Day 9 - Welcome Home (finally)!

We awoke to discover we were definitely not at the Disney Terminal. See, Sunday is the day the other Disney ship, the Disney Wonder, returns from their 3 night cruise and departs for the 4 night cruise. As that was their regular schedule, they had dibs on the terminal! We were hoping to see the Wonder from our location, but we were at the other end of the port. At a slightly later time than normal, we headed to an abbreviated breakfast and quickly realized debarkation would run like a “regular” cruise line, not Disney.

One of the great things everyone received, was a formal letter from Disney stated what had happened (for those who needed documentation for trip insurance) and an offer of 20% off of future cruises! Yes! Since we had re-booked two cruises onboard, this would automatically be applied AND we would get to keep the on board credit for the cruises! (As it turns out, they are also letting us apply it to the Alaska cruise that we booked months! In all, this is saving us $800 between the three future cruises! You can shipwreck me anytime baby!)

Everything was running late, as Customs and the port staff weren’t prepared to unload an extra 2000+ person ship on a Sunday morning. And as usually happens on other cruises, things were held up by international families that did not report to their specified location/time. We were sitting in the hallways waiting to be released. We moved once to try to find a warmer location, as it was only about 40 degrees that morning outside.

Well after 9am we were finally released, which probably took at least another 15 minutes to get off the ship. Everyone was leaving at the same time, not usual for Disney. They told us the aft exit was moving faster, so we went from forward to aft, only to be stuck in a crazy mob. When we finally got off the ship, we of course had to walk the length of the ship to get to the Customs House that was near the forward of the ship.

Approaching the building, we were divided by our luggage tags (Purple Minnie!). Luckily, we found our luggage almost immediately, turned in our declaration form, and exited. NO ONE was checking a single passport! EEGADS! Outside there was confusion and a HUGE line/mob had formed. By this time, we just wanted on the bus and along with about 50 other people, seemed to cut in front of about 300 others. Sorry!

There were actually 3 bus designations: to the parking garage, to the Disney Resorts, and to Airport. Like most, we needed Airport. We finally made it to the front of the line where three busses were lined up end to end. Other idiots got on the first bus, but smartly we proceeded to the third bus, which was at the front of the line, and would obviously be the first to leave. DUH!

We sped to the airport and checked in with a grouchy AirTran agent. Kara’s luggage was again over the limit, but was too tired to take things out and just decided to pay the overage fee ($64 total)! AUGH! We grabbed burgers at Chili’s. Amazingly I bought NOTHING at the airport Disney shop. We were happy to see Orlando has reworked their security lines, so that moved much fast. Of course, we went through the Expert Traveler lane. Per the ongoing construction, we somehow got on the wrong terminal tram even though the two of us have probably been through that airport 75 times! BWHAHA! Luckily, we laughed it off.

Our flight left about 20 minutes late and we just people watched. Our flight home was probably the WORST of either of our lives. We were in the next to the last row. Two strangers met behind us and proceeded to be loud and got drunk on the flight home. This was in combination with the toddler who cracked our eardrums screaming during decent. By this time my head was ready to explode, so I had to get some juice at baggage return for my migraine pills. Almost immediately our shuttle got us back to Kara’s SUV parked in valet, so it was toasty warm. We were very glad to finally be home!