June 2, 2022 day at Newark Airport

We had breakfast in the Oceanview Café on Deck 10. Then walked on Deck 11 in the fresh air for 35 minutes. The temperature was 17°C, cloudy, very little wind. We had a good view of the Manhattan skyline, with the low cloud skimming the top of the tallest buildings. The ship’s arrival to Cape Liberty was scheduled for 8 a.m. The ship was tied up a few minutes early.

We returned to our Deck 3 cabin for the last time, gathering everything and proceeding to the departure lounge for Elite and above passengers in the Tuscan Grill. We were glad we were wearing our N95 masks. After waiting until 8:15 a.m. and seeing how packed the lounge was, we left to go to Deck 4, which was the departure deck. The elevator was packed so we carried our 40 pound suitcases up one flight of stairs and waited another ten minutes before an announcement that people “self-disembarking” could now leave. We had accumulated 4,984 steps for the day. There must have been 300 people who could leave immediately and not have to wait for their disembarkation number to be called. We passed the security station for the last time scanning our Seapass card. Then we walked through the terminal, past the numbered caches of luggage to pick up our suitcases, to the Customs and Border Security area and with nothing to declare were waived through. It was just 8:30 a.m. as we exited the terminal to find the taxi stand.

We had a choice of either paying $22US each for a shuttle to Newark International Airport or take a taxi for $69US plus tolls (& tip). We were aiming to catch an 11:17 a.m. United Airlines flight to Fort Lauderdale, which did not give us much time for leaving the ship and getting to the airport two hours ahead of the flight. This flight was arranged by Flights by Celebrity. We had not paid much attention to the departure time when we were notified of the United flight, a bit on the early side for catching a plane after leaving a ship! Shuttle busses from the ship were not guaranteeing airport arrival before 11 a.m.

It was less than 25 minutes before we were dropped off at the United Airlines terminal. Then the fun began! Last night the flight was still scheduled, but the ship’s Internet was the slowest it has ever been and a second check was not possible. At the airport kiosk, we typed the reservation number and our flight was cancelled. However, we could fly standby on flight 1613 leaving at 11 a.m. {This is the reason that we plan to get to our cruise departure city two days in advance.} When the boarding pass spit out, it read boarding at Gate C128 started at 9:12 a.m., it was 9:05 a.m. and we had to drop off the bags and get through security with thousands of other people. The security line wounds its way to the X-ray machines passing through a caged area with a dog and its handler checking each passenger as they walked through about five meters between each person. Shoes had to be removed and put in bins at the X-ray machine. Finally through security, it was 9:29 a.m. and we still had to jog to gate C128 from gate C77, the boarding ticket said the gate closed at 9:37 a.m. for the flight leaving at 9:52 a.m. We could not see any boards listing departing flights. Panting, we arrived at the gate C128 only to find that the gate had been changed to C103 and the plane’s departure time was changed to noon. We took a deep breath and slowly walked to find gate C103 which was on the other side of where we entered from security. Once at the departure seating, we waited. After half an hour, the gate screen showed that for flight 1613 there was a standby list of 65 people! We were numbers 45 and 46. There was also a message that this morning’s flight delay was caused by the need to assign a new plane due to a plane going out-of-service which caused schedule disruptions. Our step count was just over 7,900 as we waited. The COVID testing area was either in Arrivals or another terminal, so we could not even get that task accomplished while waiting. The COVID test is necessary for our Caribbean cruise in two days. Checking a website, I found that United Airlines has had the worst delay record for the past week.

Once the gate agent arrived, she announced that the flight was overbooked. So we emailed our travel agent – and the Internet connection failed, but we reconnected. Our travel agent is on her day off and has been assisting us. After standing in line from 11:26 a.m. to 1:23 p.m. at the Customer Service, only two of a possible nine customer service agents were trying to reschedule people. At the same time that we arrived to the front of the line, our TA emailed that we were on standby at gate C96 leaving at 1:55 p.m., the customer service agent gave us a temporary ticket for that flight. It was only a five minute walk to gate C96 that was still boarding. We were only on the standby list from the previous gate, not actually having a seat. Being the first time flying standby on an American airline, we did not know the drill. The gate agent informed us that there were 95 people on standby and it was a full flight! The next flight for Fort Lauderdale was at 3 p.m. back at the other side of the terminal at gate C107. En-route we stopped to pick up a couple of meat and cheese sandwiches on fresh Brioche buns, each costing $13US (about $17Cdn). Refueled, we reached gate C107 having emailed our Travel Agent to try to book us on the 11:02 p.m. flight while we waited on standby. We also asked our Travel Agent to phone our Fort Lauderdale hotel to advise them that we would not be there until late in the evening or early morning. She advised us to confirm the flight booking with a gate agent. With all the people in the airport, the Internet is not any better than on the ship and sometimes we are unable to connect.

Guess what – when we did check with the gate C107 agent, the 11:02 p.m. flight was full and they could not find a reservation for us, even using the original confirmation number. There was an announcement shortly that the 3 p.m. flight was delayed an hour because the pilots were flying a plane from Nashville that was delayed from yesterday evening due to severe thunderstorms here. The new departure time for the plane is estimated to be 4 p.m. We may be standby listed in mid 30s and only one person got on as a standby. The next flight to Fort Lauderdale is at 7:29 p.m. back in the other wing at the very end - gate 88. The 10 minute walk took 1,023 steps. The seating area was empty so we sat down to give our feet a rest. We still have the boarding pass issued this morning. What a day!

In our roaming to the gates, we have passed Customer Service each time and the line looked longer than our almost two hour wait earlier. I decided to go see if the line was any shorter, it as not. But, on the way back, I saw an agent at a gate where the plane had just left and asked if he could check to see if we had confirmed seats, nothing! However, he did look at the flight seats sold and found there were three seats available and gave me two boarding passes for the 11:02 p.m. flight. Hooray! Larry was surprised that we officially had seats on a flight. It was 4:40 p.m. almost eight hours since we arrived at the airport. We decided to find gate C105, from where the 11:02 p.m. flight departs. On the way we stopped to get Frappuccinoes at Starbucks. If the flight departs on time, we should be arriving in Fort Lauderdale about 12 hours later than scheduled. Then we can take a taxi to our nearby hotel. At 6:15 p.m., we are now just waiting for our confirmed flight. Just now an announcement that flight 556 to Fort Lauderdale, which we couldn't get on standby, is boarding – again. It had returned to the gate after we left the gate, due to severe weather nearby making it too dangerous to depart.

Steps 20,094