of her walking outside the port with her luggage at 10:03am (according to my phone text). That little rascal. She ask if I wanted her to call for the shuttle and I told her to hold off and they were now letting us off the ship. We were off the ship and made it to customs and grabbed our luggage at 10:18am. It was probably one of the easiest walk off's ever.
Now if my memory serves me right, every time at the other ports, you got off and had to search for your luggage and then get in the customs line...carrying, dragging and pulling all your stuff with you. This time, you went through customs and THEN headed out to get your luggage and then out of the building. PERFECT! I loved it.
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Kendra called the hotel and they said they would be there in 15 minutes...and they were.
We told the (crazy) driver that WE were heading to the airport and Kendra was heading back to the hotel. So he dropped us off at the airport first.
Now I had been worried this entire time about catching our flight. People on here had said that any flight before 3pm would be "pushing it close". The information we received from the ship also said the same thing. Our flight was at 2pm exactly.
We arrived at the airport and checked in our luggage and it was EARLY. We were going to have one heck of a wait now. Looking at my text to Kendra after we had checked our luggage in, made a potty break, stop and got a pop and headed back outside to sit and wait, it said 11:15am. We would sit and wait outside for the next 2 hours doing nada! But taking pictures of course.
The nice sea gulls that don't poop on your car. I like these kind.
Our view for the next few hours
Around 1pm we decided to head inside and to the plane.
While we waited for our plane to arrive, the little photographer in Sakari came out and she took over my camera and started taking pictures of the planes coming in, the plane beside us and some selfies of herself. I did not look at any of the pictures until we got home and I had downloaded them onto the computer and found this...
Maybe she has watched me take too many of the "holding a ship in the palm of your hand" pictures in port in the past? I thought it was funny and cute.
Her selfie with the fish braid she refused to let me take out of her hair last night or this morning. She is a "hot mess" is what I told her.
Now the reason that Kendra and Brayden would not be flying home with us today is because they flight was sold out weeks before our cruise. So, she was forced to take another flight the following day. She tried and tried to talk me into rebooking mine and stay another day with her, but I wanted to get back because Sakari had school the next day and after taking 2 weeks off in November for our (Sun & Sky) cruise, I didn't want her missing any more school days.
So we are sitting and waiting for our plane to come in and they came over the loud speaker asking anyone that would be willing to catch the 10pm flight home, they would reward you by giving you a $300 gift card. The hubby looked at me and said...we should so do that! But, I was ready to get home and no way did I want to arrive at the airport at home at 11pm, get a ride home, unload the vehicle and get settled in. That would defeat the purpose of trying to get Sakari off to school the next day.
Does anyone know how these things work? I mean they really didn't say "how many" people they needed to do this. Had they needed 3 people (seats) and we all did this, would they have really given us $900? Is this gift card (visa/mastercard I believe???) good for anything? Or just on airflight tickets? (Still would be very useful to someone like us who fly a lot).
I wonder if they ran into the same problem that night with not enough seats...since, if you remember, I said ALL the flights were sold out for that day...as in the ENTIRE day, which is why Kendra stayed.
So our flight pulled up right on time and we all headed to get on the plane. Yes, it was full without a seat available. For some reason, the hubby received coupons from Southwest for 4 free drinks on the plane. I have no idea why they sent them to HIM and I have never received any before.
But, he decided it was time for a beer...
We landed back home at exactly 1 hour after we had taken off and .....we were glad to be home again.
THE END! (lol)
Just a follow up with Kendra going back to the hotel. Easy check in just like before. She put her things in the room and when she was ready, she went down to the front desk and ask for the shuttle to take her to the mall. They arrived promptly and took her there and dropped her off and told her to call when she was ready to head back. She spent the day shopping and wondering around. I guess there's a movie theater there and she took Brayden to see a show. Then they got dinner somewhere there and said it was great. When she was ready to head back, she said it was at night and she called them and they arrived within 20 minutes (they were taking people to the airport to be dropped off and then came and got her). So all went well on her overnight stay post-cruise. :)
I will post my final thoughts of the ship coming right up and hopefully I haven't forgotten anything along the way during the review.
You are welcome to ask any questions, and if I can answer, I would be happy to. It might spark my memory on things I have probably forgotten as well.