Our nap went well – until 3pm when we got some random phone call – or at least the phone rang once, waking me up. Ed – with Ambien on board – slept right through it.  Once we were up for good, we took our showers – oh lord, the shower head!  The water came out everywhere.  ‘Nuff said.

We were more than happy and ready to check out at 7 for our ride to the airport.  Raj was right there waiting, bless him, and off we went without a hitch.  At the airport, check in was easy, we hung out in the lounge for a bit, eating and snacking.  The buffet was amazing, huge with a cooked to order pasta station too.  Since we had ordered our full meals on the plane, we only ate some salad and light stuff, then made our way to the gate.

Boarded and ready for our – gulp – 15+ hour flight.  We’re taking the long ones this trip, for sure!  We’re in Business Class on the return though, happily so as we have room to stretch out and a couple of good meals.  Boarded, settled, drink in hand, we are off on a very smooth flight.  Dinner is served – excellent lamb.  We were a little concerned, I mean, lamb? On a plane? But it was really good!

Afterward we watched some TV and movies, then bedded down for the night, waking up fairly refreshed after a decent sleep. As decent as plane sleep can be, that is.  The flight attendants were adorable, one in particular was like our own private butler!  Always there to help, bring us whatever, chat. She was great.  Touch down was uneventful although we didn’t have much time for our connection.

We scooted off the plane as fast as possible and ran through Global Entry – fortunately the app worked this time.  Unfortunately, we didn’t stop at the United Customer rep in the passport control area who had connection lists.  We didn’t know if we needed to because we had Global Entry; figured that was just to skip the long lines.  As it turns out, we needed their little red skip the line connections pass – because the luggage took for freaking ever!  Seriously forever!  I think it was about 7:15 by the time we got our bags and our flight to CLT was at 8am.  Oh man.

We ran though customs, ran to the luggage re-check area, where a super sweet rep asked us our flight, looked at us horrified, then shoved a red connections pass in our hands with someone else’s name on it, ripped our luggage out of our hands and basically said run.  Oh boy – game on.  We had talked to another couple on our flight in the baggage area and we sort of banded together – plus we ended up with another rep who had a wheelchair passenger and she said follow me.  Ok – we followed her into an elevator, through security, where she pushed through some fast line – but where it wasn’t priority and the TSA agent was being a booger and made us take our shoes off and electronics out. Thanks lady.  Then literally it was a mad dash to the plane. And of course – the stupid f’ing thing was at the very end of the concourse at the very last gate.  For God’s Sakes!  I actually ended up running ahead to get them to hold the plane for us!  Seriously.  We just barely made it – and our other “team” couple was nowhere to be found.  They finally got on – but we’ve no clue where they went.  Anyhow…..that excitement over with, we settled in for the quick flight to Charlotte, arriving with no issues, picking up our rental and were out, on the road and home by a little after 1pm.  Phew.  Exercise done for the day!

Home safe and sound….at least that was what we thought.

Coda to the trip:  As it turns out, whether it was the Marshmallow or the plane or the lounge, we both ended up with Norovirus.  I succumbed the night we got home – all the typical symptoms (I will NOT gross you out with the details) along with horrible fever, chills and then sweats.  Ed got it about 12 hours later.  Ugh.  And we weren’t even on a dang ship anymore!   Thus, not the happiest ending to the trip – but at least we were home and in our own bed and environment to recover.  Ed recovered after about a day, it took me a couple of weeks, but finally we are right as rain.  After that experience, it is even more important we don’t get the darn lurgy on a ship or anywhere traveling – too brutal to even contemplate.