Travel Day

A very, very long day

After very little sleep we were up at 3 am to get to the airport at the suggested time for an international flight. We arrived at the airport about 4:15 AM and at the gate at 4:45 well ahead of boarding time. Everyone except for the Delta employees looked half awake. One thing that did speed things up was that we had our passports and vaccine cards uploaded and validated prior to our travel day.

We arrived in Atlanta right on time after catching an hour of sleep on the first flight. We then had to wait 6 hours to board our flight to Quito. For such a big airport it was surprising that nothing was opened for food except the food court which was packed. We waited a few hours and magically the food court was empty. One shop had great bagels and coffee. We met our friends who are joining us on the trip as we sat and ate our bagels.

After an hour delay waiting for a flight attendant we were ready to go.

Celebrity greeters were waving for us just outside of baggage claim. Celebrity really did an outstanding job with every aspect of the trip from the time they met us until we went into the airport at the end of the trip. They took care of all of the paperwork and made everything easier. We arrived at the beautiful JW Marriott in Quito at 11:30 PM Eastern time, 10:30 Quito time. Quito is at almost 10,000 ft above sea level. I could definitely feel the difference. Will be drinking lots of water. The cruise line had nice water bottles waiting for us when we arrived. After being up over 20 hours today the bed is calling. Tomorrow we do a tour of the city and a stop at the Equator.