Today is 2/1/2005.
We booked this trip on 1/3 at the same time we waitlisted for the Voyager World Cruise FLL-FLL. We needed to take this trip to qualify for discounts on a 2nd cruise, the big one. We are also trying to save time off work and money for that trip, so we needed to go ASAP and keep it short & preferably over a weekend. This 4-night Diamond cruise was the best shot at all those objectives.
The bad start begins with me slipping on black ice and falling in the parking lot early in the morning of the day before we are to leave. My thigh is bruised where my keys were in my pocket and my knee begins to swell about 8 hours later, but I don't think I am hurt too badly until much later, too much later to do anything about it; we are going. My office is near the airport, I like to leave the car parked in the lot here and just get a co-worker to drop and pickup from the airport when possible. Since we are leaving midday on 2/1 for San Juan, that leaves Debbie at home in downtown Raleigh. She offered to get up with me and drive me to the office at 3AM and then come back when it is time to go to the airport so we would only have one car out here. She called when she got back home to tell me that the closest cross-street to ours had a street closed sign at the intersection. Usually this means a wreck has taken out the nearest electric transformer and our power is out, but she reports that the power is on. Hmmm? Now, you have to know Debbie to know where this is going. Don't clean the house until right before you leave, so if you die no one will see that anyone ever lived there. Don't shower until right before you leave, same reasoning, a step beyond the wear clean underwear maxim that I know you are familiar with... Debbie calls hours later after she has slept until after sunrise (which is in her world the only reasonable time to awake) and is distraught. There is NO WATER. She has called the utilities dept. and been told that ours is the 3rd water main break in the city overnight and that the crew is working on them in order and ours is last. (She was to leave the house at noon to pick me up and get us to the airport 2 hours early.) At 10AM, she calls them again and they tell her they are working on it but they don't expect to have the water back on at our house before 3PM. She bathes with premoistened towellettes and brushes her teeth with some bottled water and smoothes down her bedhead with another bottle and vacates the filthy house a little after 11AM before her head explodes.
So, we get to the airport very early, clear security without problems or delay and enjoy a leisurely Mexican food lunch. We stroll around Terminal C which we have not been inside in years and then sit for about an hour to wait to board. Everyone else was early too and with everyone boarded we left the gate almost 10 minutes early. (We used AA miles that I had accumulated years ago and forgotten about. It took 60,000 miles for the 2 of us RT economy class to SJU. I don't know if that was the best use of the miles but I didn't even remember that I had them until Debbie went online to AA and went through the clicks to redeem them. The flight options that we got were no worse than what Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. were offering and it would mean not spending money, only miles I had forgotten about, so that brings us to the AA gate.) We flew first to Miami, where we had a 2.5 hour layover. We located our gate, then looked for a place for dinner and chose Island Grill. I ordered a burger and Debbie, a pulled Jerk Chicken Sandwich. The first mustard packet I picked up did not want to open and rather than put it down and pick up another, I manhandled it and it exploded all over the left side of my chest. Who knew there was that much mustard in a little packet, it never seems like that much when you squeeze it onto the burger! Debbie watched me shred my napkin in the water glass, then opened her purse and handed me a pre-moistened towellette. I flagged the waiter down for more napkins and when I finished, pushed the pre-moistened towellette back across the table and told her she better hold onto to it, she might need it later. She replied, very funny, you never know. It is so easy to push her buttons, but she's right, you do never know. We are staying the night at the Holiday Inn Express Condado because it is relatively inexpensive. That burger gave me terrible gas, or else it is karmic payback for messing with Debbie over that towellette.
Next flight, is a little rough, but we left and arrived on time and since we are traveling with one carryon each walk right out to the cabs. It is a fairly short ride in no traffic and we are checked in just before midnight. The room is good-sized and clean and has running water and power. Life is good. I especially like the all tile floors. We both take hot showers and sleep like babies.
