July 14/15: Heading Home

And Saturday, of course, we disembarked after breakfast. We got off at 8:15 and by 8:30 we were across the street at the Gold Belt Hotel. "Hospitality suites" had been set up both here and in Ketchikan as waiting areas but they were crowded, a little chaotic and were provisioned only with water and coffee. With 3 hours to kill, we went over to the Juneau State Museum. We then took the shuttle to the Juneau Airport , a confusing little place with with only overpriced beverage vending machines airside. We retrieved our bags from the area where they'd been transferred from the cruise line staff, checked the big ones, and then flew to Seattle. 

We spent Saturday night at a wonderful Renaissance hotel by the airport; we both enjoyed the comparatively huge room and I had a wonderful swim in the outdoor pool. Sunday we had to make a 7:30 AM flight, so were up early. Our business-class flights between home and Seattle were a great use of airline miles- among other things it got us into a Priority TSA line, which was a real blessing since the regular lines were crazy. Despite their hypervigilance and the use of the Nude-o-Scope, Ron and I realized later the TSA had missed liquids in both our bags that we hadn't put into our Freedom Baggies- including one that exceeded the size limit. Do you feel safe now?

We were home by 4 Sunday; the lawn had been scorched, probably beyond redemption, by the unrelenting Kansas heat, but the pool held up OK. We were grateful.

Offered a good discount if we put a deposit on another cruise before disembarking (no need to specify a date or itinerary yet), we discussed it for about 2 minutes before agreeing we wanted to do this again. We'll be back in 2014!