Our Greek Isles/Mediterranean
Crown Princess Cruise May 2009
Jerry and I have talked about taking this cruise for many years and we finally booked it in April 2008. Jerry has been very busy all year researching and scheduling what we would do before, during and after the cruise.
We were on the Emerald Princess last year which is Crown Princess' twin sister ship. So hopefully we will remember how to get around the ship.
It's finally here...
We got up at 6am, me to add the last pieces to my luggage and Jerry to pack. The driver came to pick us up early, about 30 minutes earlier than planned. It was pouring rain but everything was still showing our flight being on time.
We got to the airport and got our bags checked and through security in no time. We settled in at the gate, finding us an electrical outlet to use so we weren't using up our batteries. We're saving those for our flights.
We came prepared with movies for my iPhone, along with some dvd movies that we probably won't use on the plane because the dvd drive takes so much battery power. But we have plenty of other things to do to keep us occupied for our nine and a half hour flight from Chicago to Rome. I rented a movie for my iPhone but didn't get it synced to my phone before our driver showed up so I will have a movie waiting for me when I get home.
There were thunderstorms this morning in Dallas and Fort Worth. They shut down the airport for an hour no planes in or out. At first we thought all was well until Jerry went to check and saw our flight was delayed. We weren't to leave until two hours later and that didn't give us time to make our flight to Rome.
The gate agent sent us from gate 24 down to gate 39 where there was a flight boarding right then to Chicago. We didn't make it on there as there were so many ahead of us. We were then sent back down to gate 21. We checked in there although the lady at the gate said we would automatically be put on that standby but we didn't see our names.
We spoke to the gate agent and told her we needed on the flight because we wouldn't make our connectiong 5pm flight to Rome. They put us on the list and she told us she had to find out if there were any seats left. Because of the flight delays they had 70 people on the standby list to Chicago.
They started boarding the plane and our names kept getting closer to the top. Then they said there were maintenance problems with the plane so all the passengers had to come off. We all stood around waiting. Our names came off the standby list but then showed up on the cleared list so all was well...or maybe not. They took the plane out of service and had to find a plane for our flight. They ended up finding one but we were all headed down to gate 38 now.
We
got on the plane and finally took off and arrived in Chicago about 3:45pm.
Our Rome flight was going to start boarding at 4:45pm so we had time and
the gate was not far from where we came in at so all was well.
We had no idea if our bags made it to our plane or not and no one at the Chicago airport could tell us. We were just happy to be on the plane and heading to Rome!