Home safe home

It was a long and stressful past 3 days. I went off in Corfu, Greece for a bit to do some last minute European shopping. It was a quick day since our cruise director and hotel manager surprised us with a Pinnacle Grill reservation on them. That's a $20 value and we'd ALL get to go, which never happens. It was our farewell dinner and it was tasty as always as I left the dining room stuffed. By this time I'd already started packing and had my closets and drawers strewn everywhere in my room. A hoard of information was flying through the hallways about weight restrictions, carrying restrictions (as far as liquids and gels), and how disembarkation would run and would it go smoothly. Excitement was in the air since everyone was READY to go home after such an exhausting contract. The next day we were in Dubrovnik and I was looking forward to going into port and seeing some of this beautiful place since I didn't get to see much of it in my one and only time there. Well, it turns out that our rotting ship, the Rotterdam, had 2 tender boat failures and only 2 were left to carry 1,800 passengers to and from port. All aboard was at 2pm and by the time the window would've come around for crew, it was 1pm (which is when we were supposed to be ON the last tender FROM port). Needless to say there was no crew shore leave and they gave some excuse that the authorities were being racist and only letting certain nationalities into their country. This couldn't have been true since there was a myriad of cultures on board as far as guests were concerned. So I missed the port. Boo. That was the day before Venice and the last minute packing began. Stresses were high trying to get weights down and bags packed before they had to be at security at 8pm. Once the bags were gone, we were in the halls celebrating and burning off energy so we could get sleep and be ready for the extremely long day the next day. The next day came and we were all up bright and early to check things off the list that needed to get done with the various departments before leaving the ship. We got off the ship late of course. One of cast had to get a noon flight and we were pushing it already. We finally walked off the gangway around 9:45am and then it was the hunt for our luggage. This was also delayed. Thanks to our lovely ship and their unorganized way of doing things. We finally got our luggage around 10:15am and we were on the road to the airport. A bus went ahead with some of our cast. We all pretty much scattered and never really got to say goodbye as a group or even say goodbye at all. I had the fortunate luck to be on all flights with my friend Nicole who also lives in Ohio and was flying to Cleveland. Five of us traveled together to Paris on the first leg before scattering our separate ways. I finally touched down in Cleveland about 11pm tired and spent. Whew. Travel does really take the most out of you. I'm home now with one adventure done and another one coming up right around the corner. More places to go and even more travel involved. I wonder what will be in store next.