Jamaica

It’s been a month since we began our week-long vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica. The trip was a curious mix of being both relaxing and trying. We had to work hard to relax. Was it worth it? Overall, I think so.

Why Jamaica? For a few years Kelly and I discussed taking an international vacation. We wanted to try to use the Southwest points we’d earned and that limited our options to a few Caribbean destinations. I’d always wanted to go to the Caribbean, so we looked into our Southwest choices. Among the airline’s new destinations is Aruba; Nassau, Bahamas; and Montego Bay, Jamaica. We chose Jamaica.

Southwest is new to international travel, however. We experienced this when checking in early on the first Saturday. The ticket agent was unfamiliar with the new software used to check us in and was assisted by another agent with a clipboard and a German accent. After a bit longer getting our bags checked we boarded our plane and were soon in Baltimore, boarding our flight to Jamaica. We were already seated when we were informed that a substitute flight crew would be taking us to Jamaica.

It was a new experience to be flying Southwest over water. Our flight left land behind off the coast of Wilmington, NC and flew over water and islands for the rest of the way. I kind of enjoyed the idea of flying over Cuba as I hadn’t expected to do that but there was little to be seen from our altitude.

Hallie sat near the window and I took the aisle. Our middle seatmate was a wonderful woman who was born in Jamaica but is now an American living in Baltimore. She traded me stories of Jamaica for my assistance in filling out her customs forms, as she had trouble reading them.

As we approached Montego Bay, our new flight crew happily announced our impending arrival … in Kingston? A murmur went around the cabin until a flight attendant quickly corrected our substitute pilots. Southwest does not fly to Kingston, of course.

The airport terminal was not very fancy but long corridors led from our gate to Customs. Apparently our plane was not the only one to land around that time, as those corridors soon filled up with fellow vacationers.

We got to the Customs area and thought we had our declaration forms filled out, only to find the Southwest flight attendants had mistakenly told us we did not need to fill out the departure information. Rather than step right into line, we spent 10 more minutes filling out the missing information as the Customs line grew longer and longer. Whoops.

After a long wait in line at Customs, it was finally our turn to be served. Our bored-looking young agent was surprised that the Southwest flight had apparently changed flight numbers. She peered at my boarding pass and said something casually to the agent nearest her before waving us through.

Finally, our vacation would begin! We happily made our way to baggage claim, ready to enjoy some Jamaican sun and fun. I could almost taste my first rum drink when we rounded the corner and discovered that only three of our four bags awaited us.

My bag was missing. Here we were, scheduled to stay in a foreign country for a week and my clothes and belongings had gone AWOL.

Did my bag make it on our flight? Did someone steal it? I could only wonder as I walked back with the Southwest baggage agent to fill out a claim form.

Our vacation was not getting off to the best of starts.

To be continued.