Back in Hondo

Saturday - It’s 1am and we are still sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for a flight to San Antonio. They are still showing a boarding time of 25 min ago.

We made it to San Antonio by 3 am but our checked bags didn’t. One more line to make arrangements for them to be delivered to Hondo. The baggage agent said probably this evening as they are scheduled to arrive at the San Antonio airport on a 3:45 pm flight. With Delta, you scan the baggage claim and it gives you the history of where your suitcase has been. Pretty cool! At 4 am, it didn’t make sense to look for a hotel so we just settled in at the baggage claim area outside of the Delta office. 

There is an Italian coffee machine called illy and it made an Americano that tasted pretty close to what I got in Italy. Stronger, very good and hot milk added.

A huge thank you to Gary and Lynne for picking us up at the airport. When they arrived in the pickup area, it was almost deserted. Unheard of! Especially at 10am. 

Sunday - Our suitcases were delivered to the RV at around midnight. They sent text messages before and after delivery. 

The big surprise was that the RV refrigerator/freezer had shut off while we were gone. Specifically, on October 17th. It turned out to be a broken wire. 

One of the small 20AWG power wires for the temperature controller mounted inside of the refrigerator. I suspect that it was just vibration and fatigue. I have the appropriate size ferrules so I crimped them on and used heat shrink to reduce the effect of vibration. As you can see on the graph, the temperature dropped pretty quickly. If it runs for at least another day, I’ll consider that “fixed”.

Almost Home

Friday - We were off the ship by 7:15 but needed to wait a bit for our luggage before going through customs. The ship arrived around 3:30am and the entire crew needed to go through immigration before any passengers could leave. We took a RC “excursion” to the Orlando airport and arrived hours before our flight. The Delta check-in process was confusing to me and TSA had some new requirements (no signage). 

Maybe it’s just the Orlando airport or I just don’t care for flying. 

We have two legs for this short-ish trip to San Antonio. We are routed through Atlanta. 

Later - At least the flight had free WiFi if you authenticate with the Delta app. And, since the flight was delayed, they provided free snacks and water in the waiting area before boarding. 

Even later - We are sitting on the taxiway at the Atlanta Airport as some subset of radios used by ATC weren’t functioning. So they shutdown the airport until there is either a fix or workaround. So much for our projected early arrival in San Antonio. 

Much later - After sitting on the taxiway, they finally went back to a gate and let us off the plane. We waited in line for the gate agent who put us on standby for the next flight. It was 8:35 then 10 the 11. Now it’s 11:56pm but it sounds like the FAA ground stop has been lifted. And, I heard a few flights take off hearing Atlanta.

Last Sea Day

Thursday - After breakfast, I went to one of the Enrichment Series called Brainstorming for One. It was very lightly attended and, I didn’t learn anything new. 

We spent the rest of the morning in the Viking Lounge on deck 14 talking with David and Marilyn, our randomly assigned dinner companions for this cruise. After lunch, I started packing as we need to have our suitcases out for pickup by 10pm. We have a ride to MCO booked for early tomorrow morning. 

I picked up a hot chai latte and we spent the afternoon lying around in the Solarium. It is “vacation” after all. The made an announcement that the ship will be docking at 4:30am and the entire crew needs to be run through immigration before any passengers can get off the ship. Our shuttle ticket says to be at the bus no later than 7:45am and the concierge said to allow 30 minutes to get off one go through customs. 

Only a Couple More Days

Wednesday - This was dropped off in our room this afternoon. My first thought was kind of premature. We haven’t made it to Florida yet. Isn’t the Bermuda Triangle around here somewhere? In fact, after leaving the dock, we circled clockwise around Bermuda so we went south through the triangle. 

Since we opted for one of the specialty restaurants last night, we were on deck for sunset. For most of this trip, sunset either was during our assigned dinner slot or it was overcast. 

Specialty dinner was fantastic. Sashimi, poké bowl, and tempura. Asian food has been missing for the last month. The attempt in the main dining room a couple of days ago doesn’t count.

There was another time change last night and we are now on EST. I think they do it a day early to allow people to adjust for disembarkation day, which is Friday. We need to get off early and catch a bus to the Orlando airport.

This morning, I just went up to the lounge on deck 14 to watch us approach a storm. The storm didn’t happen. We passed to the north. It was still a nice place to spend the morning with a cup of coffee. 

We’ve been skirting fog and rain for most of the day. I think the forecast for tomorrow is much more of the same.