Playa del Carmen, Mexico - Day 5

Today was a let-down. We woke up late in the hopes of having a relaxed day ending with a flight to Dallas and a nice sleep in our hotel there. This is how it turned out.  We woke up late (8:30), as planned, got packed and went out to lunch at the restaurant. We then went on to the lobby where we waited for our transfer to the airport before hopping in the van and driving to the airport to arrive there 3 hours before the flight was due to depart as per recommendations. 

When we went to check-in we firstly found that there was some sort of issue with our documents, we weren’t told what, so we acquired the help of an American Airlines representative who helped us print out something to take to the check-in desk. When we got to the desk we found that our ESTA Visas (the visas you need to get in to the United States) had some issue with them, it turned out that the passport numbers didn’t match up. The reason for this is that when we were in Washington D.C our passports were stolen in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum so they were subsequently cancelled. Not only did this incident immediately affect us but it has now come back to bite us in the butt, the reason the numbers didn’t match up is because we had to get emergency passports with new numbers and then newer, more permanent passports when we got home with new numbers once more. Through all of this it never connected with us about the visas because we were already in Washington D.C or, in other words, America. 

We spent the next hours of our lives trying to get our applications for the new ESTA Visas in and approved in time for the flight. All of this was not helped at all by the appalling, useless, wasteful and sometimes rude “help” of the person behind the information desk who was, at the same time, learning a new language and playing games on her PC. Anyway, longer story short, we ended up missing our flight so our now staying at the Courtyard by Marriot to get up early (3:00) in the morning. In the evening, we went downstairs where we had a delicious dinner and dessert only improving my idea of what has been the best “Airport Hotel” I’ve stayed in. Tomorrow will be an extremely busy day in Dallas (hopefully) but, until then goodbye.

Joseph Hewson