Home

I guess this falls into the better late than never category!

We are, of course, home. We were home within 24 hours of so of my previous post. We got disembarked in a very efficient and friendly manner. We waited with our color group until called and then walked off and made a long circuitous walk and down an escalator into chaos. There was a Norwegian cruise ship alongside the other side of the pier also disembarking. The luggage was tightly packed in rows that did not allow 2 people coming and going. So, you could reach your luggage but you couldn't get it out. No one could unless their bags were at the front of a row. After much struggling, we located all 5 bags and got them out to the back of the escalators. I thought we could manage them but Clay insisted we get a luggage handler with a cart to handle them. He was right. The guy he found and asked with an empty cart was a fixer! He got us out of there in a manner we never would have managed. He took us to where the taxi line for Serenity should have been to find that the guy working the road was sending all Serenity people down the block to the Norwegian cab stand! He and the next Serenity luggage carter got some cabs sent down to us but it wasn't clear the guy running the area ever got it or got that he was wrong. Anyway, we were off very quickly and found ourselves with a couple of hours wait in Penn Station. That was fine as it could have gone differently. There could have been traffic or a long line to check bags and there was neither.

The train to Raleigh was okay. The seats were comfortable and the car was not full. The ride to Washington was good and only a little late. The rest of the ride from there was rougher, the car more full and we just got later at each stop. We arrived in Raleigh closer to 10pm than to 9pm. We got our bags quickly and into a cab and home with no trouble.

We were happy to be home. I could hear the house alarm through the door before I opened it. I guess it had been sounding since it went off on August 12! The alarm log said it was the motion detector. I have to assume it was some kind of equipment malfunction as there was no sign anyone had been in the house in our absence. It hasn't happened again. So, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed it was a random occurrence.

We haven't finalized plans for our next trip. NYC for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! But, we are hard at work on early 2017's trip. Remember when we agreed in the NWP that we won't do the Oceania Sirena Australia Circumnavigation? Well, evidently that was not our decision to make. On September 2, our TA had accepted a guarantee A1 cabin on our behalf. We learned this less than 2 weeks before final payment was due when I checked in with her. I don't know when she planned to tell us since I prodded her before she got around to it. So the options now were to forfeit the waitlist deposit or make final payment and go. We're going, of course. Still waiting for a cabin assignment after telling the TA during the NWP waitlist clearance that we wouldn't accept a guarantee again. Oh well, best laid plans and all. It is a long way to go and costly so we are making the most of it. We have a land tour of New Zealand up front and the Ghan train after. Hesitantly looking forward to it. We'll go to Komodo Island on the cruise. Check that off the list. Also, we'll have stops in Papua New Guinea, so one new country for our time and trouble.