Alaska Day 8 - Trip Home - ICK

Day 8 – May 29, 2009

We woke up (early cause Mama called thinking we were running late, grrr) and got dressed. They brought us a continental breakfast - not allowed any hot room service on your last day. We ate and headed down to our assigned area to get off the boat. Our flight was at 12 noon and it was 8:35. The Celebrity staff had been paid to see we got to the airport on time, with our luggage. So are in our assigned meeting area and they tell us it’s our turn to leave.

We stand up and get in line and then realize the line to get off the boat is about ½ the length of the ship – why did they tell us to stand up so we could wait in line? Someone please explain this to me?

So we get off the ship and expect to get on a bus that has our luggage already preloaded on it… NO that is not what happened. We get onto the pier and there is the luggage from the entire ship – we are told to find ours! Ok, if you can imagine hundreds of people trying to find their luggage which really isn’t in any order at all and me having problems with crowds on top of all of this? And we have a 12 o’clock flight to catch. I was not happy!

Luckily we found it all and a nice porter did come up and get our bags to the bus for us – if it would have not been for him I’m not sure what we would have done.

So then we get on the bus and the driver is outside making sure everything gets on properly – then we wait to get out of the parking area … which is a nightmare. Then the train stops us. By this time it’s getting close to 10 and I’m freaking.

We get to the airport at 10:05ish and are told we have to wait on the bus while they get the luggage off. As you can imagine that went over like a ton of bricks, but we waited. We finally got off around 10:20 grabbed our bags and rushed to the baggage check in. You’d think since I had my boarding pass already and had already paid the $100 extra bag fee we could just zip up and go. No, they aren’t as organized as Hartsfield and we waited in line for 40 minutes to check our bags. When we got up there 2 were over weight… they only charged us for 1 but that was $90. Overall we paid $290 in baggage fees for the trip – is that not insane?

Anyway we got our bags checked, it was 11:15 and we still had to go thru security. I’m panicking and we are running thru the airport to get to security. The line is long and we wait some more. Luckily it moved quickly and we got to the gate about 11:35 just as they called our zone to board. It was insane and all Celebrity’s fault. There ability to get people in and off that boat is insane. I could not believe the inability to organize and the way we were just basically dumped off of the boat and said here ya go – figure it out!

I would never cruise again anyway as it is simply too relaxed for me. I want to go see the stuff, not drive by it. However, if I did want to cruise again – this disembarkation would have cemented that it would not have been with Celebrity! I have serious panic attacks in crowds and they caused me to have 1 when we got off at Juneau and came close to causing me to have a second when we came home. Not a great way to end a trip – that was for sure. But we got home and are here safe and sound. It was good to get away and even better to see my house and my kitties.