Day 6

Got up at 3:30am to get dressed and clean the room. Put all linens in a bag and trash in another. I think I’m leaving the room cleaner than when I arrived. 

Taxi doesn’t show up. 4:10am I start calling the desk. This was my worry because it’s hard to get people on the phone at a normal hour. I call 0 twice and am transferred twice to lines that don’t answer. I dial PR and I dial Transportation, no answer. Finally I just call Reception and at this point I’m in tears. She says “you’ve been released from Quarantine?” Yes, I explain that I have my letter and I’m packed and ready to go home. She says she will send a bellman to my room to get me.

4:20am a woman who says she’s the manager in charge calls and tells me that there is a balance on my account—I’m getting the impression that she has held my transportation as a result. I explain that Christopher in PR sent me an online link yesterday to pay my balance and he had the receipt. She says she will send my taxi.

4:25 she calls back and says a bellman is coming to get me and that the taxi is waiting at the Sunrise building. 🤬

Waiting for the bellman… 

4:30 I’m at Sunrise and the manager is waiting there for me—apparently all of this delay is because the $120 doctor bill was outstanding on my balance. It wasn’t on the link that Christopher sent. Every hotel in America has a card on file for outstanding charges. And again this speaks to their back end system of communication and processes needing an upgrade.

Side Note: for the last two days a woman from PR had called my room to “inquire if everything is satisfactory.” Both times I told her that my only worry was making sure the taxi would be coming to my ROOM at 4am. Both times she said she would make sure.

So… why didn’t she call me and tell me that I had a balance which had to be paid before I could leave? Why was my taxi just canceled? I was obviously in my room 24/7, they could have called me at ANY TIME to work this out. 

I’m finally in a taxi on the way out, and then we are stopped at a security gate where a guard has to look up my room number to confirm that I’m who he says I am and am checked out (security is outstanding throughout the resort).

Finally at 4:45 I have left Moon Palace property.

On my way to the airport…

5am in line at Priority, quietly panicking.

The security checkpoint asked for my negative test. I replied that I had “proof of recovery” and gave her my doctor’s note. She read it and then asked for my positive test results from January 1. 😬

I pull out my phone and pull up the PDF test results — from January 2. 

Either she didn’t notice the date or she let it slide, but this indicates that American Airlines does consider Test Day as Day 0 and not Day 1, meaning maybe I just got lucky.

Regardless—I passed. I am through security and at the gate—I’ve even got a treat:

Yes, 3 shots—I’ll worry about my espresso habit later. First to Dallas and then HOME. 🥰