It went better than we feared but still having to ponder how they could do this much worse. In flight we were coming in early, about 20 minutes early so while we seemed to be approaching the airport we didn't make the final turn and instead flew around for 20 minutes so KLM and I think West Jet land. With AA you taxi down past all the jet bridges to the farthest area from where the bus would take you to go through immigration. Nice that they had ramps vs stairs and also they didn't over fill the first bus before letting it go and we were on that first bus. Once over to immigration they assign your flight a line, and we were told #1 but then they fed us to #2 but then had us all go back over to #1 after filling the line. They then feed the lines to immigration based on when they anticipate that the luggage will be arriving for that flight. Reasonable system other than those that are carry on only who should get some sort of priority. We rarely check luggage but did this time even knowing that we were going to pay a time penalty for it but we had a lot of items to bring down that will not be going home with us (carry on only home). Once they fed our portion of the line to immigration it went pretty quick through that line but once through there you are then waiting for luggage.

Time from walking off the jet to getting past immigration was 40 minutes, then time waiting for luggage was another 40 minutes.

They should do a better job of explaining why others are going through to immigration possibly faster than you. They did have two girls handing out water which was nice, and all in all people were pleasant but you get frustrated not knowing why you are watching others go faster than you. The speed of luggage handling is lousy, and there seemed to be more standing around with that group but note that you get a limited view of what is going on so my view was through frustrated eyes of a guy who did a red eye to CLT and then down with limited sleep.

One nice thing landing on a Sunday is traffic is not much of an issue, had that going for us to be able to drop off our luggage before heading to Cupecoy for sunset which was the goal. We brought along Brad and Lora and met up with Wendy, Linda, and Diane and many others. Enjoyed a few beverages leading into sunset and Lemon Drop with Rod and Donna and a very large group with a a lot of new people. Great to see all the familiar faces.

Lal's for dinner, feeling tired but once back to our unit we went to BBB and had a couple cocktails. Went up to our room and sat there for a bit tired but not yet sleepy tired wanting something more to drink but we had not taken the time to do any grocery pickup so walked over to Hupple the Pub and had a couple cocktails before heading back to our room. Then, slept like logs, still not adjusted to island time so we slept in to more of West Coast time. Taking it easy today getting settled, planning on sunset back at Cupecoy and dinner at The Palms tonight.

The trip has begun, will be on island for our longest stay yet just shy of four weeks. Looking forward to seeing our island friends and making new ones.

Cheers,
Todd