The start of the 16-day trip was not uneventful. We awoke at o’dark 30 Saturday morning to make our early morning flight. Our boarding process at LAX rated a D+ score, as the captain required all of us to de-board the plane, wait for an hour while we ponder our poor performance, then re-board the plane. The second attempt was apparently acceptable, although I failed to notice any marked improvement...and the captain gave us no pep talk during the time-out.
The flight was not even 5 minutes into its flight when the passenger next to Diane had to use the barf bag. YUCK. The flight attendants were of little use. Diane attended to the poor soul who required multiple bags before upgrading to a small kitchen trash bag before finally getting it together the remaining portion of the flight.
The second leg of our journey out of Newark, NJ had a rather large women in a window seat next to Diane take up all of her seat, and half of Diane’s. On top of that, a flight attendant knocked my elbow spilling hot coffee all over Diane - scalding part of her, staining her clothes, and smelling like coffee. For the rest of the trip, I looked at her and thought “mmmm…Italian Roast"…while she, who hates the smell of coffee, thought “what's that skunk smell?” What a way to start a vacation.
Not to be out done by the coffee spill, a man at the airport also waiting for the transfer bus to the ship spilled his coke, getting not only Diane’s other leg, but what was worse… her new purse…(later that same day)…a lady in the ship's elevator couldn’t seem to keep her glass of iced tea upright, and managed to spill some onto Diane. Hopefully, things come in three’s, and that should be then end of attempts to liquidate Diane.
We successfully - and eventually - arrived in Barcelona early Sunday morning, waited a sufficient amount of time to transfer to the port terminal and then waited a sufficient amount of time to finally board the ship - some 22+ hours travel time.
