A follow up to my last posting: It is pleasing to report that the cruise Ms. Rivers and I planned finally came to fruition. How we get to this point is a somewhat longer-than-it-should-be story. More on that in a moment.
As a side note, I don’t know when this will end up getting
published, as we are a bit internet impaired while on the SS Volendam (which
shall, henceforth, be referred to as the “Voldemort”...no particular reason why, other than
“Voldemort” sounds way cooler than Volendam.
Sorry Dutchmen.). Eventually I will
be able to get this posted, but until then, well, it’s strictly offline city
for me at the moment. This is not
necessarily a bad thing.
Not to add yet another cultural reference, but I think our
captain, when he makes his announcements, sounds like Goldmember from Austin
Powers.
I wonder if I gave him $20 he would say “it’s goooolllllddd!”
for me? And yes, I have muttered the
phrase “freaky-teaky Dutchman” under my breath more than once. So far.
My admittedly weird sense of humor documented, it’s time to
talk about how we got here.
Literally. A chronology of events
is in order. Please skip ahead if you
don’t want to read that part. Better yet
just skip the whole posting. Or the
whole blog for that matter. It’s all good-n-the-hood
for me. Onward.
Friday
Thunderstorms filled drive down to Philadelphia.
During dinner we get the notice that our flight to Montreal
for Saturday has been cancelled.
After two phone calls and about 45 minutes of hold-time we
are re-booked on a different flight that will take us to Quebec City instead of
Montreal on Saturday, but we will still be able to board the Voldemort, all be
it one day into the cruise.
Re-booked flight to Quebec City is cancelled by the airline.
One hour of the phone (mostly hold time) with the cruise
line.
New flights booked…this time going to Chicago and then
connecting to Quebec City on Sunday. Two
hour layover in Chicago, and there will be about two hours from when we are
scheduled to arrive in Quebec City and when we need to be on the Voldemort
(which is 3pm Eastern).
Oh, and the flight from
Philadelphia to Chicago leaves at 5:45am.
Woke up the super-early requisite
time, and Uber to the airport. Security
and check-in are uneventful. The plane
leaves more or less on time.
The Plane arrives in Chicago but
seems to taxi around the airport for 45 minutes or so before it gets to the
gate.
I have a few bites of disgusting
quasi-warm Chicago deep dish pizza for breakfast. It was the only place I could get food
without waiting in an ungodly line.
After that I realized why.
Got to the gate for the flight
from Chicago to Quebec City and it is delayed.
By almost an hour. Suddenly our
two hour turnaround time on the ground in Quebec City has been cut in half.
Flight arrives in Quebec City at
about 1:45pm. Thank God for Canadian
efficiency, as we get through the whole passport control thing in record time.
Uber ordered from the airport to
the cruise ship port. Feeling that special
kind of disgusting that comes from sitting on airplanes for hours, I order us
an uber-Uber. The electric Mercedes Benz
SUV arrives, and Andre takes us to the airport.
We played a musical trivia game in-route. I impress Andre and Ms. Rivers with my
skills. Too bad music trivia isn’t all that
marketable an ability.
The uber-Uber, as driven by Andre,
arrives at the airport at 2:35pm. And we
get on board the ship with about 20 minutes to spare. I throw Andre an extra 20 Loonies just out of
relief (and yes, I also tipped through the app and rated him 5 stars).
There you go, that was the saga of
getting here. We did have a minor
wrinkle in that the ships X-ray found something that looked like a knife in my
backpack and something similar in Ms. Rivers suitcase. My backpack?
It turned out to be my belt. Ms.
Rivers’ suitcase? It was a pair of
tweezers. The security staff
apologized…I thanked them for doing their job.
Honestly, after what it took to get to the ship, they could have done
whatever the hell they wanted, and I would have been good with it.
Post Script: It's Tuesday morning and I barely have a thread of a mobile signal, so I'm getting this one loaded. Well, that's the plan at least. Onward to the day's festivities.
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