A Small Bump In The RoadEven with the best of planning sometimes you can hit a bump in the road when you travel. We hit such a bump shortly before our journey began. We used a luggage service to ship three pieces of luggage for delivery to the ship in Vancouver. Thankfully, we requested pickup of the luggage one week earlier than necessary just in case something went wrong. The Luggage Service company utilized Federal Express for the shipment. A couple of days after pickup, we checked status of the shipment via the Federal Express website. The good news was by then all three pieces had already made it to Vancouver where they were in Customs for the routine inspection prior to delivery to the port agent. By the next day, two of the three pieces were delivered. Unfortunately, no updated status was shown for the third piece. This caused us some concern. Thankfully, the next day someone from Federal Express in Canada sent Keith an e-mail asking for the FedEx tracking number for the third piece of luggage. He knew our e-mail because we included our e-mail address and cell phone number inside each luggage tag holder for situations such as this when a piece of luggage might go missing. It is suspected that the Federal Express tracking tag was inadvertently removed while at customs. Keith corresponded back and forth with the person from Federal Express and he said he was placing a new Federal Express tag on the luggage and it would be delivered the next day. Unfortunately, there was no change in status the next day and the following day. The man who Keith had corresponded with was not reachable and Federal Express didn't know where the piece of luggage was. The good news is the luggage delivery service had the port agent take a photo of the luggage he received so we could verify which piece went missing. Even better news was the photo revealed all three pieces of luggage had indeed been received. The following day Keith did hear back from the person at Federal Express who had reached out to him in the first place. He had been off on Thursday and Friday. He said that the person who prepared the new tracking tag didn't associate the number to our master tracking number so the status of delivery was not reflected in the system. In addition to including contact information on our luggage tags, we also place a number on each piece of luggage. This number is associated with a detailed listing of all contents that we place in each bag. We do this so that if a one or more bags go missing we know precisely what items were in each bag. This would help not only to purchase replacement items, but should there be a need to fill out an insurance claim form. This is a photo that was taken by the port agent. The Journey BeginsSince our airport does not offer any direct flights to Vancouver, and connections are not optimal, we divided our travel into two days. We arranged for a private car to take us on a one-hour drive from our home to our regional airport. It was a sunny morning as you can tell from these photos. After flight check-in we made our way through security. Since we each have Global Entry, we enjoyed the benefits of Pre TSA Check. This allowed for a speedy security check without having to remove items including shoes and belts and being able to keep computers and even the 3-2-1 bag in our respective carry-on luggage. We then proceeded to our airlines club lounge and enjoyed the comfort and amenities it provides while waiting for our flight to board. We received a text that our flight would be delayed about forty-five minutes, but no worries since we did not book a connecting flight. We had lunch at the airport lounge. Once our flight left, it was uneventful. Once our flight left, it was uneventful. After landing, we claimed our luggage in record time. It arrived within 10 minutes of our landing and it was the third and fourth pieces to come arrive onto the carrousel. We then made our way to our hotel. Our hotel is located at one of the airport terminals. We have stayed there on previous occasions including twice this past May before and after our Crystal Serenity cruise. We had an early dinner at the Hotel Restaurant. We have enjoyed several dinners at this restaurant on prior visits and this dinner was no exception. We really appreciate the service of the entire wait-staff team. Tomorrow we fly to Vancouver for four days before we board Crystal Serenity.
Keith & Anne Marie |
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September 2016
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