Day 5: The Voyage Home
Day 5
June 15, 2009
Location: New York City
As the final day of our vacation dawned, one of the great ironies of being on vacation presented itself, setting an alarm to get up early. We awoke to clouds and rain as we sailed through the many islands in the greater New York archipelago. We were mostly packed so the mad rush to get everything put away was already behind us. The morning’s activities consisted of actually getting out of bed, showering, getting dressed and making sure we had everything (turns out, I actually left a toothbrush and some toothpaste).
One of the Nice things about Carnival is they offer two options for debarkation: Self Assist and Zone Debarkation. Zone debarkation means they take your bags and wait for your numbered zone to be called (zones were numbered 1-31, our zone was 19). Self assist means you take all of your own bags and get to walk off as soon as your deck was called. We chose the self assist method since we didn’t have a lot and didn’t feel like sitting around waiting.
After I was ready and gf was getting ready, I went and picked up the photos we had ordered the previous evening. We were told during the debarkation talk that when your deck is called, don’t rush and you shouldn’t bring all your bags with you when you go eat. So we heeded that advice and got some breakfast as our last meal on ship. So we left our things in the room and went to get some food. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and then went back to our room. We get inside and then, almost simultaneously, our deck was called to debark. Then began the process of schlepping ALL the way to the other end of the ship and waiting for elevators (which are HORRENDOUS, they make you wait longer than anything else on the cruise). When we finally got an elevator, and nobody pushed past us to get on, we went up.
From there, things moved rather quickly. Get in line, move, out through the checkpoint and across the gangway. Then things slowed down some, customs got backed up so they held us up at the top of the escalators for a couple minutes. And when we finally got downstairs the line moved quickly, but then we got stuck behind some people who had to keep answering questions and stuff (travel tip: don’t buy duty free booze and/or tobacco on vacation, then your trip through customs will be quick and painless).
After breezing through customs, it was the walk out of the port and onto the street to wait for a cab. There may be over 12,000 cabs in New York, but not many of them are willing to stop before 9 on a Monday morning. We finally got a cab and headed back to the train station. We ended up having to wait for a train, but still caught an express back home. We finally arrived back at the station in Jersey and we got picked up to come home.
Finally glad to both be home, we both took well-deserved naps.
Thank you for reading my vacation recap. Stay tuned for various tweaks to these posts, including photos and notes including links to things you may be interested in.