What a whirl wind day and a half!! I didn’t sleep all that well on Tuesday night but really I didn’t expect to. Our wakeup call came at 5:15 and we caught the 6 o’clock shuttle. That went without a hitch. International is the first stop so no one had a chance to take our luggage. Boarding went smoothly and we were all settle in our seats when suddenly the power went off. We learned that the auxiliary power source was racked and we were unable to restart the engines without it. 55 minutes we were underway, but there was only 55 minutes between flights. We held our breaths and I was determined not to worry about something I couldn’t control. To make a long story short we ended up running to make connections in both Dallas Forthworth and Miami. But we did make it. I slept very little during the night. American Airlines was great. They supplied pillows and blankets and earphones, we had a full meal for dinner complete with wine. We arrived and the line at Immigration moved at a snail’s pace and as a result when we finally got to the baggage course it had stopped and NONE of our luggage was there. Again AA came through. After the initial panic we learned that our cases had been put on the next plane out of Miami because our connection was so tight. They filled out all of the papers, gave us an emergency amenities kit and assured us that they would bring our suitcases to the hotel as soon as they arrived. In the meantime the clock was ticking and the CC group was waiting for us. Or at least we were hoping they were waiting and had not decided that we must have missed the plane and had gone on without us. We connected with them and boarded the waiting bus and we began our drive to Leblon and the Sheraton hotel there. Our room is very nice. We are on the 20th floor and we have an amazing view. By now we are almost zombies we are so tired. We set the alarm for 55 minutes and we fell asleep. Next we were downstairs meeting the group for our afternoon tour. Manu is fantastic and we showed us the sights and took us to the Fort in Rio where we toured and had lunch. He took us to the beaches and to many places for photo ops. Lastly he took us to a local grocery. It was a lot like a seven eleven. People bought wine for the cruise and other little things. I bought apples and walnuts to have on the ship. I also picked up one bottle of wine. When we got back to the hotel we were relieved to find that our luggage had arrived. Tomorrow we will be able to dress in more seasonal clothes. We certainly were not comfortable in the heat today. Again we were zonked and so we had a quick nap. We decided we needed a rest and a shower worse that we needed to go out for dinner. We snacked on what we had and took a shower and called it a night. What a long day this has been!!