My trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica (2013) -- Part H -- by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

Day 8 - Saturday December 21, 2013:

First thing today, I must book a courtesy suite for us four before our flight leaves.  This could be one of our existing suites or another room.  The reason is that we would normally have to check out of the hotel by 11:00 am, but the bus doesn’t leave for the airport from the hotel until I guess about 5:15 or 5:30 pm and we’ll need a room / suite to stay in till that time.It’ll probably cost us about $100 US.We need to be at the airport in time to check in our baggage, go through customs, and maybe get something to eat or drink and wait to board the plane.  In order to board the plane, we must have boarding passes.  We can’t print them out here at the hotel, so we will have to pick them up at the airport instead.

Today, we are more than happy to be leaving!  At least, Brent, James and Dave are…..I love Jamaica though and I will be returning back here sometime!  We could not book a courtesy suite or room for today at all because the hotel was fully booked.  So, we had to check out of our two suites by 11:00 am and stow our baggage down by the front desk in the main lobby.  We were still allowed to use the nearby change rooms, locker facilities, showers and washrooms, but there was no longer any hotel room/suite for us.  At about 5:00 pm, we were picked up (after showering and changing) by our bus so that we could go to the airport and get on our WestJet flight home. 

The flight home was pretty uneventful, but by the time we got back to Toronto almost 4 hours later, we discovered that a horrific ice storm was brewing in the GTA and Durham Region where we live.  Kyle had agreed to pick us up after we’d gone through customs and picked up our baggage.  He was there waiting for us when we got outside Terminal 3 at around 1:00 am.  The drive home was tricky because it was pretty icy by this time.  Then, about an hour after Dave and I got home – we got home just after 2:00 am or so – the power went out all over the GTA and Durham Region and we did not have any idea when it would come back on!  The same thing happened to Brent and James when they got to their home in Oshawa shortly after us.  This has been our collective nightmare since very early on the morning of December 22.