Since I travel with the philosophy that if you can’t carry it, you don’t need it, it always meant that I would be schlepping my carry-ons from one gate to the next to make connections. It was never, ever, from C12 to C13. The airlines don’t think like that. It was always A1 to Z83 … pick the most distant point between gates and that’s the way the American Airlines’ computer would send connecting-flight passengers. Oh yes, and you would have just 30 minutes to scamper like a rat through the maze.
So it came as a very pleasant surprise that the gate-changing hassles in Dallas have all but vanished. It was our first stop on May 22 as Judy and I made our way to San Jose, Costa Rica — through Dallas — for our two week Enrichment Voyage on the Semester at Sea’s MV Explorer.
The American Airlines’ terminal has been completely redesigned and getting from one gate — and connecting terminals — is a breeze on the racetrack shuttle train that rings the complex (you never leave security … thank god).
We easily transferred from one terminal to the next — yes, carrying our luggage in REI-designed backpack/suitcases — and still had plenty of time for a leisurely lunch at a nice Irish pub across from our boarding gate. Food good. Beer good. All good.
I was thinking about that time that this going was going to be easy. I had stressed out for nothing. Everything had been last minute, so I expected the worst, but so far … pura vida.
Last year we boarded the MV Explorer, and the two-week Enrichment Voyage in Nassau, circled the Caribbean and then returned back to Nassau to begin our trek home. This year, for a bunch of different reasons, the decision to go once again on the MV Explorer was left to very nearly the cut-off point. And, to complicate matters, the voyage this year began in Central America and finished in Fort Lauderdale. Anything that could go wrong — according to Murphy’s Law — would probably go wrong.
But there we were, having a nice lunch, with the gate in sight. Boarding was easy too. I figured with a little luck — and with well-timed connections in Costa Rica — we would be at the ship by eleven. A nightcap would follow. In bed by midnight … at the latest. A rafting trip was planned for bright and early the next morning — seven hours of sleep was in bag.
They closed the doors and we just sat there. A half-hour went past. Another. And then there was this funny announcement that the coffee pot was leaking and engineers were working on it. The coffee pot? I wouldn’t want to be at 30,000 feet with hot coffee sloshing up and down the aisles, so fixing the coffee pot seemed like a good idea. The coffee pot? Honest.
Another 30 minutes slipped by. And then another half-hour before the announcement came that all was good and we’d be on our way in no time. Twenty minutes later there was finally movement as we slowly pulled away from the gate. I made a mental note to myself — don’t ask for coffee while in flight, it might somehow screw things up. “This is your captain speaking, some knucklehead in 32C asked for coffee … brace yourselves, we will be making an emergency landing in the jungles of El Salvador.”
I avoided that mistake, so we arrived in Costa Rica in the middle of the night with our bags clinging to our backs. Getting through customs was confusing. They couldn’t make sense of all these people not staying in a local hotel or some other residence. “¿Cuál es el Explorador MV?,” the woman at the immigration counter kept asking. “¿Dónde va usted?,” with a befuddled look (and most irritated) and then waved us through (dismissed us, I think).
Suddenly we were on the sidewalk and there was a friendly Red Shirt smiling at us. It was the guy from the computer lab on last year’s voyage. We were the first through the gauntlet of local bureaucrats — who had to stay an extra two-and-a-half hours to wait for our arrival. The reason we were the first through — “if you can’t carry it, you don’t need it.”
We were handed off to two more S@S people, who checked us off a list and asked if we would just hang out and wait on the sidewalk for the rest of our fellow passengers. Pretty soon a bus pulled up and we climbed aboard.
We waited. We waited a little longer. And then we waited some more before some guy boarded the bus and informed us that four passengers were missing their luggage. What is the rule? Yes … if you can’t carry it, you don’t need it!
After awhile the bus started up and away we went. They would, as it turned out, be abandoned in San Jose in the hope that the first flight in the next day would have their missing luggage. Never did find out if they made the voyage.
Judy never said anything, but I’ll bet she was thinking how lucky we were to carry our luggage with us as backpacks. Yeah, right.
The bus ride was uneventful. After about an hour-and-a-half we spotted the MV Explorer —at the Puntarenas dock, all ablaze with some funky lights that were new to us. We filled out forms (cough, cough, no swine flu), turned in our passports and were pointed in the direction of the ship’s ladder at the other end of the dock. Boarding would be on Deck 5! As a friendly gesture for all of us “late arrivals,” the bar in the teacher’s lounge would remain open until 2 AM.
Straight to Purser’s Square where we got our pictures taken, and pass cards/room cards issued and our credit card information entered into the system. It’s a cash-less ship, you just swipe your card for drinks at the various bars and for chotzkes at the student store.
Next we dumped our luggage off in 4008 — our cabin for the voyage (forward, on the port side) — and scurried back up the stairs to deck seven and the lounge. Eight minutes before two in the morning. The day ended with “a Red Stripe, please.”
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