Column: Dealing with a case of travel hiccups

I’ve caught a case of the travel hiccups that even a good scare can’t cure. I hired a travel agency to take care of my various visas needed for the Semester At Sea  and trusted that everything would be ready on time.

The agency was supposed to expedite my passport and prepare my visas before Saturday but, as Saturday came and went, there were still no packages at my door.
My flight for the Bahamas was in three days, and I started to panic when I realized no mail would be delivered Monday due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

After months of endless preparation, packing and trust that my papers were taken care of, everything seemed to spin out of control very, very quickly.

Immediately, I contacted Semester at Sea and travel agencies and found that my papers were stuck at the Consulate General of Brazil in New York. The embassy was closed Monday for the holiday, and I couldn’t be sure when my documents would be ready.

The bad news: I won’t be able to go to the Bahamas. The good news: I’m not alone.

Right now, there are about 25 other students whose passports are stuck in New York. We have been advised to fly to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,  so that we will all be together.
The best-case scenario is that we get our visas from the Brazilian embassy and meet the ship by Thursday to depart for Nassau. The worst-case scenario is that we remain visa-less and wait to meet the ship in the next port, which is at Rouseau, Dominica.

In the span of three days, I have gone from preparing for an ideal family vacation in the Bahamas to finding out that no such vacation is possible, no matter who I slip a twenty to.

Welcome to the world of international travel: Things don’t always go as planned, and trusting a foreign government to cater to your needs can require a big leap of faith.
At this point, I can wallow in self-pity or be thankful that I am still on the course to take the trip of a lifetime.

Sure, I may have to skip beach bumming in the Bahamas for a few days, but it is a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things.

Both the representatives at the travel agency and Semester At Sea are doing everything they can, and right now my only job is to follow a popular phrase: “Keep calm and carry on.”

— espitzer@indiana.edu