Friday January 23, 2014
A very early start for our flights to the US. We left the casa at 12:45 am and arrived at the airport at 1:30 am.
First hiccup of the day, we discovered on arrival at the airport that the airport doesn’t open until 3:00 am and we had to wait outside of the terminal. At 2:30 the doors opened and we were allowed to line-up inside.
We checked our bags and bikes in and this was the second hiccup of the day. We knew we had to pay $50.00 each for the bikes, but rather than get 100 CUC from the bank we decided to pay by credit card at the airport. There seemed to be an issue with using a credit card, Ralf asked about an exchange office. Yes there was one, but although the light was on, there was nobody home. The ATM wasn’t working. Ralf returned to the counter and explained the situation. The two check-in guys discussed for a while and then told us to carry on through passport control we didn’t have to pay. We figured we would pay in Grand Cayman, or our bikes wouldn’t show up – but we didn’t and the bikes did show up – bonus.
The third hiccup was when we got to passport control. Passport control officer checked our visas and our passports. We had checked at an immigration police office early on in our trip that we did indeed have a 3 month visa. Yes no problems. However, it turns out it is not 3 months it is 90 days. We were over our visa by 2 days! A senior officer was called and he took both of our passports away. After about 15 minutes he came back and said we could go through.
It turns out we could have got a fine for being over our visa. A young American was also over his visa by 5 hours and had to pay a fine of CUC 30.00. I am not sure why we weren’t fined, maybe it is because we are nice Canadians.
On arrival at Grand Cayman we picked up our bikes and luggage and then had to go through customs and recheck in. No problems there except the baggage handler was complaining about the size of Ralf’s bike box. The check-in counter said that because Cayman Airways had accepted the box for transit through to Tampa they had to accept it. If we had originated in Grand Cayman she could have refused the box. I am glad she didn’t know that we hadn’t paid for the bikes!!
Of course while waiting 5 hours at the Grand Cayman airport they have recouped some of the cost. It is incredibly expensive here. Breakfast was $25.00 and a snack and coffee was $12.95. The plane was delayed by 45 minutes.
Our final bit of excitement was a fire alarm went of in the airport departure lounge and we had to evacuate the building!
We arrived in Tampa, Florida at 2:00 pm and Gail and Bob were waiting for us. We had to take my bike out of the box for both bikes to fit in the car. We got back to their place and had a shower and something to eat. Then we were in bed by 7:30pm.