S
shofer
Guest
We were booked on the Grand Princess to leave 2/2/08 from Ft. Lauderdale for a one week Western Caribbean cruise traveling with our adult children and their spouses. The plan was to leave Chicago on Friday, 2/1/08 and stay overnight one night pre-cruise to allow for any weather delays. This proved to be prophetic asit started snowing on Thursday and continued for 24 hours, dumping about a foot of snow in Chicago, causing cancellations of 600 flights on Thursday at O'Hare and continuing on Friday. Lucky for us, we were flying United which has its hub in Chicago and we not only had an aircraft at our gate but our flight was on time. The "kids" were taking public transportation from the city while we arranged a taxi. They actually beat us to the gate by quite some time while we barely had time to check our luggage before the 25 minute cut off time. The anxiety over the weather overshadowed everything else on our minds with us getting up several times during the night to check the snowfall or the Weather Channel.
As we finally winged our way to Ft. Lauderdale with great relief, something my son had said about his passport stamps triggered something in my mind. I turned to my husband and asked if he had brought the passports as they had been sitting on his dresser. The horrified look that he gave me confirmed my fears. We weren't going to land for another 2 hours and had no way to contact anyone for that time. We frantically discussed this with the kids trying to come up with some solution.
The girl sitting next to me overheard our conversation and suggested that we have someone go to the house and FEDEX them to us. The problem was that anyone who had a key to the house was sitting on the plane with us. She suggested that we could get a friend to have a locksmith meet them at our house to open the door, retrieve the passports and then send them to us at the hotel where we were staying the night. This sounded like a good idea to me but DH felt that there was too many parts to this plan that could go wrong and his plan was to fly immediately back to Chicago and come back the next day.
As soon as we landed, we called Donna, our trusty travel agent for advice and she called Princess to confirm that we absolutely needed passports or a certified copy of your birth certificate to be allowed to board the ship. She suggested a national database here in the States which would fax you a certified copy of your birth certificate overnight. The fly in the ointment for that idea was that hubby was not born in the USA. We asked her to started checking flights from Ft. Lauderdale when I mentioned the locksmith idea. She became very excited and said that she had a good friend who was a locksmith and she would call him and ask if he would do this for her.
While we went down to baggage claim, we also talked to the Princess rep who met us for the bus transfer to the hotel and told her that DH might not be coming with us. Donna called back and said that while the locksmith would open the house, he would not go in it because of the liability. His best friend however was Donna's ex-boyfriend and he agreed to go along and get the documents off Karl's dresser and take them to a FEDEX-KINKOS for next day delivery. Donna had also found the closest FEDEX-KINKOS to our house and that they had late pick-up to 7 PM for next day delivery. Since it was only still noon, Chicago time, we felt we had a chance for success.
Confident that we had a solution, we boarded the bus to the hotel. Donna called us about 10 minutes later and conferenced us in with the locksmith who was having trouble opening the lock. He said that he had to make a key in order to open the door and did my key have a number on it. It was the original key which did inded have a number on it and he was able to open the door! Confirming the hotel address with Donna and the exact location of the passports she said she would call us later to confirm that the package was on the way. We were just pulling up to the hotel when she did call and said the envelope would be delivered by noon, guaranteed.
Our son-in-law asked us to get the tracking number and he would check it for us the next day. Donna called us back that evening with it and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We were so grateful to her for going above and beyond for us, we could not thank her enough! You would not get someone to do this for you from an online agency or if you had booked directly with the cruise line. She charged the locksmith fee, about $100 and the FEDEX fee about $44 to our credit card. This was a small price to pay for our stupidity.
There was no charge for all of her trouble organizing this for us.
The next day before breakfast, Jeremy checked the tracking number and said the envelope was currently in Pompano Beach which was the next town away. We went in for breakfast buffet anticipating that it would be there shortly. By eleven it was still not there and I asked him to check it again and it came up with an "exception". I called 1-800-GOFEDEX and they told me that the address was incorrect! But the package was on the truck and I could pick it up at the facility when the driver came back and don't wory because they were open until 7:00 PM. Small comfort when the ship was sailing @ 5:00! I was beside myself and I'm sure the person on the phone could hear the panic in my voice. She said that they could leave a message for the driver and hope that he would respond while still on his route. They asked for the correct address of the hotel which we provided and all we could do was wait. Karl was berating himself for not flying back to Chicago and taking care of it himself! Too many people involved make mistakes happen!
The hotel had given us a letter telling us to meet downstairs @ 11:30-12:00 for "pre-check-in". We had already placed our luggage outside our rooms at 9 AM for bellman pickup so we sent the kids down for the "pre-check-in" thinking we needed our passports to do this. It was simply passing out and filling out the health form and receiving a colored card indicating which bus you would board. We checked out of our room and anxiously awaited a call back from FEDEX. Unbeknownst to us, Donna had also noticed the incorrect address that morning and was also calling FEDEX.
I tried calling FEDEX again around 12:15 and got the same response, that they would send a message to the driver. I got the address for their depot in case we had to go there and retrieve it ourselves. In the meantime, we pulled our luggage out of the Princess pile so it wouldn't get on the ship without us and waited while the Holland America reps boarded about 12 buses for their cruise. We discussed our problem with the hotel manager and he assured us that the FEDEX depot was only 10 minutes away and most Saturday deliveries were over by 1:00 so we should have no problem getting there to get our package and making it to the ship on time. He even said that he would arrange for a Lincoln Town car for us that would be the same cost as a cab and would wait for us. So we had an alternate plan to pin our hopes on. Meanwhile, DH was waiting outside looking for any FEDEX truck that came by so he could throw his body in its path just in case it was the one with our passports. The kids were wondering if after all this planning for a family vacation, the the parents wouldn't make it?
Karl had me call again @ 12:50 and the FEDEX person noticed a message that said that he driver would be there in 15 minutes! As soon as I hung up, Donna was calling us with the same news. She was feeling responsible since it was her friend who had put down the wrong address! They all raced outside waiting for the FEDEX truck to make an appearance while our daughter stayed with me calming my frazzeled nerves. A few minutes later, FEDEX pulled up and Karl ran to him to claim our envelope. The driver questioned him because our name was spelled incorrectly but DH pulled out his drivers license to prove it was him and then tipped the guy.
And yes, inside were the passports, the bill for the locksmith and the key he had made to get into the house. Princess was still boarding buses and had not yet called our color. Our luggage went back into the pile and we were finally on our way! Had we ever discussed our passports before leaving? Yes, a few days earlier I had asked where they were thinking that if they were in the bank vault, I would have to go get them. But DH had assured me that they were on his dresser. And we then promptly forgot about them with all the anxiety over the weather.
As we finally winged our way to Ft. Lauderdale with great relief, something my son had said about his passport stamps triggered something in my mind. I turned to my husband and asked if he had brought the passports as they had been sitting on his dresser. The horrified look that he gave me confirmed my fears. We weren't going to land for another 2 hours and had no way to contact anyone for that time. We frantically discussed this with the kids trying to come up with some solution.
The girl sitting next to me overheard our conversation and suggested that we have someone go to the house and FEDEX them to us. The problem was that anyone who had a key to the house was sitting on the plane with us. She suggested that we could get a friend to have a locksmith meet them at our house to open the door, retrieve the passports and then send them to us at the hotel where we were staying the night. This sounded like a good idea to me but DH felt that there was too many parts to this plan that could go wrong and his plan was to fly immediately back to Chicago and come back the next day.
As soon as we landed, we called Donna, our trusty travel agent for advice and she called Princess to confirm that we absolutely needed passports or a certified copy of your birth certificate to be allowed to board the ship. She suggested a national database here in the States which would fax you a certified copy of your birth certificate overnight. The fly in the ointment for that idea was that hubby was not born in the USA. We asked her to started checking flights from Ft. Lauderdale when I mentioned the locksmith idea. She became very excited and said that she had a good friend who was a locksmith and she would call him and ask if he would do this for her.
While we went down to baggage claim, we also talked to the Princess rep who met us for the bus transfer to the hotel and told her that DH might not be coming with us. Donna called back and said that while the locksmith would open the house, he would not go in it because of the liability. His best friend however was Donna's ex-boyfriend and he agreed to go along and get the documents off Karl's dresser and take them to a FEDEX-KINKOS for next day delivery. Donna had also found the closest FEDEX-KINKOS to our house and that they had late pick-up to 7 PM for next day delivery. Since it was only still noon, Chicago time, we felt we had a chance for success.
Confident that we had a solution, we boarded the bus to the hotel. Donna called us about 10 minutes later and conferenced us in with the locksmith who was having trouble opening the lock. He said that he had to make a key in order to open the door and did my key have a number on it. It was the original key which did inded have a number on it and he was able to open the door! Confirming the hotel address with Donna and the exact location of the passports she said she would call us later to confirm that the package was on the way. We were just pulling up to the hotel when she did call and said the envelope would be delivered by noon, guaranteed.
Our son-in-law asked us to get the tracking number and he would check it for us the next day. Donna called us back that evening with it and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We were so grateful to her for going above and beyond for us, we could not thank her enough! You would not get someone to do this for you from an online agency or if you had booked directly with the cruise line. She charged the locksmith fee, about $100 and the FEDEX fee about $44 to our credit card. This was a small price to pay for our stupidity.
There was no charge for all of her trouble organizing this for us.
The next day before breakfast, Jeremy checked the tracking number and said the envelope was currently in Pompano Beach which was the next town away. We went in for breakfast buffet anticipating that it would be there shortly. By eleven it was still not there and I asked him to check it again and it came up with an "exception". I called 1-800-GOFEDEX and they told me that the address was incorrect! But the package was on the truck and I could pick it up at the facility when the driver came back and don't wory because they were open until 7:00 PM. Small comfort when the ship was sailing @ 5:00! I was beside myself and I'm sure the person on the phone could hear the panic in my voice. She said that they could leave a message for the driver and hope that he would respond while still on his route. They asked for the correct address of the hotel which we provided and all we could do was wait. Karl was berating himself for not flying back to Chicago and taking care of it himself! Too many people involved make mistakes happen!
The hotel had given us a letter telling us to meet downstairs @ 11:30-12:00 for "pre-check-in". We had already placed our luggage outside our rooms at 9 AM for bellman pickup so we sent the kids down for the "pre-check-in" thinking we needed our passports to do this. It was simply passing out and filling out the health form and receiving a colored card indicating which bus you would board. We checked out of our room and anxiously awaited a call back from FEDEX. Unbeknownst to us, Donna had also noticed the incorrect address that morning and was also calling FEDEX.
I tried calling FEDEX again around 12:15 and got the same response, that they would send a message to the driver. I got the address for their depot in case we had to go there and retrieve it ourselves. In the meantime, we pulled our luggage out of the Princess pile so it wouldn't get on the ship without us and waited while the Holland America reps boarded about 12 buses for their cruise. We discussed our problem with the hotel manager and he assured us that the FEDEX depot was only 10 minutes away and most Saturday deliveries were over by 1:00 so we should have no problem getting there to get our package and making it to the ship on time. He even said that he would arrange for a Lincoln Town car for us that would be the same cost as a cab and would wait for us. So we had an alternate plan to pin our hopes on. Meanwhile, DH was waiting outside looking for any FEDEX truck that came by so he could throw his body in its path just in case it was the one with our passports. The kids were wondering if after all this planning for a family vacation, the the parents wouldn't make it?
Karl had me call again @ 12:50 and the FEDEX person noticed a message that said that he driver would be there in 15 minutes! As soon as I hung up, Donna was calling us with the same news. She was feeling responsible since it was her friend who had put down the wrong address! They all raced outside waiting for the FEDEX truck to make an appearance while our daughter stayed with me calming my frazzeled nerves. A few minutes later, FEDEX pulled up and Karl ran to him to claim our envelope. The driver questioned him because our name was spelled incorrectly but DH pulled out his drivers license to prove it was him and then tipped the guy.
And yes, inside were the passports, the bill for the locksmith and the key he had made to get into the house. Princess was still boarding buses and had not yet called our color. Our luggage went back into the pile and we were finally on our way! Had we ever discussed our passports before leaving? Yes, a few days earlier I had asked where they were thinking that if they were in the bank vault, I would have to go get them. But DH had assured me that they were on his dresser. And we then promptly forgot about them with all the anxiety over the weather.
-D