PapaMarshall

Day 1 – 1/2/22 – On the Road Again

The alarm went off some time before 4:00 so we could catch the 4:20 shuttle to the airport. This is not to say that we were awakened at that time. Some of us had been awake since 2:00. Others of us had slept peacefully and were “rip roarin'” and ready to get this adventure started!

Of course, this was Sunday January 2 (the day everyone had to get back home so they could go to work on Monday), and we were flying Delta (never my first choice for an airline) but how bad could it be?

This is the line for Bag Drop

Actually the line moved relatively quickly. And we were thru it, thru security (thank you PreCheck) and at the gate at least an hour before the gate guy got there to give us our seat assignments (check out yesterday’s post for the background there). Of course, the seats were at the back of steerage, not Comfort+ like we had paid for. He assured me that we would get a refund from Delta. Anyway, we eventually boarded and were on our way.

Rockin’ the N95s
4:15 in the next-to-last row, but at least we got there.

Check out Kennedy Steve on YouTube. You’ll appreciate why JFK wouldn’t be my first choice for airports. But we made it.

This photo doesn’t do justice to the number of Delta jets parked all over the place. It truly looked like a Delta parking lot!

We had about 3 hours to kill before our next leg so we grabbed a meal (not really sure which it was) and settled in to read. Eventually the time to board our next flight arrived – but our cabin attendants didn’t. They had just arrived at another terminal and had to clean up that plane before they could join us. So we waited 45 minutes. (Insert another Delta comment).

So we finally landed in San Juan shortly after midnight. We (the 8 of us on that plane) met the Viking rep., gathered our bags, climbed on to the shuttle and were whisked away to the ship. All told, it was after 1:00 by the time we got to our stateroom.

After completing our mandatory ‘spit test’ (deposit 2 cc of saliva in a tube, leave it outside your door) we enjoyed a snack that was waiting for us.

But didn’t pop the cork. We’re saving that bottle for ??? Note also, the contact tracing tags. Unfortunately they only do contact tracing, they don’t open doors or charge things to our rooms or anything cool like that, but the do have the fancy red Viking lanyards.

We did some unpacking and room arranging. I’ll post more about the room and ship as we go along (and we figure out which end of this ship is which)

One of the reasons for this trip is to figure out what we will need to live in this size stateroom for 4 1/2 months next year. We’re making a list. But once everything is in its place the room is surprisingly adequate.

So that’s it for Day 1. We hit the sack around 2:15 (10:15 body time). We eventually slept. Then we woke up, but that’s a story for another day.

1 Comment

  1. I think the little neck dongles are radiation monitors …… from my days on the boomers (nuke subs)

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