The Larsen's: ~Cruisin'~

*I know this is long, but it's for me, so I can remember our honeymoon!
When we first got married we went on a "mini-moon" to Stein Eriksen lodge in Deer Valley because we couldn't take time off work. We went on our "full-moon" on a cruise in the Caribbean. We had so much fun, but it was quite a fiasco getting there. Sunday night, December 12, we were supposed to take the Red-Eye to Atlanta. Then the next morning Atlanta to Miami. We got online around 5:30 to print our boarding passes only to find our our flight to ATL had been cancelled. Delta automatically re-booked our flight DIRECTLY to Miami. WELL, when we got online, it said our flight had been cancelled, click here to reschedule. My dear husband didn't know they had already put us on a direct flight and he clicked the button to reschedule, only to cancel our flight. Poor guy felt so bad. We were on the phone with Delta, only to find out there was nothing we could really do that was easy. Since so many flights got cancelled and delayed, they told us we could go to Portland at 9:30 because that flight was supposed to leave at 7:30 and had been delayed. We quickly ate dinner at Jake's parents, and rushed home to get our bags (thankfully already packed and ready to go). We made the flight to Portland and our next flight to ATL was supposed to leave 20 min after we landed-but that had been delayed an hour too. We finally made it to ATL at about 6:30 a.m. When we were in SL, we put our names on a standby list on an earlier flight from ATL to Miami hoping we could get on. Our cruise ship left at 4:00 that day so the earlier we could get the better. The ATL airport was a complete cluster. We weren't the only ones trying to get out of dodge. We were on the standby list with the 30 other people. We kept getting bumped lower and lower. Sooo we decided to try and get on another standby; 9:30 flight to Miami. The lady at the check-in desk in her strong southern accent yelled at us and said you guys are stupid! You should have never left the first place where you were on standby! There are so many cancelled flights. You don't leave that terminal until they close the airplane door! We both looked at each other dumbfounded and a bit scared. Ok well, let's go back to the first gate. We were standing there nervously with all the other standby guests. We kept watching the screen hoping we'd be the next to get called. The check-in people kept saying 2 more seats open, 7 more seats open, etc. etc. Needless to say, we were the last two people boarded on that plane! We were so excited! We thought, we are going to make it to the boat on time! We asked the people if our bags would get to Miami on this flight and they said yes. Long story short, we get to Miami, no bags. At this point, we'd had it. I almost started to cry I was so frustrated and exhausted. They told us our bags would be on the flight we were originally supposed to be on that got to Miami at 2:00 p.m. They lady at the baggage claim desk gave us a voucher to go get some food. She was so nice. I definitely wouldn't ever want her job. She gets a lot of crap from people. We patiently waited in Miami for 4 hours, got some lunch and people watched. 2 o'clock rolled around and we walked down to the baggage claim. 2:05, no flight. 2:10. no flight. 2:15 comes and there, blinking on the baggage claim screen appears "New Arrival Time 4:20 p.m." I thought NO, how could this be happening! We have to get on the ship right now! We have no clothes, no underwear, no swimsuit, no make up, nothing but the clothes on our back! We were supposed to be on that flight too! We got lucky to make the earlier one. We went to the baggage claim lady and told her the flight had been delayed. She took down our info and told us our bags would be delivered in Nassau tomorrow. There was nothing else we could do. She gave us a small kit with a few things to get us by for a day. We rushed in line to get on the shuttle to take us to the ship. We at least made it to the ship on time! We went straight to the front desk to tell them our situation. They said they'd call Delta and let us know what was going on. We went to dinner that night and at 10:00, they were still on hold with Delta. The next morning they said they finally talked to Delat at 1:00 a.m. and said they weren't even sure if there was a flight to Nassau the next day. Oh well, we thought. We can survive! We'll go on a shopping spree courtesy of Delta tomorrow! And we did. We bought swimsuits and flip flops. At the end of the day, we were going back to the ship and I said, we need to go straight to the front desk to see if our bags came! Sure enough, right before we stepped on the boat, there was a pile of bags! (ours weren't the only ones lost either). It was like Christmas morning. I was so happy to see our luggage. We ended up having an amazing time and we met great new friends! My words of advice: if you ever go on a cruise, fly out a day early!! You never know what can happen! Times like these are always so stressful, but I am so grateful for them because you will never forget the memories!