Welcome and thanks for joining once again on another Holland America Line (HAL) cruise. This cruise takes us from Boston, through Canada, around Iceland to Greenland and back home to Boston. 25 days. Looks like a nice trip with some nice weather.
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Our neighbor Ray was nice enough to get up at 5:15 am and take us to the airport. JetBlue was the airline. I know little about JetBlue. Terri said she has never heard anything good.. We shall see.
We were at the gate in record time. Our flight was at 7:30 am. Shortly after we sat down, the gate attendant announced that the pilot called in sick. Is there such a thing? I guess there is. No pilots available so we had to wait for the next flight to arrive from Boston. 11:15 is the new flight time. The ship leaves at 3. Should be no issue. The cruise port is very short drive from the airport.
A few hours passed. Maintenance issue on the plane. New flight time is 12:15. It will be cutting it close. Delay, delay, delay.The plane is in the air! Hurrah!!
New announcement. The impending storm closed the airport. The flight was diverted to Buffalo. No other flights to Boston. We missed the ship!
Fortunately we booked the airfare through Holland America. The guarantee is that they will get us to the next port. The first port in Maine is a tender port. The ship will not dock and it is not possible to board the ship if you are not already a checked in passenger. Sydney Nova Scotia is the second port. The ship arrives there on Tuesday.
Next we have to collect our bags from JetBlue. “They will be delivered to the oversized area in baggage” we were told. Out past security and down to baggage. Nothing. Many others waiting also. Nothing. Jet Blue office had no one. Jet Blue counter at check in the same. We called and complained to anyone who would listen. I began to believe that JetBlue had only two employees. The pilot (who called in sick) and the person who does everything else. Just where was that other employee? (Probably on a break) We checked all of the bag carousels. Nothing. We could only wait. During our waiting time, HAL was busy making arrangements to get us to Nova Scotia. After two hours our bags final showed at the oversized bag area.
.Our new schedule has us flying out of Detroit to Sydney on Monday. We will meet the ship on Tuesday morning and also have a third party tour scheduled. I have notified the tour operator and hopefully we will be able to make that.
I learned that there others on this ship that missed flights out from Detroit. They will be boarding with us in Nova Scotia.