All’s well that ends well (or it will be)

Aunt Carol on the balcony of our mini suite and me with a bottle of champagne to start the decompression process. We arrived at the terminal at 1230, our scheduled time, only to find out the scheduled times for entry were meaningless. Everyone was arriving at the same time. We were one of the last ones to board around 4 PM – you just can’t make this up. I have never worked so hard to plan anything trying to avoid any disasters and it backfired every step of the way. In the future I will revert to my more natural style which is much looser. I was able to finish my shopping in SF this morning – most importantly I have my SPF100 sunscreen.

Once we finally got through the security check to get screened to check in, we did not have the correct documentation to check in – (passport or driver’s license and birth certificate). This is in spite of working with a Princess employee on the phone. I had checked last fall whether a passport was necessary for this cruise and found that it was not necessary for a cruise that started and ended in a US port even with a stop in Ensenada. As Carol did not have a passport, we did not plan on getting off the ship in Mexico. When I spoke to the Princess agent on the phone to complete the documentation process, I was very clear that we were using drivers licenses and he entered the information. We were declared travel ready. No mention was made of needing to have birth certificates. He apparently entered the info as passport information which is how we came up as travel ready.

You can imagine my level of frustration when I was being told 3 hours before we sail that we had to have a passport or birth certificate and was shown multiple times where it said so on their website (SO NOT HELPFUL). Fortunately it turned out that we just needed pictures of the documents, so brother Tim drove an hour to get Carol’s to take a photo of Carol’s birth certificate and James went to my place to get a photo of my passport.

While James was at place he took pictures of the progress on my bathroom renovations –

What was a bathroom closet now opens into my hallway so I will have hall closet. I have ample space for storage in the actual bathrooms. I am SO EXCITED to have a hall closet.

Interestingly while I was trying not to “lose my shit” while we were trying to get checked in I had a heavy sensation in my chest. I recognized it as the feeling I had daily during most of my last 2 years of work at the NIDDK. During that time, I was not really aware of having that sensation because it was always there. Sometime between then and now, it stopped. I will be celebrating my 2 year anniversary of leaving that “toxic for me” job on this cruise.

Good night!! Carol is happy and I will be……