Caribbean Cruise: Day 8

September 9, 2012

Disembarkation

Today, when we awoke, we were coming into the Port of Tampa Bay.  

It was a very stormy morning!

They had some cool murals...

 

Here is the door to our wonderful, wonderful cabin...

 

At the back of the ship, they were taking all the waste, etc. off from our cruise...

At the front of the ship, you could see all the semi trucks ready to load up for the next cruise which would leave that very afternoon.

They have many shops and restaurants in port for the cruisers...

Tampa Bay

 Our last breakfast on our cruise...

 

We each had a waiting area to be at until we were called to disembark the ship.  Our area was on the pool deck.  Luckily we had a nice place to sit and a roof over our heads because, as you can see in the photo, there was LOTS of rain!  We decided to carry our luggage off the ship so we did not have to wait and hunt for it later in port.  Our wait to get off the ship was quite long because they have to have all foreigners go through immigration before anyone else can leave.  They had to keep calling people over and over again - which is really stupid because you are told exactly where to be and when to be there!!!  Some people...

When we finally put out feet on dry land (well, it was actually quite wet from all the rain - lots of flooded streets), we called our hotel to tell them we needed a ride.  They told us where to meet the shuttle.  When we got to that spot, there was another couple there that we had met at the hotel before the cruise and had actually seen several times on the cruise.  We all soon realized that we were NOT in the correct spot.  Finally found our shuttle and got a ride back to the hotel.

We still had several hours before our flight.  We stored our luggage at the hotel, and took a shuttle, along with the other couple, and went to the mall for a while.  When it was time to head back to the hotel, we called for the shuttle - it was going to be at least a half hour before they could pick us up.  We decided to walk - the rain had stopped and it wasn't all that far.  We had a nice visit with the other couple as we walked back to the hotel.

The hotel shuttle then took us to the airport where we soon boarded our flight for home.  After arriving in Chicago and getting our luggage, we took a shuttle to get our van at the Thrifty Parking area.  Then it was the 2 1/2 hr drive home to Monroe.

We had a FABULOUS time on our cruise and will definitely do another one in the future!!!