Day 23 - 29/Jan/24 - Buenos Aires, Argentina to Seattle
We rose at 6am as we had an estimated disembarkation time of 7:15pm. I had my last congi for a while and just after 7am our Pink 1 color was called. We disembarked the ship for the final time and caught the shuttle bus to the terminal. I expected to have to get our luggage there but it was to be sent directly to the airport. Would it really be there? We boarded our bus and did a three hour city tour with good commentary and two stops. The first was at the cemetery to see Eva Peron's grave (we'd seen it previously 8 years ago) and a second stop at Caministas Street for some last minute shopping in this colorful district.
We were then driven about 45 further miles to the international airport where there were piles of luggage for both outgoing and incoming passengers. I quickly found my luggage but Angela's came about 30 minutes later on another truck. Fortunately we have airtags in our luggage so we can track them.
Our standby Delta flight was not scheduled until 8:50; so we ate a very nice and inexpensive Outback restaurant. It was only $28US for the two us. As I examined the seat availability for our flight I could see limited seat availability so I checked other routes and carriers and found a promising American Airlines flight to Dallas which would allow us to take an Alaska flight to Seattle. So I listed for that flight (a bit complex, but I made it). Then we waited until 5:15pm and joined the queue to check in. That took an hour. Then we went upstairs for international departures, cleared the ticket check, then the security check , and finally the border control. At border control it was totally jammed but an official for some reason let us use the Argentinian checkpoint which didn't work so we had to do a manual verification. That was still about an hour faster than the other method.
We found seats at our gate and waited a few more hours. I could see we were 18 and 19 on the standby list for 24 open seats, so it looked good for making the flight unless there was a weight/balance issue. Just before the boarding door was closed our names were called along with a former Delta pilot and his wife who were trying non Delta standby for the first time. We had a good chat with them.
The flight was on a 787 Dreamliner which is my favorite long distance airplane. We were separated (I was in 20K and Angela was in 25B and I slept most of the flight. We arrived in Dallas a bit early on Tuesday, and easily cleared US border entry with our Global Entry status. We collected our luggage, were helped by a friendly American Airlines employee to catch a shuttle bus to the E terminal from the B terminal. We dropped our luggage off at Alaska, cleared security, found our gate and waited for our standby seats on the 8am Alaska 737-800 flight. We made the flight and had a nice flight to Seattle. It'll be good to be home for a short while.
Dallas in the morning
Headed to Seattle
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