How could I do that?

I feel a little embarrassed to tell you this … but … I’m on another cruise …

I know, I know, it has been a year filled with holidays. I think it’s a midlife crisis, but I’m buying cruises rather than a red sports car.

I promise this is my last cruise for a very long time … because I’ve run out of money … fingers crossed for a Powerball win on Thursday night.

DD and I flew back to Cairns on Monday. And it wouldn’t be an Alana adventure without a major drama.

In this case I did something quite out of character.

I left my phone in the lounge and didn’t realise until I was on the plane.

Arrrrrrrrghhhhhhh. Noooooooooooo!

The cabin crew wouldn’t let me off the plane to get it.

Arrrrrrghhhhh. Nooooooooooo!

The Qantas customer service manager who was dispatching the flight said he would see what he could do. But he looked fairly grim as he sternly intoned that he couldn’t promise anything.

Cue anxiety meltdown in seat 12B.

I watched in sinking dismay as everyone boarded the plane and the cabin crew began to prepare for take off.

DD was madly researching later flights, just in case I wanted to disembark. Later flights were $2200 one way!!!!!

Then, just as I was about to give up hope, I saw the customer service manager’s head pop around the corner of the plane door. He waved a phone in the air and the youngest’s face flashed up on its screen. He asked if it was my phone. Yes!!!!!

How lucky was that?

God bless that man.

I have messaged Qantas via its compliment form, thanking him for going above and beyond to help me.

We landed in Cairns, dumped our bags and headed to the Calypso Club for cocktails to celebrate our holiday kicking off.

We ordered fancy rum drinks accompanied by the most delicious crab and snapper balls.

Here’s a collage that I created as an Instagram story …

Afterwards, we had dinner at a casual outdoor restaurant renowned for serving the best Thai food in Cairns.

We were seated near a bloke who complained to the waitress about his Chardonnay not having bubbles in it. She was most confused. We were tempted to give him a briefing session on Aussie wine, but he kept things civil so we let it go.

Then his Northern Thai meal – a very mild grilled chicken – almost blew his head off.

Welcome to Australia.

After dinner, we took a twirl through Cairns Night Markets before crashing in bed at our hotel room – I was knackered after waking up at the stupidly early hour of 4.15am pre-daylight savings time due to middle-aged insomnia.

The next day flew past in a whirl of caffeine procurement, buffet breakfasting and shopping at Cairns Central.

I really enjoyed our time in Cairns. I’ve only ever passed through before. It has a lovely, relaxed vibe, lots of great restaurants and bars and really good coffee.

But, wait … the dramas didn’t end with my lost phone … of course they didn’t …

We left our bags with the hotel staff after checking out and headed to a Balinese restaurant for lunch.

When we returned to collect the bags they were gone.

No sign of them anywhere.

And the staff had no idea what had happened to them.

I was madly contemplating a dash to Target for a whole new cruise wardrobe when DD confessed we had a much bigger problem than no clean undies.

His passport was in his missing bag.

A very tense 10 minutes followed as the hotel lobby was turned upside down by three staff members.

No bags.

One of the receptionists suggested that maybe the bags had been accidentally taken back up to our room.

She dashed upstairs to look for them while we paced the lobby.

Five minutes later the lift doors opened and she reappeared with our missing luggage.

Thank freaking heavens for that.

As for the details of my holiday destination … I’m going to leave you in suspense until my next blog post, which may not be until Friday as it’s a hectic itinerary today, kicking off with a hiking briefing at 8am.

Will advise.

Song of the day: Split Enz “That was my mistake”