Last Tango in Montevideo

 

January 9 Sunday 11 PM 

Tonight Tango Cervila performed in the Star Theater traditional to modern styles of tango, the most sensual dance in the world. Sensual and sensational!  Junior-Cervila

Viking decided to charter a plane to get us home for its passengers on this cruise! We are flying to Miami International Airport on Monday morning. At this point, most passengers are glad that we have a way home. Many have jobs waiting for them and other important appointments and activities.

All this is great for us. Not so great for the incoming passengers who boarded yesterday for the reverse trip around South America. These folks had their flights changed to board in Montevideo, Uruguay because Argentina is not allowing cruise boats to enter Buenos Aires. Even though these passengers all tested negative for COVID, upon being tested by the Viking ship's laboratory, four incoming passengers tested positive. They have been escorted off the ship, put in hotels to recover and will eventually fly home when they test negative. However, The Captain told the remaining new passengers that they have to stay in their cabins and will not be able to take any tours until the local authorities determine otherwise.. Whew! We are glad we can leave to take our charter back home. We have to be ready to go to the airport at 3 am.

And we were. Richard hoped to be first in-line for a chance extra leg-room seats. We were first in line at 4 AM waiting at the check-in counter.  Surprise, the seats per preassigned. Surprise, we needed some kind of affidavits we didn't know about to reenter the United States. The Uruguayan ticket agents waved their smart phones around as they conferred with other. Fifteen minutes later, with our tickets in hand, the couple of hundred waiting passengers behind us erupted in a round of applause. 

The Uruguayans jumped through the hoops of bureaucracy to get each of us the seven page affidavit that required two checks, one to attest to the COVID vaccination and another to the negative PCR test, and a signature. Surprise, we were not checked for documentation in Miami other than or passports, not even customs so we didn't need the affidavits after all. Nevertheless, thankyou Uruguay! 

Viking representatives met us at the Miami airport to usher us unto a hotel bus for the short trip to the Sheraton for the night.  In the morning, we walked across the street to the mammoth rental car facility to rent a car for the drive home. Viking, always a class act, will be reimbursing us for the car expense.

This afternoon we talked about all the good times we've had over the past 20 days. Some highlights are

• The beautiful Viking Jupiter Ship – just spectacular, beautiful, comfortable

• The fabulous staff who thanked us for coming and attended to our every wish and need

• Cruising around Cape Horn - what a thrill to see the tip of South America!

• The beautiful fiords and Drake Channel

• The passengers we met – especially Diana & Larry from Idaho and Jan & Ty from Sannibel

• The onboard enrichment lectures by the astronomer, archeologist and others

• The onboard entertainment

• The sumptuous food, gourmet and specialty restaurants, wines, cappuccino coffees. My favorite dessert is Grand Marnier Souffle, entrees are hard to pick but loved all the seafood e.g., Chilean sea bass, salmon

• Spending the holidays here was great. There were so many holiday events and the ship was decorated beautifully

Viking did well dealing with all the COViD-related problems. They promise a big credit for another cruise. Therefore, we booked Bali to Singapore in March 2023. Hope the Pandemic subsides to travel to exotic places again.