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After a 21-day transatlantic cruise from Miami to Lisbon, I checked into a Lisbon hotel to stay the night.
I had to be at the Lisbon airport at 5 AM for my first flight. At 2:30 AM, I discovered my relatively new cell phone had died. I couldn’t go back to sleep because I didn’t have an alarm clock.
That was on my phone. I couldn’t call for an Uber. I couldn’t ask the concierge‘s to call a taxi for me because the concierge was off duty from midnight until later in the morning. I brought all of my luggage and left them unattended in the lobby. I proceeded to walk through the eerily quiet streets of Lisbon, at night, in the rain, holding a purse and umbrella. All I needed was a driver with a vehicle who would take me to the airport. I don’t speak Portuguese. I communicated with the one person I encountered and he told me there was a taxi stand at the nearby square. As I approached the square, I saw the most beautiful four letters ever: TAXI! I successfully communicated with the taxi driver that I wanted to go to the airport but we needed to first stop at my hotel to collect my luggage. He didn’t speak English I don’t speak Portuguese but I made myself understood. I arrived at the airport at 4:20 AM and the British Airways gate opened at 4:50. I went nonstop for 22 hours spending time in three different airports, waited in lots of long lines, took two shuttle buses in London Heathrow, had only two muffins the whole day. After asking for help from multiple people, I finally found someone to allow me to send an email to a friend asking for help with Apple Store appointments. Upon arrival, although I have global entry that provides fast-track entry back to the US, I was pulled aside for a random security check that took an extra 30 minutes. I had to take an expensive taxi home because I couldn’t call and Uber. I really appreciate shared ride services. Ironically, on my flight from London Heathrow to Miami, I watched the first three episodes of the Showtime series about the founder of Uber and found it fascinating.
Fortunately, the next morning I was the second person in line at the Genius Bar at the Apple store to get my phone issue solved. The representative told me there was a way to repair the hardware issues but it would have been time consuming and labor intensive and they are out of the parts so he got authorization to replace my iPhone 13 Pro that I purchased in February.
All is well that ends well!
There is something to be said for all those years that I traveled around the world by myself, before technology was invented. I always managed just fine.
Update:
76% of the photos and all of the videos that I took on my 21-day sailing are gone forever because they were not stored in iCloud.
Only the photos or videos from days 1-5 of my 21 day cruise (or 24%) were saved. Most of the photos from Lisbon after I disembarked the ship had been saved.
Fortunately, I posted many of my favorites on Facebook. I went to Facebook and downloaded to my phone, more than 300 photos and screenshots of actual FB posts. I had to download these photos one by one.
