2022-07-31: Rome to Calgary

We woke up at 6:45am this morning. Today is the day we fly home. We got ourselves showered, got dressed and packed up the last of our gear into our backpacks. Around 7:30, we headed up to the Windjammer to grab some breakfast before we headed off the ship. Shortly before 8:30am we were walking off the ship.

We walked through the cruise terminal and collected our suitcases. We did a quick transfer of our toiletries and pajamas from our bags to our suitcases and then made our way out of the terminal. We had booked a private shuttle from the pier to the airport. We were a little earlier than our planned meeting time, but our driver was already outside waiting for us. We connected with him and were escorted to the van for our ride to the airport.

The transfer to the airport took about 45 minutes which was shorter than we expected. We thought it would be double that. It’s about a 90 minute transfer to Rome, but the airport is in Fiumicino which is along the coast so is closer to Civitavecchia. We were at the airport by 9:30 which is four and half hours before our flight was scheduled to depart at 1:55pm. We also received an email from WestJet informing us our flight was delayed by 40 minutes, pushing our departure to about 2:30pm. We were plenty early for our flight.

We entered the airport and headed to the check in counter. We were informed by an agent at the door that check in didn’t open until 3 hours before the flight which was about an hour or so from then. We located the check-in counter anyway and saw some WestJet employees getting set up at the bag drop counter. We already had our boarding passes by doing online check-in the day before. We waited a few minutes and they started accepting suitcases for our flight. We got our bags checked in and were given paper boarding passes after they verified our passports.

We went through security in a matter of minutes. The line for US flights was quite long. We were happy we weren’t going through the US today. We had a few hours to kill before our flight. There are a bunch of stores and a few market type restaurants in the terminal. We browsed through the terminal and Amanda bought herself one last Italian coffee. Unfortunately, it was so hot that she scalded her tongue on the coffee. We decided to find our way to our gate. We were listed at gate E43 which is in a different building. We had to take a bus over to the other building. We made our way to the bus and transferred to the correct building. We double-checked the departures board when we go there to discover they moved our gate while we were on the bus. We were now listed as boarding at gate E21 which is back in the main building of course. So, back to the bus and we transferred back to the main building. We found our way to gate E21 and found a few seats to occupy for the next couple of hours. We grabbed a few snacks for the plane at one of the shops and grabbed some lunch from one of the restaurants while we waited.

Around 2:00pm, they started to board the plane. By 2:30pm, we were on board and the plane departed for Calgary. The flight was uneventful. We all watched a few movies to pass the time. A short ten and a quarter hours later, we landed in Calgary. We walked through customs within a few minutes. Within an hour of landing, we were out of the airport and on our way home. Darrell’s Dad picked us up from the airport.

Once we got home, Darrell checked his email and saw a note that Patrick and Michael had both been selected for the random arrival Covid testing. We were not too happy about that, but don’t have a choice in the matter. We signed them up for the Covid testing and will have to pick up test kits and get the tests done tomorrow. Darrell’s parent’s left some roast chicken and salads at the house for us for dinner. We had a bite to eat and did some unpacking. By the time we finished all that, it was about 8:00pm and time to get ready for bed. We had all been up for close to 24 hours at this point and needed some sleep. We were officially home and the vacation was over. We had a great time but were ready to be home after being away for 3 weeks. Time to start planning the next adventure!