we finally went on a honeymoon! :)
and it was great! :D i will write more about it later. but here is a terrific summation, written in an email to family from Rob, of how we got back:
Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to send out a final update to make sure everyone knows that Susan and I have made it home. Mexico was amazing, but getting home was a bit of an ordeal.
Saturday morning we woke up early to make sure everything was securely packed, including three bottles of very nice tequila, and headed out to wait for our shuttle to the airport. The shuttle was assumed lost after being an hour late and a replacement was provided for us.
A speedy trip to the Cancun airport put us in a long line to check our single suitcase.
We asked about weight limits for checked luggage and were told that the only restriction was 50lbs, above which there is a charge. At the counter our suitcase weighs in at over 70lbs and we are told that it cannot go on the plane. Off we go to buy a small bag to move some heavier items into, break the zipper, get a replacement and then back to the counter (luckily without another wait in line). After a lady complains for five minutes about her family not being able to sit together on the plane we step up, weigh and check our two bags, and get our tickets.
Susan had run off to get in line at security and I catch up, get through, and we run through a small duty free plaza to get to our gate. They appear to be loading from the back of the plane and we have some time so I go to a store to purchase some water and a snack. After a wait for a five dollar bill in change I return to Susan being accosted for holding up the plane and we go to board, but not before I get searched. Finally we are both on the plane, our ordeal is over and we can go home.
An hour later we are still sitting in the plane, not having moved and with no air conditioning (they did get us air from outside so we didn't suffocate, which is nice). We take off, with surly flight attendants who mumble into barely working intercoms and are very eager to tell us that they don't know anything about anything, so stop asking them.
The plane reaches Houston around 2:30pm; if we had been looking we probably would have seen our flight to Newark taking off. Two hours of picking the slowest lines possible gets us through customs and to the ticket counter to figure out how we are going to get home. No problem the man says, we can have you out of Houston two days from now and you will be home Monday night. This didn't work for us and twenty minutes of haggling later we have Susan scheduled for a 3pm flight on Sunday to NYC with 10 minutes to catch a flight to Albany. My flight is for 9pm Sunday with a six hour layover in Newark to wait for a 7:30am flight to Albany.
We lucked out in the fact that we have some friends in Houston who very graciously picked us up from the airport and put us up for the night. We took them out for dinner, played with their cats and got a tour of one of the Apollo rockets before being dropped back of at the airport on Sunday. We also got a call that our luggage had arrived in Albany that morning.
Along the way back to the airport Susan realizes that she was given the wrong ticket, and her connecting flight was not on Sunday, but Monday morning. We try getting her on Standby for the correct flight but it cannot be done with such a short time between flights. Trains are determined to be the next best bet and she gets on her plane still figuring out how exactly to get from NYC back to Albany.
I spend the next eighteen hours hanging out in airports and planes with an upset stomach, but it is fairly uneventful.
Susan's flight lands half an hour early and she rushes to Penn station only to arrive two minutes after her train left. She buys a ticket for the next train at midnight that night and watches the Oscar's in a bar with a friendly lady movie buff. A train and taxi ride later she gets home around 2:30am, goes to sleep for a few hours and then goes to work. She is amazing.
Meanwhile I land in Albany, run into Susan's dad (who I didn't know was going to pick me up, a very nice surprise) and get the luggage. I reach home around 10am and look in our luggage to find two smashed bottles, some delicious smelling clothes, and one bottle of tequila. I also find in the house some food that Susan's mom had left for us (thank you Cenzi!) and two well fed cats (thank you Cenzi and Justin!).
Now that I have typed all of that out, I am going to try very hard to forget it and just remember how amazing the rest of the trip was.
Rob
Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to send out a final update to make sure everyone knows that Susan and I have made it home. Mexico was amazing, but getting home was a bit of an ordeal.
Saturday morning we woke up early to make sure everything was securely packed, including three bottles of very nice tequila, and headed out to wait for our shuttle to the airport. The shuttle was assumed lost after being an hour late and a replacement was provided for us.
A speedy trip to the Cancun airport put us in a long line to check our single suitcase.
We asked about weight limits for checked luggage and were told that the only restriction was 50lbs, above which there is a charge. At the counter our suitcase weighs in at over 70lbs and we are told that it cannot go on the plane. Off we go to buy a small bag to move some heavier items into, break the zipper, get a replacement and then back to the counter (luckily without another wait in line). After a lady complains for five minutes about her family not being able to sit together on the plane we step up, weigh and check our two bags, and get our tickets.
Susan had run off to get in line at security and I catch up, get through, and we run through a small duty free plaza to get to our gate. They appear to be loading from the back of the plane and we have some time so I go to a store to purchase some water and a snack. After a wait for a five dollar bill in change I return to Susan being accosted for holding up the plane and we go to board, but not before I get searched. Finally we are both on the plane, our ordeal is over and we can go home.
An hour later we are still sitting in the plane, not having moved and with no air conditioning (they did get us air from outside so we didn't suffocate, which is nice). We take off, with surly flight attendants who mumble into barely working intercoms and are very eager to tell us that they don't know anything about anything, so stop asking them.
The plane reaches Houston around 2:30pm; if we had been looking we probably would have seen our flight to Newark taking off. Two hours of picking the slowest lines possible gets us through customs and to the ticket counter to figure out how we are going to get home. No problem the man says, we can have you out of Houston two days from now and you will be home Monday night. This didn't work for us and twenty minutes of haggling later we have Susan scheduled for a 3pm flight on Sunday to NYC with 10 minutes to catch a flight to Albany. My flight is for 9pm Sunday with a six hour layover in Newark to wait for a 7:30am flight to Albany.
We lucked out in the fact that we have some friends in Houston who very graciously picked us up from the airport and put us up for the night. We took them out for dinner, played with their cats and got a tour of one of the Apollo rockets before being dropped back of at the airport on Sunday. We also got a call that our luggage had arrived in Albany that morning.
Along the way back to the airport Susan realizes that she was given the wrong ticket, and her connecting flight was not on Sunday, but Monday morning. We try getting her on Standby for the correct flight but it cannot be done with such a short time between flights. Trains are determined to be the next best bet and she gets on her plane still figuring out how exactly to get from NYC back to Albany.
I spend the next eighteen hours hanging out in airports and planes with an upset stomach, but it is fairly uneventful.
Susan's flight lands half an hour early and she rushes to Penn station only to arrive two minutes after her train left. She buys a ticket for the next train at midnight that night and watches the Oscar's in a bar with a friendly lady movie buff. A train and taxi ride later she gets home around 2:30am, goes to sleep for a few hours and then goes to work. She is amazing.
Meanwhile I land in Albany, run into Susan's dad (who I didn't know was going to pick me up, a very nice surprise) and get the luggage. I reach home around 10am and look in our luggage to find two smashed bottles, some delicious smelling clothes, and one bottle of tequila. I also find in the house some food that Susan's mom had left for us (thank you Cenzi!) and two well fed cats (thank you Cenzi and Justin!).
Now that I have typed all of that out, I am going to try very hard to forget it and just remember how amazing the rest of the trip was.
Rob