We can’t sleep – and are up at the ungodly hour of 4:30am. Well, Ed is, I manage to stay in the bed until 5:30 – but then we’re done. Everything is really early today anyway, because it is the first time into a US port, the ship has to undergo all the inspections and CBP have to come aboard to process guests who aren’t US citizens. It’s going to be a day – that’s for sure!
So, we’re up, we shower, we go to our Suite breakfast in Giovanni’s which opens at 6. As we walk down the hall, the line for non-US immigration already wraps down the hall and into the Centrum, and it doesn’t start until 6:15. Oh, this will be ugly. We have our coffee and hot water (Carrefour instant coffee, made it to the last day!) and are pleasantly surprised that there are scrambled eggs and bacon on the buffet. We thought for certain it would only be continental.
Done with breakfast, we scout out where we think we will be getting off on the 5th floor. There are a few folks standing around the elevator, but not many. So we decide to get our stuff now and make our way down, instead of hanging out in the room. We want to make sure we can get an elevator.
And, we do, so that all works well. However, the gal at the door says we should go down the hall to the theater. Huh? We thought we could walk right out. On the way we see Jose (cruise staff – awesome guy!) and ask him if we are doing the right thing. It’s now about 7:00, and allegedly walk off was to begin at 6:15. Of course we knew that would never happen – but…we expected a line around the decks to leave, not the theater.
Jose walks us in, checks we’re supposed to be there, and positions us just right (by chance) because all of a sudden, they say we’re ready to go. Yes! Worked well! We manage to get in line pretty close to the front. We still have to stand outside for another 10 or 15 minutes waiting for everything and everyone to line up correctly – but finally we are off (with only minor grumbling from grumpy passengers – and no fist fights that we saw! LOL).
The cab line isn’t too hateful – although it is odd and not managed at all, but we get a cab pretty quickly and he charges us $20 off the meter to get to the hotel and our car. Sweet. We’re on the road by 8:30 – a full 15 minutes before our scheduled disembarkation time.
As it turns out, we did the smart thing walking off. The whole immigration, ship clearing thing was totally delayed (as we feared it would be). The schedule was at least an hour behind, so we wouldn’t have been off until 9:45, and there were some other little bumps in the process that made it a little more irritating for those still aboard. We were fortunate we could carry off and hop in a cab and go. Phew!
So – we hit Ft. Myers, did our shopping, had lunch and were able to check into Spanish Cay a couple hours early to boot! All’s well and we’re now hanging out on the Gulf of Mexico for a while! That’s all for this blog journey. Stay tuned for SE Asia coming your way soon.
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