Oh where or where is our luggage?

Or subtitled, "The day our luggage went through the war"

Okay, I have to admit, the first part of this story is my fault. Sort of.

NCL has a program called "BAGS" which is described in the flier this way, "leave your luggage outside your door and the next time you'll see them is at your destination airport." Sounded good to me, so for an additional $15.00pp I signed us up.

What I didn't know (and this is where I have to say mea culpa) is that we DID need to see our luggage one more time and that was to identify them at the cruise terminal and take them to be loaded on the baggage truck. Yes, this was wrtten on the notice I received in the room. No I didn't read that far down (next to the last paragraph) in the letter. I took the flier at face value and so Milt and I breezed right past our luggage and onto the waiting transfer bus to the Miami airport.

Thankfully I had a moment of doubt and pulled out the form and read the entire document, otherwise all our luggage would still be in Miami.

I jumped off the bus and flagged down an NCL agent..really an angel (Warren Eisenberg wherever you are...Milt and I love ya, man!) Warren must have heard it all before because he pulled us aside and gently explained the bad news...it is illegal to leave luggage in the terminal and it is illegal to go back and retieve it. YIKES!!!

This is were the "angel" part kicks in. He found a custom agent who took our passports and then he went and found our luggage for the customs agent to inspect. I was told customs had to take everything out of all 4 bags before they would release the bags to Warren (yuck--one bag was full of dirty clothes..I apologized profusely to Agent Wexler). Warren then arranged for a porter to bring out luggage to the loading truck.

So an hour later our bags were on the truck and Milt and I were on our way to the airport. We arrive about 12:30 for our 3:35 flight. If you read my previous blog you already know my gripe with AA terminal.

Our 3:35 flight finally took off at 5:20 p.m.

We finally touch down, head to baggage claim only to find that one bag was destroyed (ripped across the top and taped together) and another bag was missing. We know they went on the truck in perfect condition, but what happened in between, not even the "Shadow knows" (okay, I'm showing my age, I know).

So here I sit at my computer hopeful that tomorrow will bring the suitcase with all the kids gifts, Milt's suit, and the purchases we made for ourselves.

Stay tuned!