Oceania Comes Through Splendidly

We're sitting in our own reserved lounge area along with other passengers in the Santiago Park Lane Hotel, a lovely facility, after a smooth disembarkation and a quite pleasant bus ride to Santiago from the port. An Oceania vice-president got on board our bus to apprise us of the situation. He and a team from Oceania has been on the ground here for several days, flying down quite soon after the earthquake. Amazing service!

We're here until 3:30 p.m., after which a bus will take us to the airport. We've been warned to be patient since departures and arrivals are taking place in tents that were erected due to the damage to the terminal.

Other than one crack in a road, we've seen no signs of damage here and one would never know that a horrible earthquake had caused so much devastation throughout the country.

We may go for bite of lunch or we may just take advantage of the free sandwiches provided by Oceania. Since we're "independent" travelers who have made our own arrangements, we're particularly impressed by the company's service.