Overnight in Tokyo, Japan, Debarkation, & Return Home

Saturday, 30 Mar 2019 – We started the day at sea, but it was also a packing day for us.  At breakfast, we enjoyed conversation with Phil and Flora and lunch was as usual.  Since it was rainy and cold, there was no swimming today.  We docked in Tokyo at 4:00 PM.

Tokyo has served as the Japanese capital since 1869.  As of 2018, the Greater Tokyo Area ranked as the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with a population of over 38 million.  It is also the world's largest urban agglomeration economy. 

Medina, Terrace Café Cruise Staff

Before leaving for dinner, we said our goodbyes to our cabin stewards.  The Terrace Café was rather empty tonight.  Apparently, most of the passengers and several of the crew had gone ashore.  We missed saying goodbye to many of our favorite crew members.  After dinner, we danced in the Horizons from 8:15 to 9:00 PM, and said our goodbyes to the orchestra, who were obviously on their way ashore.  We managed to set our large suitcases outside the cabin by the 10:00 PM deadline.  Before retiring, Jesse tried checking us in for our flights online again, but was unsuccessful.  He had already tried a few times earlier during the day.  There was a note on the webpage saying that we had tickets, but needed to contact the airlines for further details.  
            Sunday, 31 Mar 2019 – At about 6:30 AM we awoke to our alarm and finished packing and preparing for our trip home.   Since we would be departing the ship too early for breakfast, we had brought a couple of bananas back to our cabin from the Terrace Café last night.  At 7:40 AM, we left our cabin and went to our meeting place in the Insignia Lounge.  Once all of the group had arrived, we were escorted off the ship, picked up our checked baggage, passed through Japanese Customs and Immigration, and boarded our airport transfer bus.  The bus departed the pier at 8:17 AM.

En route to the airport, we realized that neither of us had emptied the center desk drawer in out cabin.  We had forgotten our I-pad, portable keyboard, mini-binoculars, pocket calendar, and possibly other items!  We tried taking photos of Tokyo during our one-hour ride to the airport; however, since the air was very smoggy, the photos were not very good. 

Upon arrival at the airport, we were met by one of the airport personnel who had been assigned to assist our group – we’ll refer to her as Jane.  She was surprised (as we were) that our names were not on her list of boarding guests.  We first tried checking in at one of the self-service machines; however, the system did not recognize our reservations and instructed us to check in at the ticket counter.  Jane escorted us to the ticket counter and explained our situation to the airline agent.  After several minutes, the agent told Jane that we had tickets, but no reservations.  The tickets did not identify which flights we were on, or our destinations.   The airline agent suggested that we contact our travel agent.

We told Jane that we had made our reservations through Oceania.  After considerable effort, Jane finally managed to connect with the Oceania office in Japan; however, they were unable to help us and told her that we would have to contact Oceania in the US.  Jesse looked through our cruise papers and found Oceania’s emergency number.  Since our cell phone did not work in Japan, Jane escorted us to the pay phones in the front of the airport, which required Japanese phone cards that could only be purchased with Japanese Yen.  We all studied the phone card dispenser, but had no idea how much the call would cost us.  Jane told us that 1 USD was equal to about 100 Japanese Yen.  At that point, Jane told us that she really had to leave us, because she was scheduled to meet another group.  Before leaving she pointed to where the ATMs were located.

Japanese Pay Phones

We then walked across the airport lobby to the ATM machines with our luggage in tow, which was quite a distance, and withdrew 20,000 Yen, which was about $200 USD; however, the machine dispensed two 10,000 Yen bills!  We walked back to the pay phones, but it did not appear that the phone card kiosk would accept the 10,000 yen bill.  So then we walked again to the back across the lobby to find a money exchange window.  The woman there could not help us, but suggested that we try one of the stores.  At least, we were given change at first store we visited; then we crossed back to the phones.   We first purchased one phone card for 1000 yen (about $10 USD).  We had trouble getting through to the US until we noticed the instructions for international calls written in English.

Once Jesse reached Oceania’s US emergency number (this was the middle of the night in the US), the agent worked on reinstating our reservations.  When we noticed that the funds on the phone card were about to expire, Sally purchased another phone card, which Jesse quickly inserted into the phone.  The agent managed to get our reservations to Dallas-Fort Worth reinstated, but said we would have to book a flight to Moline once we got to the US.  She thought we still had enough time to make the flight if we hurried, which surprised us – but we rushed back to the ticket counter.  There, the airline agent quickly checked us in and called to a baggage handler who loaded our checked bags back on the cart and whisked them away.  (Until then, Jesse had been pushing all of our bags on the cart!)  Then one of the airline agents escorted us through airport “crew” security and then on to our gate.  No one was at the gate, but we walked through the passageway to the door of the plane.  There, the plane was being held for us.

Amazingly, we had seats together in the middle section, on the last row of the plane.  As we threw our bodies into the seats, we both gave thanks that we were able to leave Tokyo; we had had sinking feelings in our stomachs that we were going to be stuck in Tokyo and wondered how we would manage that.  (We hadn’t met anyone at the airport who could even speak much English!)  It seemed to us that we had been wandering around the airport for several hours, but it turns out to have been only a little more than an hour.

Two young women were sitting next to us, but had asked to move forward to a couple of empty seats (they wanted a window), which left us alone in the back 4 seats!  We watched movies and were served three meals on the 11-hour flight to Dallas-Fort Worth.  (For meals, we ended up with whatever food was still left because we sat in the very back of the plane!)  We both enjoyed watching the Green Book and RBG, among other movies.

When we arrived at DFW, we stood in a long line to get through immigration.  Although we had applied for Global Entry Cards, their processing had been delayed due to the Government shutdown.  After picking up our checked bags, we stopped at an American Airlines ticket counter.  Luckily, she managed to get us on a flight to Moline, with seats together, no less!  Although we had to stand in a long line to go through security again, after that, we boarded the airport shuttle most of the way to our gate.  Again, we were on the last row on the plane.  There was a young woman sitting in the window seat, with no window!  But soon, the flight attended asked if she would like to move to a better seat, and was taken to 1st class!  We were glad to have the extra space.  We arrived at the Moline airport at about 12:40 PM, where Katie was waiting for us in front of the terminal for our ride home.  We were home by 1:30 PM.   Ironically, with all of the problems with our flights, we ended up on the same flights that we had reserved back in August 2018!

It’s great to be home!