We're Home......

As my sister so politely pointed out....all good things must come to an end!

It was a long travel day! We were up early, went for one last breakfast on the ship, then headed off to the airport. We needed to depart the ship by 9:30 and our flight was not until 3:00, so we had a bit of a long wait at the airport. Luckily, we found a small table, parked us and all our gear. Maurice thought he would purchase a day of internet time through the airport link to help pass the time, but we couldn't get that to work out for us so we passed the time eating pizza and playing table football and hockey! Nice shot Maurice - over Scott's head and onto the table behind us! We finally boarded the plan and began our journey home, through London Heathrow. While in London, Shannon and I wandered through a few shops, picked up some Flake bars to munch on and had......a starbucks coffee - yes, Maurice could of cared less at that point! It was coffee and he said something about not giving a .... if it was stupid starbucks!!! We stopped at the duty free in London to pick up a few things and found that for some reason, neither one of our credit cards would work. We didn't have enough cash between us, so we went to use some travellers cheques. In order to do that they needed to see our passports for identification but they were all the way down the other end of the seating area with all our stuff and the kids. The kids came to say our plane was boarding - even though the gate # was only posted 10 minutes before - so we left our package of goodies at the counter and said - see you next time!!

We ran through the airport for our gate, boarded almost as soon as we got to the gate and landed in Toronto at 10pm and arrived home around midnight. Everyone was exhausted as we had pretty much been up for 24 hrs by that time as no one really slept much on the plane.

Everything went very smoothly - our luggage arrived with us, we headed out to the park n fly shuttle, remembered our parking location and there was the car! Loaded up and headed out....oops almost! We get to the gate to pay and hummm....remember our credit cards were not working in London - well guess what they were not working in Toronto either! Of course no one is at the booth so we back up, park the car and call Visa! Good thing for 24 hr service. Yes, they had frozen the credit cards....something to do with a suspicious transaction in Italy regarding an internet charge!!! Oh yes, that! We cleared it up on the phone, pulled up to the gate and what do you know - the Visa worked again!!

So, while yes, the trip has come to an end, the memories we have will last forever. It was a fabulous adventure for us all. We travelled to places you hear of so often, but never think of visiting. It was something none of us will ever forget. We have been home for 1 day and we are still trying to figure out who is going to make dinner, clean up and turn our beds down tonight!!!

Thanks for following through with us and until next time!