Cruise Chronicles: Alaska Edition - Lost Luggage

I lost luggage for the first time in my life in Seattle.

Having arrived almost an hour and a half late to Seattle and already dealing with the several voice mails left by my town car driver (oh yes, we ride in style) that were recorded in a manner that was either anxious or annoyed--I had not met the guy, so I couldn't tell the difference--we learned that our luggage had not made the trip with us. Well, not so much as learned as came to the conclusion after watching the carousel in hopeful anticipation for twenty minutes solid as it interminably orbited in a lazy elliptical.

Waiting for baggage is like waiting to be picked for kickball in PE. You know you won't be first, but you hope to God you're not last. Sadly, our luggage never appeared. Like the odd kid leftover who got to be umpire, which in kickball is as useful as the life vest under your airplane seat.

This baggage carousel was the first one I have ever seen with a chute from an upper level. I've dreamt about seeing one (and riding one) ever since I watched the Chipmunks' balloon adventure. You know what I'm talking about. Near the end while they were running from Claude and went down that baggage chute like a slide on a playground.

The Southwest baggage claim lady in Seattle was abnormally chipper for what I guess must be a pretty crappy job. She took down our claim information and reassured us that it was actually better that both our luggage was missing. It was more likely to turn up. This made us feel a little better, as I had absolutely no change of clothes, much to Leslie's enjoyment, though her single change of clothes would fare no better on a seven-day cruise. Never before in my travels had luggage been so vital.

Perky Southwest Baggage Lady took down our hotel information, marveling at the fact that I could recite the address of the Mediterranean Inn from memory. If she knew what kind of planning went into this trip she would have been less impressed. But as it was, she did not yet know (but she probably suspected--everyone does) that I was an OCD freak, and her amazement made me feel better. An noteworthy achievement, considering my current deficit of clean underwear and toothpaste.

But Perky Southwest Baggage Lady promised our luggage would arrive by the next morning, so we left to find our anxious/annoyed town car driver. After one false start (I jumped into the back of the wrong town car), we found our guy and made the forty-five minute trip to the hotel in a little less than half an hour. The driver obviously knew a route or speed limit exception of which Google is unaware. Useful travel tip: When traveling in groups of 2-4, take a town car from the airport. It is the same price as a cab, and normally less than those airport shuttles, which make ten stops and often smell of a cocktail of bodily effluents.

True to Perky's word, our luggage arrived promptly at 2:00 am. The front desk clerk, who probably was having a slow night, this being the hipster section of Seattle, where everyone pretended to be bohemian but turned in by 10 pm so they could wake up early, grab their Starbucks and head to their mid-level job at a financial firm in downtown, happily woke me up. After he chatted briefly about something Seattle-related, he released my luggage to me (dutifully checking my name, as if someone else would be looking for luggage at that hour). Satisfied that the luggage survived its ordeal in Las Vegas, I went back to bed and dreamt of luggage chutes.