I'm currently sitting on the deck of the Pearl in fairly high winds while my daughter experiences the 'wave pool' and I'm waiting to watch the helicopter depart with a sick child. Earlier today the Captain informed us that we would be picking up speed in order to get close enough to the mainland for a helicopter to perform an air rescue. It's just left; I don't know anything about what was wrong with the child, but I hope everything goes well.

So... Back to me! It's been quite a vacation so far, with ups, downs, and now some added excitement. We started out early in the morning with a short flight, an even shorter connection (walked off one plane and onto the next), and then a long wait in Toronto. Now, I hate the Toronto airport to begin with, and I have to say, the way they handle domestic to US connections didn't make it any better. We walked a fairly long way (typical of YYZ), following signs as best we could, and found ourselves looking at a pair of steel doors that appeared to have no handles or push plates, so we went a little further and found an employee to ask. We spoke to a half dozen employees at the airport between our starting and ending points, actually, and my daughter commented on how difficult it was to understand all of them... I have nothing against immigration, but is it so much to ask that the employees in a Canadian airport speak English well enough to be understood? Anyway, we were directed back to the uninviting doors, and sure enough, they pushed open. Once on the other side, we were directed to the area where we would be going through customs. I presented our tickets and passports, but was told that we had to pick up our luggage first, which was on a bag return on the other side of the check in attendants. Once we had it, we came back and the same agent again turned us away because I hadn't filled out my customs declaration yet. I'm not sure why he couldn't have told us that we needed it to be complete the first time we spoke to him, but I dutifully filled it out and we were finally allowed to enter the area. Once through customs we saw that an hour and a half had passed... which wasn't so bad since we still had about six hours left before our flight to Orlando. We've got another long one on the way back. I'm not looking forward to it!

We finally made it to Orlando, and after picking up our bags, we went directly to the Budget counter where we had a van reserved. We waited in line for an hour and a half, wondering what could possibly be so difficult with all the reservations that it was taking so long. When we got up to the counter, the agent informed us that Budget does their computer updates every second Saturday of the month and EVERY rental was being processed by hand. REALLY? Saturday night is the best night to do this? Crazy. My husband also had to run back for the GPS unit we had reserved because without the computer to reference, the agent had missed it on my printout. Once we got on the Florida Turnpike things went much more smoothly, and we arrived at our hotel in Ft. Pierce without a hitch. We rejoined a group of friends there that we had last seen at our home airport boarding their flights on another airline. We got up in the morning and headed down to Miami, where we were to drop off our vans at the Budget office closest to the port. Our GPS gave us clear directions and we easily followed them to the right exit... which was blocked by a police car. We then let it recalculate and it got us turned around so that we could get on the right track... which went behind the Budget location but all the roads to get to the front were blocked off... there was a parade! Thank goodness for our friends, who messaged me while I was on the phone with Budget trying to figure out what to do. They'd seen someone waving and let us know that we were to come back and go in the back way - they told me to look for the 'do not enter' signs. We were lucky, too - the location was closing five minutes after we arrived! The agents locked up the gate and left our party of 11 and another couple standing on the side of the road waiting for cabs that had presumably been called on our behalf. The first couple took the first one, then when another one came along (it dropped some people off across the street and we flagged it down), our friends insisted that we take it since we had picked up my mother and aunt on the way to the drop off and they felt they should go first, especially since my aunt needed boarding assistance. It was a good thing they did, too, since we found out later that they had waited an hour before finally being picked up. My mom and aunt are both close to 80 and there's no way they would have been able to handle that. As it was, when we got to the port, there was a sea of people standing in the hot sun. Our porter directed us to where we could ask for assistance, but we couldn't get to it because of all the people, so I stopped an NCL employee and he called for us. A lovely woman named Rosa came outside and led us into the building. She explained that things were backed up because they weren't able to let people board at the usual time, so her priority was to get my aunt inside where she could at least sit down. We were instructed to join the line while we waited for a wheelchair to become available. The ship was cleared for boarding about fifteen minutes later (around 1pm when it should have started at 12 I believe), and the line started moving. We were putting distance between ourselves and my aunt, so I asked someone what we should do, and I let them know that she could walk as long as she didn't have to stand for long periods of time, so they said that we could go through. When we got past security, I saw that the terminal was almost completely empty, further emphasizing how far behind they were with embarkation. I can't imagine how awful it must have been for the hundreds of people who had been standing outside all that time. Read more