I woke up a little after 5, as the ship changed speeds. I headed out onto the balcony, where I caught a look at lights of Miami, and...a FULL MOON! Whose ideas was it to schedule the end of vacation with a full moon?! The kids will be nutty at school tomorrow!
I watched as we did a 180, and floated into the dock. We were met with chaos...the forklifts started running almost immediately. And, as we docked, an ambulance cruised down through. It kept going, down to one of the other ships that was docked. I watched the chaos for a bit, and stepped on some popcorn. I guess someone else near us had been part of the popcorn throwing club after we had gone to bed, with the wind blowing in the wrong direction.
I hung out on the balcony for quite some time, but eventually it was time to get ready for the day. I got dressed, putting on my brand new Disney Cruise Vacation Mode t-shirt, only to realize I hadn’t cut the tag off yet, and had packed my nail clippers in our checked luggage. And Nick was still pretty out of it, and I had to go pick up our photo USB from Shutters.
Needless to say, I was that classy person who had a plastic tag holder hanging from my armpit (I had the sense to tear the tag itself off) while I went to pick up the USB drive. Shutters was not busy at all, and that was an easy process. She took my stateroom number, confirmed my name, handed me an envelope, and I was on my way back to my room.
Thankfully by now Nick was awake and functional, so he was able to tear the plastic piece off my shirt. We rounded up the last of our chargers, and then hung out on the balcony, enjoying having regular cell phone service again, and already planning for next year’s cruise.
Shortly before 8, Nick’s parents knocked on our door. They hadn’t seen our room yet, so they wanted to see how it compared to ours. They had had a standard balcony room, and Kim said she kind of preferred the shade that ours provided. Not that she had any complaints about their room.
About 8, we headed down to deck 3, where we waited just a few minutes before they allowed us into Rapunzel’s for breakfast. We found our way back to our table, and were greeted by a very tired but energetic Nikola. I believe he said he had had 4 hours of sleep, and 4 cups of coffee.
I think John and Nick both got the Route 66, which involves lots of breakfast meats, eggs and hashbrowns. Kim and I both got An Egg for the road, with a fried egg, grilled ham, and hashbrown patties. I had expected this meal to be quiet, but Nikola and Miguel both chatted and joked with us a LOT. It was a fun meal, and we all parted smiling and waving, with Nikola encouraging us to book another cruise on the Magic, because he refuses to work on any of the other ships, despite having worked with the cruise line for more than 10 years! In case I haven’t mentioned it enough, he’s an excellent server. If you’re on the Magic anytime soon, look for him at Palo.
Breakfast complete, John headed for guest services to apply that gift card to his account that I had encouraged him to deal with on the first day. We only had to wait a few minutes for him though.
And then it was up to deck 4, where we joined the line that snaked from the doors on deck 4 all the way back through the art gallery, through shutters, and almost to Animator’s Palate. Nick and I were ahead of Kim and John so we hopped in line, and they joined us when we got to them a minute or two later. The line was long but it never stopped moving, and cast members along the way kept thanking us for our patience.
We scanned off the ship by 9:30, probably a few minutes before that, just as the “get your butt off the ship” announcements were starting in earnest. Once we scanned off the ship, we were able to walk pretty freely. The line had dissipated. Or, perhaps it had collected again at the elevator, with all of the giant strollers!
We took the escalator down to baggage claim, found our beast of a suitcase with ease, and then, with a little more effort, found Kim and John’s generic gray and black suitcases nearby. We then followed a lady who was berating a porter, because she “no one told her she needed her birth certificate and it was packed in that pile of luggage (there were about 6 suitcases for 2 women on a luggage cart), and no she wasn’t looking for it”, into the customs line. Oh please, don’t let us get stuck behind her.
The customs line was short and moved quickly. We cracked jokes about smuggling some roosters from Key West back into the country when we saw the forbidden items drop bin, and pretty soon we were being directed into a line for a customs agent...directly behind the lady with inadequate ID.
Turns out the customs agent was also inadequate. Said lady had cleared customs within seconds, and we were called forward. He took a VERY cursory glance at our passports, and sent us on our way.
We met Nick’s parents, who had a more normal customs agent, a few minutes later, and exited the building, pausing to see if anyone had had anything interesting confiscated. On our previous cruise, the table to pick up confiscated items was covered in interesting stuff-kitchen sets, immersion blenders, etc, and had allowed for a good laugh. This time, it was primarily surge protectors. Boring.
Nick led the way to the rental car, and pretty soon, the boys were playing tetris again. I programmed the GPS, and we were on our way to the airport. It was a short drive, and I think we arrived into the chaos of Miami International Airport about 10 am. Curbside was pure insanity, and we really had no idea which door we needed to use.
Nick and I collected our luggage, said goodbye to his parents, and headed inside, to figure things out. We printed luggage tags and boarding passes, and paid our baggage fee at a kiosk before heading over to the check in counter.
This is where the fun began. We were quickly informed that our suitcase was overweight, weighing in at 55 pounds. I mean, I know we had some extra stuff in there, but I think it’s safe to say our luggage scale at home is inaccurate, having told us upon departure that it weighed 38 pounds. The lady did tell us we could go over to the table designated for this issue and rearrange some luggage to get the weight down to 51 pounds, to avoid the $100 fee.
We did exactly that. It was a good time. NOT!
On our second attempt, the suitcase weighed in at 50.5 pounds, so we were good to go. I had to seriously wonder why they even charge the excess bag fee, since the lady didn’t actually even pick up the bag. She simply tipped it over, and conveyor belts carried it from there. She then directed me to the closest TSA pre-check area, and warned me we would have quite a walk to the gate from there. She never once mentioned there was a train available.
Security was disgustingly quick, and pretty soon we were hiking. I think we came through security around gate D22. Our scheduled gate was D52. We joked about the hike, and the crazy food places and stores available in this airport (there’s a place that sells exclusively empanadas!), and worked hard at not being run over by the kamikaze shuttle drivers.
Eventually, we made it to gate D52, where, surprisingly (because our flight wasn’t until 1:45), we found several people clearly waiting for the Boston flight. We settled in, and started contemplating what we would like for lunch, based off the couple hundred options we had seen on our walk to the gate.
While contemplating food options, most of us at the gate received some form of notification, whether from the airline (not me) or TripIt (me), that our gate had changed to D33. Ugh. We decided it was time to find some lunch over in that area, and headed that way, noticing the Sky Train along the way. We took the escalator up to that, and within minutes, we were on a train over toward D33.
Once we arrived one stop over (which probably saved us a 15 minute walk), we started looking for food. It was plenty early, so we decided on a sit-down burger place called the Counter. This was a create your own burger place, with lots of choices for sauces, toppings, bread, etc. I had a beef burger with barbecue sauce and pineapple and cheddar on it. Nick had a burger with some toppings I’m forgetting on Texas toast. He had sweet potato fries with his, and I had regular fries with mine. Both meals were delicious.
While we were eating, I got another notice from TripIt. Our gate was being changed again, this time to gate D49. That’s right...just a couple gates from where we started. What the bleep!
We finished lunch, and then decided to walk to the next gate. Once there, we found everyone that had been at our previous gate. We also found evidence (you know...posted signs) that this gate actually would be the gate for a flight to Boston. Progress!
Pretty soon our plane showed up, and I once again started wondering why they need to charge fees for overweight luggage. They never actually touch the luggage! It’s all handled by conveyor belt, with people alongside it simply scanning bags, and moving the carts as they fill. Absurd.
Eventually it became clear we would be boarding soon. They started offering compensation for taking a later flight. The later flight would get us into Boston around 10 pm, and would have a connection at JFK. NO WAY!! We clearly weren’t the only people who aren’t willing to be paid to deal with JFK; they had to raise the offer multiple times, to an obscene number, to get volunteers. If it had been Southwest, we would have jumped on it. Probably even Jet Blue. But not this one.
When boarding began, I was reminded of the thing I hate most about airlines with assigned seats: gate lice! We were boarding group 5, because for the scheduled 3 ½ hour flight on a legacy airline that is not known for big seats, I had paid for “main cabin extra” for extra leg room for Nick. We had to step over an insane amount of luggage and people to get to the entrance to board.
Once on board, we were in row 9, which was the 2nd row after first class. We found our seats, and attempted to get situated. This was complicated, because American has very narrow seat bases? How narrow? The backpack I carry that has no problem fitting under the seat in front of me on Southwest and JetBlue had to be compacted to fit under the seat on this plane, and Nick’s under the seat carry on that had also fit on Southwest (and this weekend’s JetBlue E190) had to go in the overhead. And then of course we needed items out of said carry on, so we were those people, interfering with boarding, whenever we could be as least obtrusive as possible. Thankfully, the guy on the aisle was one of the last to board.
Eventually we settled in. Nick found a movie in the seatback TV, and he watched that for the flight. And I found the flight tracker in the seatback TV, so I was content.
We both chuckled over the ridiculousness of the TV based emergency briefing upon departure, and then I made Nick put his window shade up so I could see for departure. It’s a really cool view leaving MIA. That is about the only thing I’ll give that airport credit for.
Once airborne, I very quickly realized that the seats on this plane were miserable. That flight couldn’t end fast enough for me.
I also realized that the flight attendant crew wasn’t even remotely friendly. I wasn’t expecting joking or anything special, especially so soon after the Southwest engine incident. But I also wasn’t expecting looks of pure annoyance when they had to interact with their passengers. Snack service was presented as a chore to get through, and shortly before landing, when the seatbelt sign had been on for quite some time, the queen of the RBF could be seen getting two ginormous bottles of water out of her personal bag. A passenger in the bulkhead row ahead of us asked her for assistance placing her (small) purse in the overhead bin, “since the seatbelt sign is on”. The response was “my hands are full” and an eye roll. Gee, how kind.
The one thing American had going for it was the flight tracker. It gave a lot of information beyond what Southwest’s does. Although, I must say, that the air temperature at 38,000 feet is downright disturbing!
The pilot also managed to get us into Boston over half an hour early. And with the seats, I’ve never been so happy to see Logan Airport!
Because our flight was scheduled to get in at 5, and would be tight for making the 5:25 bus, making it so we wouldn’t arrive back in NH until 8 if we missed the 5:25 bus, AND our flight had a horrific on-time arrival score, I had booked a car service to take us home. I’m positive it is because I had done this that we arrived so early.
When I took my phone out of airplane mode, I had an email from Axis, the car company, that my driver had arrived, and a picture of the driver, along with his phone number if we needed it, and specific directions as to which door to use to access the parking garage to meet him. I was grateful for this, especially since I’d scheduled a 5:30 pick up (but given my flight information). It was only about 4:30.
Once the jetbridge driver finally decided to show up, deplaning was quick enough. As we were walking into the gate area, I received a text directly from the driver. This is the 2nd time we’ve used Axis for travel between NH and Logan airport, and the communication has been this good both times. My dad has used them for travel as well (it was because he surprised me with wedding transportation through them that I learned about them) and says it’s always like this.
We made our way down to baggage claim, and our suitcase emerged fairly quickly. From there, it was a short walk to the right door, and across to the parking garage. Our driver, Dave, was waiting for us with our last name on a tablet. His car was very close by, we loaded the luggage, he told Nick which seat had more leg room, and we were on our way back to NH.
Traffic was relatively light leaving Boston, so we arrived at my dad’s within an hour of leaving the airport, right about 6. Dave carried the suitcase right from the back of his car to the back of mine, not wanting us to set it down on Dad’s muddy driveway. We will continue to use Axis when we need non-bus transportation to/from Logan.
Nick and I then hung around chatting with dad for about 20 minutes before heading home.
Final thoughts:
What an amazing trip!!
I’m seriously spoiled by Disney. The level of service and entertainment really is amazing. I also really like the rotational dining. I have looked at other cruise lines, at the newer ships that everyone raves about, and I am genuinely curious about them. At some point, we will sail on one of those ships. But they just seem like a lot more work. To really get the experience, I would HAVE to plan dining and shows, in addition to what I’m doing in ports. With Disney, I only have to plan what I’m doing in port, and if I’m going to Palo or a “beverage seminar”. I’m obviously not opposed to vacation planning, and do a lot of vacations that require significant planning, but sometimes it’s nice to not have to do much. Trust me, I never thought I’d say that either.
Traveling with my mother-in-law was awesome. It really brought a whole new level of excitement to this trip. We were excited for all the fun experiences, but we were also excited to see her reaction to EVERYTHING. And traveling with my father-in-law was easier than expected.
The drive from Disney to Miami was easier, and more mind-numbingly boring, than anticipated. FL may have more cows than NH has humans.
You would never know the Magic is turning 20 this year. I had read that the theater looked run down, and the atrium carpet was disgusting. I didn’t see any of it. And I looked hard, knowing I was traveling with an engineer.
Rapunzel’s is amazing. Hands down, amazing. I’m now trying to find an excuse to sail on the Wonder so I can experience Tiana’s.
Having just booked a cruise on my 3rd Disney ship, I’m now also looking for an excuse to sail on the Dream and complete the Grand Slam before the new ships arrive on the scene. These Disney cruises are addicting!
I still don’t like legacy airlines.
I’m incredibly lucky to have married into the family that I did. I really have great in-laws.
And...Nick and I can’t wait for our next cruise!
