Thursday June 22, 2023
Hi Gang! You’re not going to believe this… we actually cut our trip short by one day! Yes, that’s right, no lobster tonight! We docked at New York City and the original plan was that we would have been here for a night and disembark tomorrow but the standby flights looked iffy for Friday and it was supposed to rain all day in NYC and we had both been here multiple times so we figured we’d head home.
But of course when you fly standby, it’s always an adventure! The chaos first started on the ship. The earliest we could get off was 11 AM so we got there early and were the first ones in line ready to get off. But the Customs and Border Patrol people didn’t get there until 11:45 so we never got off until like Noon (and we were hoping to get a 1:00 flight to Charlotte!).
We docked right in the heart of Manhattan and there was a Taxi stand right across the street so we dashed over there to grab a cab. This guy meets us at the Taxi stand and asks where we’re going and I tell him LaGuardia airport and he says he can take us. Luckily I asked him his rate and when he said $140!! I said no way! We then grabbed an Uber for $50 and were off.
On the way, we figured we wouldn’t make the 1:00 flight so we cancelled that and decided the best option was to fly to Raleigh to get to Charlotte since all the direct flights looked iffy. We got on the flight to Raleigh with no problem but when we got there we noticed the next flight to Charlotte had been delayed and we could jump on it rather than wait for our flight so luckily there were seats and we got on.
We asked them if they could put our luggage on this flight and they said most likely they could. Well when we got to Charlotte around 6:00 PM, our bags were still in Raleigh! And that flight got delayed so our luggage never arrived in Charlotte until 8:30 PM. So we just sat at the airport and had dinner. We finally got home about 9:30 PM after a long day of planes, trains and automobiles!
I forgot to mention that when we pulled into New York harbor, we passed right by the Statue of Liberty! What an amazing site to behold! It was cool seeing the crew who come from many different countries come out and take lots of pictures of Lady Liberty. And I got a tad emotional thinking about both sets of my grandparents coming to this country from Italy over 100 years ago and seeing her before going thru the immigration process at Ellis Island. How brave they were as young adults to leave their home country to come to America. And I’m so glad they did!
Since this is my last entry for this trip, I’ll have to give kudos to Regent Seven Seas cruise line for pampering us the way they did. This truly was a higher level of luxury than we’ve ever had, even slightly higher than Seabourn. We are truly blessed to be able to travel both Regent and Seabourn cruise lines and as I mentioned a few days ago, we’ll be leaving in three weeks to get on the Regent Explorer ship to Alaska! Life is good!
Thanks to all for traveling along virtually with us! Until Mid-July, keep dreaming the impossible dream!
The Wandering Italian 