Heading Home

July 7, 2023 – Arrival at Civitavecchia and Flights Home

Docked:  Arrival at 6:00 am in Civitavecchia and Transfer to Airport and Flight Home.

We got up at 5:00 am and went to breakfast at 5:30 am.  Surprisingly they offered an early full breakfast, which we ate for our long day of travelling that lay ahead.  After gathering our remaining luggage from the room, we proceeded to deck 5 and lined up for our disembarkation at 6:30 am.  At that time, we left the ship and proceeded to the terminal where all the luggage from the ship was arranged according to our group numbers.

We were all Group 10 and found our luggage immediately.  From there we walked directly to the Group 10 bus where our luggage was loaded.  The bus departed at 7:00 am

for the one-hour drive to the FCO airport T3 departure area where we collected our luggage and proceeded through door 6 to the Delta baggage drop off area.  By 9:10 am we had gone through all the passport control and security areas and arrived at Gate 24.  

To our surprise, Gate 23 had a flight to Atlanta departing at 9:35 am and final boarding was underway.  Too bad we weren’t booked on that flight.  Boarding for our flight to Detroit began at 10:05 am.  We departed the gate at 11:10 am

and within 15 minutes were airborne.

Interesting that the takeoff took us in the direction that we could see Civitavecchia and our ship the Beyond, [2824] 

which was docked, in that port.  The flight was quite good and we arrived in Detroit at 3:00 pm.  We deplaned and proceeded to Global Entry and then collected our luggage to recheck for the remainder of the trip.  Then through security before going to A54 for our Atlanta flight.  

Our Atlanta flight left and arrived (E10) on time and we negotiated our way to D12 for our Birmingham flight.  When we arrived at D12 they were already boarding and were past our boarding group.  So, we walked straight onto the plan with A & B seats.  This flight took off ahead of schedule and arrived in Birmingham 15 minutes early.  We could not believe that both of our bags were together on the baggage machine when we arrived at the baggage claim area.  The bags were walked to the car, which started right away, and we, who had now been up for 23 hours, headed home.  Hurray: We are HOME after 14 days on an absolutely fabulous vacation.  Planning will be underway shortly for our next adventures.

That is the end of our marvelous trip to a part of the world we had not previously visited.  It was a very special trip to be able to spend it with Emily, Sean, Olivia, and Gavin.  They are fantastic travelers, and we had an outstanding time traveling with them and enjoying these sites together in Italy, Turkey, and Greece.