Departure Day
9/20
The saddest day
We had gone to bed pretty late the night before, which is a bit concerning because I need lots of sleep to get better. I told Rich to not worry about getting up super early for sailing into NYC because sleep is more important, since I needed him to help more than normal cause I wasn’t 100%, and I didn’t want him waking me up leaving the cabin early.
Well, this guy. Sigh … He did. Not. Listen.
Only a few hours after going to sleep do I wake up to the door closing, and he let it close a bit harder than normal … I was livid. He actually ended up coming back in because he forgot the camera. Yeah, he got an earful.
So, behold the pictures I lost sleep for when I really needed sleep. I hope you guys appreciate it!
P.S. Afterwards, like WAAYYY afterwards, I’m glad he got them too.
Sailing into NYC.
The Statue of Liberty.
Blurred, but you can still see her clearly. Almost like an artsy thing.
As you can see, there were other people out and about taking photos as well. I’m sure they got better photos coming in but Rich was also pretty tired and didn’t stay out long, so he came back pretty quick and went back to sleep. Jerkface.
We woke up without our usual room service breakfast
Got ready and headed down to sit down breakfast at Lumeirs, since that is the last dining room we ate in. We had the later dining, which I think was about 8am? 8:15am? Something like that.
Got a photo of our cool tux napkins!
I didn’t get a photo of our food cause I was just tired and, well, a wee depressed. Who isn’t at the end though, right? I know we got ourselves some Mickey Waffles, last ones for quite a while!
We gave our dining staff hugs goodbye and wished them well. I do hope they are doing well in their lives.
Then, we had to do one of the most sad things a
DCL cruiser will have to do in their lives; we debarked.
You would think this is the end, right? NOPE. While I didn’t write this day down in my journal, I remember a bit. Hold on for just a bit longer
After debarking, we headed into the LARGE area to collect our bags, which we eventually found. We packed a few things in the bags that we didn’t get in the night before (like PJ’s and toiletries). There were some porters around and one even asked if we needed help but, you know, we didn’t budget for a porter so we were just going to do it ourselves.
WELL, I suggest investing in a porter. I forget how much it was but man, it would have been worth it. There were two winding lines on either side of this large building, we saw the other line while in ours. The middle area was just kind of open but we found that THIS is where the people with porters would wait for the next officer. That line was so much shorter, like, 6 people deep at the most. The other two lines? I think it took us 30-60minutes to get through. It didn’t help that one of the officers went on break or something.
So, after that LOVELY wait, we ended up heading right outside to get our transportation. From what I remember, you exit the building and there is a road, you cross that road and there is a little island where you stand to wait to cross the light at the next road. Then you are across the street.
There were a lot of men trying to get people to get a taxi ride with them, those guys that heckle you and if you don’t give them your business, they start swearing at you. Yeah. That’s exactly what we wanted right after our lovely cruise. (note sarcasm).
We decided that we wanted to do Lyft from the port to LaGuardia airport because it was private and just a straight shot and they could pick us up wherever so we didn’t have to worry about finding the ‘right spot’.
After crossing the street, we crossed another one to the left and waited in this area where there were construction posts up. There were a lot of people waiting in this section, I believe they were doing Lyft or Uber as well. It took about 10-15minutes for our driver to get to us.
Let me tell you. I am SO GLAD I don’t have to drive in NYC.
Upon arriving to LGA, aka, the worst airport in the country, we had quite a long wait ahead of us. I believe we arrived at around 11am or so and our flight didn’t leave until 2:15pm. Even though it was a long wait, we would rather wait and know that we would catch our flight than deal with the stress of taking an earlier flight.
Not much happened while waiting, but there was a child in a stroller and, I believe it was the grandmother, stopped pushing it for a moment while taking her hands off it and her back was turned and the stroller fell backwards with the child in it. Holy crud, EVERYONE got up that was sitting down to help. Well. We didn’t. We were sluggish and not horribly close. The grandmother looked so remorseful and embarrassed, I felt sorry for her. The child was crying but looked to be okay.
It was quite a sight to see these meandering/listful people waiting in a terminal all of a sudden spring to life to help these people. It just stuck out in my mind.
Later, when lining up for boarding, the mother, grandmother and child were waiting and the kid looked just fine.
We flew from LGA to STL (St. Louis, MO) and had a bit of a stop. We arrived around 3:55pm and our flight out wasn’t until 7:10pm. We decided to eat at Chili’s in terminal 2 since we had not eaten since early that morning. Our server was full of energy and when he found out that I love spicy things, he kind of was REALLY excited. Based upon his accent, he was from the south and I’m sure being from the south, living in the northern states, it must be miserable because they think mayo is spicy. It is for me, and I’m not even from the south!
Behold our empty appetizer.
Haha okay, so the story with the photo is that some diner ordered a plate of buffalo wings and then disappeared. Well, guess who is server was? The fine gentleman that was also our server. Since he knew we liked spicy, he gave it to us saying that he would have to throw it out anyways. So, we had a free appetizer and we devoured them so fast that I forgot to take a picture until afterwards lol
Rich’s entree: Chipotle Chicken Fresh Mex Bowl; Grilled chicken, pico, field greens, Mexican rice, corn & black bean salsa, avocado, shredded cheese, tortilla strips, cilantro, chipotle pesto, house-made ranch.
My entree: Santa Fe Chicken Salad; Spicy grilled chicken, pico, avocado, cilantro, tortilla strips, house-made ranch & a drizzle of spicy Santa Fe sauce.
Haha okay, so, all that dry spice is because, again, I like spicy and our server was really excited about that. Thankfully I asked for the dressing on the side because that stuff was pretty spicy too but oh so delicious. It was quite a delicious meal and I guess we were missing some Tex-Mex cuisine. If you think about it, DCL doesn’t really have that onboard.
After our meal we sat by the huge windows. Okay, maybe sat wouldn’t be the best word. We kneeled on our seats, facing the back and was making commentary on everything on the tarmac and near our gate outside. THEN we got really excited because we saw our luggage come out!
The blue, green, and purple suitcases on the right.
Our last one is between the end of the trolly and that red suitcase (the one with our blue suitcase on top)
Yeah, so excited. We started honing in on our luggage and watching other luggage be put on the carts and such. We really were acting like sport commentary children or something lol at least it entertained us. Once it got dark out, we weren’t able to see outside much so we had to sit in our seat (like boring adults) and amuse ourselves.
The flight ended up being delayed by … 2ish hours, I think, and we didn’t end up getting into Minneapolis until around midnight. We do not live far from the airport but it was really hard to find a Lyft ride at might night in this city. I think we ended up using Uber and we got a driver, but then they cancelled us. Then we got another driver and he was really weird. Like … he didn’t get a tip, he wasn’t even trying. By this time, it had taken us about 45 minutes just to get a driver and then another 25 minutes to get home … it was late and we just kind of went BLAH.
And there is the pretty anticlimactic end to our epic vacation.
Our favorite souvenir. We love it.
Pardon the sheet on the window, we had only moved in about a month and a half before the cruise.
We have proper curtains now!
We named him WOMP WOMP, like the sound of a ship’s foghorn.
Best. Gift. Ever.
PRICING
- Lyft from port to LGA - $50ish
- Auntie Ann’s - $13ish
- Pretzel with Cheese
- Pretzel Mini Dogs
- Chili’s - $25ish (not including tip)
- Uber from MSP to home - $17ish
- Back to
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