Saturday, October 2nd

8am flight = 6am at the airport. Normally, US customs is cleared at the originating country, not at the destination airport. However, for Jetsgo flights to Fort Lauderdale, we found out the hard way that customs is cleared in Florida, resulting in GKY and I walked all the way from one end of Terminal 3 to the other. But, it was a good thing. For some reason, the US customs line was ridiculously long anyway, so we got to "by-pass" and get to the gate with plenty of time to spare.

Now, if you had about an hour til your flight, and were running on 0 to 2 hours of sleep, what would you do? Well, a normal person may nap, or eat, depending on what was more pressing. However, if you're GKY, you crack out the laptop... to finish a file. Yes, she's nuts. Technically we were already on vacation, but to GKY, there's always still work to do... So in the middle of my half awake inhalation of breakfast, GKY starts rambling about subsequent payments testing while sipping her Timmy Ho's and madly documenting in AWS. Sigh. Vacation with the Yam begins.

I forgot to mention, I brought 4 bags: 1 camera backpack, 1 EY knapsack, 1 luggage case, and 1 audit bag. At checkin, my audit bag got selected for the complete swab and search procedure. Because of the unmentionables within, I was pretty glad it was a woman doing the search. As if that wasn't enough, during the security check, my EY knapsack was picked for the poke and prod treatment. On the flight home, I'm fully expecting the other two bags to get checked. BTW, it was interesting to note that this was the FIRST time that I've travelled with my dad's SLR without having the camera pulled aside for inspection!

On to more crazy stories. We eventually get on the plane, and the only thing that stopped GKY from continuing file work was the laptop battery problem. Plus she was dead tired, running on zero sleep. We both zonked out on the plane.

The arrangements in Fort Lauderdale was that we pick up our luggage and a Royal Caribbean International (RCI) representative would be waiting for us. We get our luggage and lo and behold, no one is there. There is another cruise line representative, but none for RCI. Well, maybe they are on the way. We sat down, and waited. And waited. And waited. GKY got on the phone to call their special hotline -- and waited and waited on hold.

Eventually, GKY figured out that we were not in the main part of the terminal, so we wandered over to the main area... and found the not-so-bright RCI representative, all by her lonesome. Of course, if she had the brains to walk 10 feet to the other side, she would have seen the 30 people with RCI cruise documents in hand. To say GKY was annoyed is an understatement. Picture her LOUDLY discussing how poor the service is, especially since RCI prides itself for their first class service. It was pretty funny to watch GKY get stemmed, too bad the RCI lady had no clue GKY was referring to her, even though GKY's outburst of frustration was very vocal, and lasted for a pretty long period of time.

As mentioned, there were about 30 other cruise guests who flew from TO on Jetsgo. What I failed to mention is that they were all asian. ALL 30+ were Chinese, loudly speaking in Cantonese, obviously confused and lost (since I can understand). By the time we finally got on the bus to transfer us to the Port of Miami, we had suffered a horrendous spectacle of trying to get 40 (the numbers increased) Chinese adults and elderly down the hall, outside, and to the neighboring terminal, without the requisite bright pink chinese tour guide flag. It was as if all of Toronto had flown on Jetsgo's cheap flight with us. And vacation is supposed to take you AWAY from home??

Boarding the bus was a typical display of Chinese manners. All 40 guests pushed and shoved and elbowed to get on the bus first. We were so "eager" that the RCI lady had to remind the group that the bus would wait for everyone to get on, so no one needed to worry about getting on first. It was funny, I haven't shoved elbows with Chinese people since shopping in HK; it was kinda nostalgic.

On the bus, it REALLY felt like a Chinese bus tour. Except for the one white family, and the lack of the flourescent pink flag. Luckily both GKY and I fell fast asleep, though not before inconspicuously taking some pics from the bus.

I failed to mention that when we were leaving the baggage check area at the Fort Lauderdale airport, GKY was stalled for about 10 minutes. No, she wasn't searched. The customs/security guy was chatting her up. No joke, he was being "friendly" (per the Yam). He was so friendly that his coworker seemed really interested in the conversation and wanted to be a part of it as well! So it was no surprise to me when it took us forever to check-in for the cruise at the Port of Miami. The friendly gentleman helping us couldn't help but comment on GKY's beauty, as reflected both in her and in her passport picture. It was quite amusing watching the whole escapade!

Got on the boat, found the rest of the group via walkie talkies. Roughly figured out where they were, and found our room without getting lost too much.

Prior to the boat departing Miami, we had a fire drill. In our rooms were HUGE life jackets, with built in lights, reflectors, and whistle. We had to find our mustering area, which is essentially the holding area prior to getting into the life boats. It was quite the sight, the entire boat wearing these gigantic bright orange things. It wasn't just a normal vest type, it had a thick neck brace too, presumably to keep our heads out of the water. My dad has pics of my mom in the life jacket, will have to post those later. We looked really silly!!

The rest of the day was spent eatting, unpacking, and eatting some more...