The Turned Around Vacation

So my sister and I headed off to a cruise to various places including Panama.  My flight was leaving from Phoenix at 2:18 am but hers didn't leave Des Moines until 6 am.  Hers was to Miami and mine was to Fort Lauderdale.   Anyway, my flight got delayed until 2:30 am but obviously I had plenty of time to board the cruise ship by 4 pm.   The first mistake I made was not having our flights arrive the day before our cruise instead of the day of the cruise.  Our flights were on January 3rd so there were still some holiday travel crowd.  My second mistake was getting dropped off at terminal 4.  I always fly out of terminal 4 and didn't pay enough attention to my flight information.  Since I was flying Jet Blue instead of American or United, the flight was out of Terminal 3.  Easy fix.  I just had to ride the SkyTrain to terminal 3.  Once in terminal 3 I could see that it was much different.  Along with the regular seating, there were some nice comfy chairs by the windows and some padded, boomerang-shaped benches that people were sleeping on.  There was a lot of sleeping going on since this was a red-eye flight.  Anyway, the above photo shows the sink drains in the bathrooms.  Nice design for an airport.

 

My husband has a shirt that says, "I am currently unsupervised.  I know, it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless".   He wears it when I take off on trips with my sister.  Anyway, I had to laugh at the stickers on this backpack. 

The flight to Fort Lauderdale was full but uneventful, thank goodness.  I arrived at terminal 4.  The instructions for meeting the Norwegian representative said they would be by baggage claim.  I didn't have a bag to claim but I headed to baggage claim.  I knew that the first bus to the ship wouldn't head out until 10:30 so I just hung around the terminal.  No Norwegian representative showed up by 10:30. Then I heard someone asking the Carnival representative where they could find the Norwegian cruise rep.  They were directed to Terminal 3.  Gees, Norwegian could have had some better directions!  So I headed next door to Terminal 3 baggage claim.  This was a much larger area.  I headed past many baggage claim belts looking for the Norwegian rep but I stopped when I came to the Information Desk.  I asked the gal there and she said the representatives usually came in from the direction I had come from and they set up their kiosk in front of the belts.   Ok, no rep was there so I continued to wait.  Past the escalators I saw people gathering for covid shots but I didn't see any belts down that way.  My sister's flight hadn't come in so I wasn't concerned but I was getting hungry so I called Norwegian. I was told to call the vendor that does the transportation.  Once I got ahold of them, they said they would send someone so I should just wait.  Another hour passed.  Finally, after 6 hrs of waiting, I decide to ask the Information Desk people again.  This time they said that the kiosks were sometimes set up on the other side of the escalators.  That's exactly where they were and where they had been all day.  No Norwegian rep walking through the terminal gathering people.  They just stayed behind their kiosk even when they were informed that someone was looking for them!  By this time, I am starving and my sister's flight has been diverted from DC to Charlotte.  The Norwegian people tell me there is no way my sister will get to Fort Lauderdale in time to get on the cruise ship.  I'm having trouble reaching my sister because her phone is dying.  I end up cancelling our cruise and waiting at the terminal for her flight to arrive.  I found a coffee shop with sandwiches on the 2nd floor of terminal 3.  Long story short, we decided to stay in Fort Lauderdale and make the most of our vacation.