Because we have an ‘early’ flight back from San Juan, Puerto Rico, back to Boston, we had leave the Princess Ship at 7:15. It was completely unnecessary and we were off the ship in no time at all. Customs was a complete joke. I did, however, get a passport stamp with a nice SJU on it because I asked. It’s only my 2nd re-entry stamp into the US which is way off. We got in a cab and took the 20 minute ride to the airport. By then it was 8:10am. Oh thank heavens we got off so early for our 11:30 flight! Jean and I both chatted on the phone for an hour or so outside before checking in. Jean’s suitcase was over by 6lbs. (mine was under by 22lbs. – I rule), so we had some shuffling to do, then we found a hotel to mail postcards from and then went through security. Now, I had been confused about this Duty Free shop in the terminal because we were still in the US…so were we eligible? Well, sort of. Some items were labeled ‘Estados Unidos/Internacional’ while others were ‘Internacional Solamente’. Ok then. For example, you could get a bottle of Capt Morgan for $10 and take it to the US, but if it was an International destination you could get a bigger bottle for that same $10. Other things you couldn’t get duty free at all if you were going to the US (Grey Goose). We found chairs close to outlets and I renamed pictures for her so that we can combine easily. Around 10:45, the rest of the Mazzilli’s showed up, meaning we could have lied about our flight and just gotten off with everyone else. Oh well. We boarded at 11ish and found out that it was a 2hr 51min flight. What?! How is that possible that it takes longer to go from Puerto Rico to Florida than it does to go from Florida to Boston? We must have contemplated this for an hour before finally deciding that it was due to the curvature of the earth combined with the fact that we were traveling at 470mph whereas now we are going 649mph. Honestly I think the pilot wants to catch the Pats game.
Orlando (MCO) is a crazy airport. There are a few gates all together but then you have to take a shuttle thing (monorail?) to the mail terminal area where all of the restaurants are. Course if you leave, then you leave security. Jean had bought alcohol so it was like that whole Tokyo airport thing all over again. Once you left, you couldn’t carry the alcohol back on because it’s a liquid. We looked for lockers, but no such luck. I suggested she just check it because we had only each checked 1 bag, but she didn’t want to bother, so we ate at Au Bon Pain instead of Outback 🙁 Oh well. After that, I renamed some more pics, we went online using the free wireless, and texted and made some phone calls. Turns out Caitlin is getting married April 25th – when I’m in Australia 🙁 That really sucks.
So we are on the flight now, just crossing from one nonsense state to the next (DE to NJ) so we should be landing in maybe 50 minutes? Ana is picking us up from the airport and taking us to Jean’s house, where my car is. We are going to do some picture transferring and then I have to drive home and sleep!
JetBlue over Florida
