Winter Break 2024. Epilogue. Until Next Time.
We stepped off the ship and made our way into the terminal. We really had no idea what to expect. Would we just walk straight to our bags, or would we need to stop and go through passport control?
What we found in the terminal ended up being something in between – a facial recognition checkpoint. You didn’t need to show your passport, but you had to step up and have your face scanned. I went first, followed by the girls. After each of us scanned the machine showed a big green check.
All of us were very nervous. Then Inbar went.
Green check!
That was nerve wracking, but thankfully we all made it through no problem! Wahoo!
I still don’t understand. It’s like no one was paying attention. I feel like we could’ve brought a member of Hamas onto the ship and back with us and no one would’ve even realized. I think we probably won’t test this out again in the future, but it’s pretty wild that we agonized over this for so many months and came close to not bringing Inbar with us, and at the end of the day it wasn’t an issue at all.
From there we got our luggage and ordered our Uber. It took the driver at least 20 minutes to find us. Thankfully we had a porter with us to help navigate things.
The Uber ride was astronomically expensive, and took about an hour and a half. Airport check in was easy. Going through security our little bag of kids medicines got pulled off the line and the TSA agent checked all of the bottles. When he was done he took a long time putting everything neatly back in the Ziploc bag. Tzvi told him that was very nice of him and that they didn’t do that for you in New York, to which the TSA agent said, “that’s because it’s New York.”
We killed some time in the terminal with pizza and Dylan’s Candy Bar. Then it was time to get on the plane. The flight was pretty easy and once again very enjoyable in Delta Comfort Plus.
Our welcome back to New York was the usual, gross. Our driver picked us up and we went home. We were welcomed by my parents who had brought us dinner and generally helped us get settled. That was helpful.
Final Thoughts:
You know how they say parents don’t take their kids on vacation, they just take care of their kids in a different place? Well, that’s kind of how this week felt. Well, I took care of the kids and Tzvi in a different place.
It was a fun and exhausting week. I think we came out of this with a lot of complaints – the weather was crappy for a bunch of days, most of the food on the ship was not great, the rough seas were not fun, and Tzvi was sick for a whole day. But despite all of that, it was still a fantastic trip. The ship was great, and I think the kids really had the best time. I still think Madeleine can’t believe that she got to ride the ‘merican round so many times, and Hallie’s still talking about riding the slide so many times.
Until next time…