I'm flying to Jamaica for a week. It's a bit hotter and more humid than Hawaii.
I'm used to typing in the Honolulu airport instead of Kona into Lyft. I only noticed after it said the price was $400. I'm not sure which driver is going to take the trip across the ocean, though.
That's a more normal price.
At the airport.
Ogii is also flying to California to work for the week. She's even bringing her keyboard.
I flew into LAX first.
My next flight was to Houston, but it wasn't for three hours. Then, I had another 3-hour layover in Houston, so I would get into Miami quite late, so I checked to see if I could get there sooner. There were two earlier flights from LAX to IAH.
The first one was already boarding and had a long standby list.
The second one, though, I managed to be first in the standby list.
Compared to my original flight...
... I would save about 1.5 hours if I could get on the standby one.
I got it.
Now one big issue. On my original, later flight, I'm boarding group 3.
And on my second, earlier flight, I'm boarding group 5.
But since the plane is full, they're checking all carry-on luggage for groups 4 and later, which means I'd have to check my bag. Even with the earlier flights, I'll still get into Miami in the later evening and be leaving in the early morning. I have scrubs in there that I need for the clinics in Jamaica that I won't be able to buy anywhere in Miami in that time frame if they lose my bag, and I'm not sure where I could buy them in Jamaica. I guess I'll trust them to get my bag to Miami so I can sleep a bit longer.
At least United is good about tracking your bag.
I was the only one on the standby list who made it onto the flight.
It's packed.
I have a charger that will charge our laptops via USB. It's not as fast as the dedicated laptop power plugs, but it takes up much less space than them. However, it's much larger and heavier than normal USB plugs, so it keeps falling out of the outlet in the plane. I guess I'll have to buy a normal, lighter, smaller one to use for that.
Landed in Houston.
And so far my bag made it.
While Ogii is in Monterey.
Just because I got to Houston early doesn't mean I'll get to Miami early. I still need to catch an earlier flight, and again, they are all full. Again, the earliest flight at 2:45pm is too soon and I can't make it. The second flight is at 5:02pm, and my scheduled flight is 7:05pm. However, the gate agent said they couldn't rebook me and that I should call United instead.
They got me on standby for the earlier flight, again, first in line. Now just have to wait and see.
An Asian-themed store.
With snacks.
A restaurant.
And an eating area.
Cool trees.
I had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. They ran out of meatballs, though, so I only got one. That's OK; it was pretty terrible.
But then they found another one and cooked it for me. Well now I have to eat another terrible meatball so they won't feel bad.
I've done all of those.
Hey, why is that guy on standby and I'm not? I was ahead of him in the queue.
Nevermind, I made it onto standby for the earlier flight. I wonder if the system was just delayed a little bit in updating me or if he had higher status that let him jump ahead of me.
This time a few standby passengers made it onto the flight, but still not many.
I got a window seat. Which is kind of wasted on me, as I'm short.
And I was in the middle seat, which was still very skinny.
My bag made it onto the plane; nice.
Ogii saw a fun license plate in California.
Her room.
A nice large area.
And a bird with some food flying at sunset.
A nice sign at the Miami airport.
There's my bag.
Gotta buy a lotto ticket.
I stayed at the Miami Airport Hotel as I was arriving late and leaving early. It wasn't too much more expensive than other hotels around the airport.
The room.
I was going to have Burger King for breakfast, but their kiosk had an error, so I went to Dunkin Donuts instead.
Ogii's breakfast at the hotel.
Grabbing some cash at an ATM.
It looks like you can go through multiple different checkpoints to get to the same gates.
Leaving Miami. Lots of yachts.
The bay had many boats.
Arriving in Jamaica.
With very pretty water.
There are three major airports. They told us to fly into Montego Bay.
Nice mural.
Getting some local currenty.
And figuring out the exchange rate. A 500 Jamaican bill is around $3, so I'll plan on using that for tips.
Trying to find my bus company to get to the resort.
A fun parrot statue outside.
And a margarita glass.
Onto the bus.
It has a USB and Jamaican power outlet.
I only have the new USB-C cords, but I have some little converters in my backpack so I can still use the older USB-A outlets.
It's about an hour to the resort.
But that's only if we drive straight to it, and we stopped at multiple resorts along the way to let other people off at those.
Another one.
The largers houses seemed to mainly be made out of concrete.
Another resort.
And another.
And another.
Most of the resorts also had two separate resorts, one that allowed kids and one that was adults only.
So we actually stopped at two locations at each resort.
A huge mansion.
Our resort was the last one, Bahia Principe. With all the stops, it took around two and a half hours to get there.