We hit on the one-year anniversary of our Norwegian Getaway Western Caribbean cruise and I never finished writing about my experience. So I’m diving back in, just in to time relive what I was doing then through the magic of Facebook Memories.
We woke up early on Sunday morning as we were pulling into port in Miami. There were so many emotions. We had such a great week. We had so much fun with our friends. We saw so many things. But getting off the boat this time meant heading back to reality, a foot of snow and busy schedules. Even though we were excited to see our kids and our dogs, that morning was rough.
There are two ways to get off the cruise ship–carry your bags yourself or have your bags taken off the ship. The second option is a bit slower, because, like an airport, you have to claim your baggage at a drop point off the ship. And, furthermore, you have to have everything packed up the night before and sitting outside of your door for them to pick up at night. We decided to carry our own bags off the boat.
We did a final walk-through of our room and went down for breakfast at 7:20. It was a little later than we hoped to get moving. The Garden Cafe was crowded as everyone wanted one last meal before getting off the ship. We were in the first group to get off the boat as soon as could. They began calling out grouping as we were eating. We ran down to our room, got our stuff and made our way to Deck 7 Forward to disembark.
The line to get off the boat was so long already. It wrapped from the front of the boat, around the casino in mid-ship and back out to the front. The line ran through the ship, into the terminal and ended in a sad, gigantic basement. If you had opted to have luggage carried off the boat, you claimed it there—then came customs.
The agent asked if we had anything to declare and my husband told them we bought some rum and the agent let us go. We were a bit worried about how it would work going through customs as we had purchased several bottles of rum, souvenirs and my jewelry. However, the entire process was easy-breezy.
We exited the terminal and prepared to get a car using Lyft. As the Uber and Lyft drivers aren’t allowed in the taxi lane, we had to walk a bit, but the entire process of getting out of the terminal and on the road to the airport was pretty painless.
Before we knew it we were at the airport and waiting for our flight home.
Our flight was overbooked and they were looking for people to stay in the area until the next day and take a flight then. Given that we knew we were heading home and into snowmageddon, it was really hard to say no.
The cruise was great. Despite the anxiety I had leading up to the cruise, everything went really well. We had a good time. The kids were well cared for. The weather was perfect. And no one got sick. I’d definitely do it again.
In fact, we will be doing it again as we purchased Norwegian Cruise Next packages to ensure that we’ll be back on a boat in the very near future.
