We get up with a wake up call and I was in the bathroom when I heard the phone ringing. Debbie answered it and this is the "icing on the cake" for this cruise. I came out and Debbie has her hands over her face and is crying and said she had to go to the desk as they have "dropped her luggage into the ocean"..OMG! Are you kidding me? They bring out the bag dripping water..at least they have retrieved it but now it weighs 1,000 lbs and her Coach bags and blow dryer, straightening iron, makeup mirror and shoes are ruined. She had clothes in there as well and the salt water caused the colors to run onto other things and all her paperwork (including our future cruise certificates that she worked so hard to get for us) were one huge glob. Anyway, they wrap the bag in plastic and give her a claim form and said the bag would be on the bus with her other bag. We head off to the lounge to have a continental breakfast and wait for our bus number to be called which they say will happen at 8:30 AM. They had just called for bus # 11-12 & 13 as we walked into the lounge at 8 AM..our bus is #65 so 8:30 seems like a stretch to put it mildly. It is pouring rain which they say this is slowing down the process, this lounge is packed with no room to sit. We do find a seat with another couple who has a 3 PM flight to Denver that they must make.. I doubt they did as their bus got called the same time as ours..we boarded the bus at 10:45 AM! It was raining so hard the roads were flooded out. It rarely rains there so it took forever and traffic was backed up everywhere. What is normally and hour and 15 or 20 minute ride took us 3 hours to get to the border crossing The traffic backup there was unbelievable and I'm thinking we will be on this bus eternally. A Royal Caribbean rep boarded the bus to tell us how they paid to have 35 or 40 extra customs agents here today so that we could get the buses through and have the agents board instead of us all having to get off. Since they set up this stupid itinerary, I think they should have made it as easy as they could on us. She says we will be there a maximum of 30 minutes unless they find something. They bring the dogs on the bus with an agent and while this is going on they are taking the luggage out and sending select pieces through what looks like a portable scanning machine. They of course select Kay's to open on a table under a tent. While she is watching to be sure her dirty underwear isn't run up the flagpole they bring on two more agents who check our passports and take our customs forms. We are cleared to go through and Kay saw her luggage put back on the bus so we are relieved to know we have made it to the USA..yippee! It is now 1:30 and we are hungry and thirsty and getting irritable.
You would think the story would end here but no, no, no. The bus driver pulls off to the side of the road and we are just sitting there and someone from the back goes up to speak with the driver in Spanish and is telling him she needs to go to the airport. She apparently missed her own bus and they put her husband on one bus and she was on ours...OMG what else? I guess he thought he would wait for that bus to come out of the border crossing but instead it never did so we head to the airport.. BTW our bus was for those NOT going to the airport. The airport was mobbed with 64 buses from our ship plus the HAL Westerdam was in San Diego. First the lady that spoke to the driver gets off and she is gone in the sea of people. Then another lady takes her carry on and gets off? We all just look at each other. The bus driver is just sitting there then decides to close the door and pull away when another woman at the back says the second lady left her ID and passport laying on the seat. She is screaming at the driver to stop and asks him to wait while she tries to find the woman..we all stare in disbelief. Can this really be happening? Finally the lady comes back. She did find her and we are off now to the Sheraton to drop the first load. The poor driver misses the sign that says Celebrity Buses turn here to offload and pulls to the entrance of the hotel. Massive confusion now as the hotel staff are all arguing with the driver, amongst themselves and then with the cruise reps apparently. They decide that they will take everything off where it is. Now what would have been the easy thing to do was to put different color tags on the luggage going to the Sheraton and load that altogether and the same with the Embassy Suites which is where we were staying but that was not done. Therefore the bell hops starting taking off all the luggage and we saw ours out there too so Debbie and Kay went flying out there while I stayed with the purses and carry on's. Now everyone is arguing. They finally get everyone off and our luggage back on and now there are only 5 of us left.
You would now think this is the end of this story but you would be wrong. We get to the Embassy Suites and get a bell hop to help us with Debbie's 1,000 lb bag and they can't find a reservation for any of us. I am afraid at this point to say what else could happen because it just keeps coming. The girl finally finds us rooms (they are having a Urologists convention there and they are full. There is humor in this somewhere). It is now after 3 PM and we are starving and thirsty. We had decided that we would go to Old Town and someone on the ship told us of a place to go that makes the tortillas while you watch. We got a cab and order margarita's and food. After two of these drinks and no food all day I am done in and ready for bed. We caught a cab back and started taking Debbie's suitcase apart and drying off what we could. We took the clothes to the laundry which luckily was on our floor because they weighed a ton. We went downstairs to get a coke at their happy hour. Debbie was getting her clothes out of the dryer and I was trying to rearrange my stuff to fly. We are really tired and want a shower and bed.
Do you think this is the end of the story? Of course it isn't. I walked past the cabinet where the frig is and the carpet sloshed. I asked Debbie if she had noticed it because she was standing there a few minutes earlier separating her papers. She said no and called the front desk. The girl asked if we thought she should send maintenance up? Really? We have seen enough water today to last us a lifetime . They send a guy to fix it and we get showered and go to bed. What a day is all you can say.
We got up this morning and her suitcase is pretty dried out and she was able to pack it all back in there again. The zipper doesn't want to work and there is much that is ruined but at least it is dried out and it doesn't weigh 1,000 lbs anymore. She was worried the airline wouldn't take it sopping wet so with it dry now it all went fine. We all made it home weary but in one piece. We all have cruise credits but couldn't think of anywhere we wanted to go this morning but home..LOL Irony was we passed the port on the way to the aiport this morning and there was the Celebrity Solstice in all her glory. It was a law made in 1906 to protect the jobs of US sailors called the Jones Act that made everyone get off in Ensenada yesterday and go through all that misery!
