Two days at sea – what did we do? Whatever we normally do! Lectures – we really do love Sandy – she is by far one of the best lecturers we’ve ever had – food, gym, lazing around, reading, packing – it’s all a nice little blur.  It’s been a fantastic cruise in terms of ports – we’ve totally enjoyed ourselves, even if the Amazon was not what we expected (we had read so much about the rainforest, old explorations, indigenous tribes, mapping unknown rivers, etc., that we thought we’d see more wilderness), the ports were all interesting and many educational, totally different experiences everywhere.  It is all what you make it.

The cruise line – another story. We had set our expectations high for Oceania.  We were remembering the Oceania of old, and they just can’t live up to our past experiences.  The food was superb, just as always. But the service and staff were just not up to par as we have experienced before.  I hate to pull the “Brand promise” card, but honestly, they promise so much – and this particular ship and cruise just did not deliver.  We booked the cruise for the itinerary – which was exactly what we wanted – and, in a good way, we now know that we prefer other cruise lines to this one – so lesson learned – and now we don’t have to even consider Oceania any longer.  Sort of makes decisions easier in a way.

Disembarkation is smooth – we’re the first to disembark, and after a minor panic when we can’t find one of our bags, we’re out the door, through immigration and customs and at the airport in a jiffy.  Ed had his CBP Global Entry interview scheduled for 10:15, but we’re so early, we go down to the office to see if they can take him early, which they do.  10 minutes and we’re done! It’s not even 9:30 and our first flight isn’t until 1:35.  Yikes!  We go back to the Delta check in desk to ask the agent if we can get on the earlier flight, but he says its not likely.  Plus, we’ve already checked our bags, so we can’t do anything.  He then tells us that even if we got on the earlier flight to Atlanta, we’d probably not make the early flight there and have to wait for our original booking.  We appreciate his honesty – even if he was just trying to make us feel better.

So, with 4 hours of down time, we head to the Priority lounge where we spend hours….hours…hanging out, but at least we have electrical outlets, all the food and drink we want, and comfy chairs to while away the time until our flight. Ugh…..but….we make it through the down time, fly into Atlanta, have enough time to hit the lounge there, and finally make it home to Asheville on schedule and without any drama.

Home in an Uber, bags dumped, we have no water (long story, there is a huge water leak at the water shut off by the club house) we jump in the car and hit East Village Grill for a quick dinner, then back home where we luckily we have bottled water from the last hurricane scare, so we don’t have to worry about that.  The bathrooms are a bit challenging, but you know, we’ll deal with it because we are home, in our own bed, in our own house and all is well – water notwithstanding!