Going Home

We always refer to the last morning of the cruise as the saddest day.  You receive your debarkation information the night before.  This includes a letter explaining the process, luggage tags, and a form for customs.  You need to gather your suitcases together and place them outside your room before 10:00 PM with the luggage tags attached, making sure you keep a few important items with you, including your Passports, a change of clothes, and anything you need for the last night on board the ship.  Of course, you can also keep all your luggage with you and carry it off the ship the next morning yourself (without assistance).

You will then head to breakfast at the same dining room you had dinner at the night before.  The time of breakfast will depend on whether you had first dinner seating or second dinner seating.  For first seating, it’s pretty early — generally before 7:00 AM.  The breakfast is a hurried affair, but we’ve always attended to say goodbye to our server team.  We really liked this team and keep in touch with Tricia, our assistant server.  We do frequently seek out our former servers when we’re back on board the Wonder.

After breakfast, you can find a space somewhere on board to wait for your luggage tag color/character to be called.  We usually wait in one of the lounges, as we aren’t in too much of a hurry to get off the ship.  Guests who choose to keep their luggage with them can participate in Express Walk-Off; they get off the ship first, but again, they have to carry all of their luggage off and through the customs line.  We’ve taken advantage of that feature once when we wanted to drive back from Port Canaveral to Washington, D.C. in one day.

Once your luggage tag is called, you will exit the ship by swiping your Key To The World card one last time.  You will then proceed to collect your luggage and head to the Customs area.  You will hand the form to a Customs official and then have your Passports examined.  This step has never taken us very long, maybe 5 minutes of waiting in line.  After talking to the Customs officials, you can then go out to find your transportation.  On this particular trip, we needed to return to the airport for a return flight.  We headed outside and grabbed a cab to the airport.

We really enjoyed the trip immensely.  We had several new experiences and made great memories, which is the best you can hope for on a family vacation.

 Planning | Boarding | Castaway Cay | Nassau | Key West | Going Home

* Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Email!