As our time for our flight was drawing near I got a notification that our flight was delayed. My worry was how delayed. Then I realized we had two days in Buenos Aires and we should be ok even if the flight was cancelled. However, when we got to the gate, we discovered the incoming flight was delayed not the outbound portion and it was only delayed by about 15 minutes. Whew! No worries…we’re good to go now.
On the plane we were on the port side in an exit row with only a window and an aisle seat…lots of leg room. Across from us was the flight attendant, who informed us she’d been doing this for about 3 years and only those with 15+ years got to fly these routes. I asked how she got to serve on this with only 3 years and she said, she often picks up these kinds of flights, it’s just that this was not her regular assigned route…those come from years of experience and seniority.
Neither of us slept much this night, but thanks to the movies and flight tracker, where I could see us slowly move down the South American continent, we finally touched down in Buenos Aires at 9 AM on March 11th in a new Time Zone an hour ahead of EST.
Leaving the plane, we got our 2 carry-ons and 2 personal items and headed off to baggage claim. While I was putting on our Viking Boarding Pass tags on our bags, Mom was waiting for our 2 checked bags to arrive. Once we had everything, we headed out to go through customs and immigration. Once through that we exited into the main terminal to see the Viking Staff in their red jackets and what they call their Red Lollipops, there to greet us and walk us, a very long walk across the airport, to the waiting pursers and coach.
The Viking person told us to take our passports & money, but no mention about other important docs I’d need later. So, we got on the coach and headed for the Viking Ship…or so I thought. They took us to a building for Viking customs, immigration and visa onboarding. This was where I realized that all my important docs were in one of my bags that I’d given to the purser! They found our bags and I had to search through each one to remember which bag had the papersI Found them! Woo Hoo! Success! I retrieved our Viking Boarding passes and our Brazilian visas and we were on our way! However, this move would come back to bite me later when we got on the ship.
So, now we had all the documents they wanted. They took our passports and visas and gave us our keycards and documents to retrieve our passports at the end of our journey. From there we sailed through the process. We boarded another coach that actually took us to the Viking Ship Jupiter where we went up the gangplank and were greeted by the wonderful staff of Viking. We went for a quick safety demonstration in their Star Theater and then we moved about in awe of this beautiful ship! We were allowed to go to our rooms a little early. All our bags were there…so we thought. The bag that all my papers were in and my meds and my clothes …did not make it! For the next 4-5 hours I kept asking guest services if it was found. Finally, they did find it…the room tag had come off and that’s why they couldn’t find it, but lots of relief when I saw them walking it down the hall! Woo Hoo! Now I can relax and we can enjoy our cruise!
We relaxed and slept for a while after the bag arrived and we then went out on our first shore excursion…
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