Arriving Miami and USA

A Cybercruisers report:

Miami Beach at Night

My first report from Miami is not was it was supposed to be. I’ll spice this “horror” story with some pictures from the first evening with Ingelin in Miami Beach.

I left our winter home at 10 pm Eastern Time on Wednesday and arrived at Miami International airport at 2:15 pm on Thursday.

Ingelin was waiting for me. I had only to go through the passport control. With all papers according to the rules, we both were convinced this should be peace of cake.

The procedure is as simple as this:

Deliver the “green” and “white” formulas together with your machine readable passport.

Have your fingerprints scanned and your face digitally photographed. A simple IT application even youngsters can create.

But what happened here? The controller used up to 8-10 minutes per person. When 60 in the lane before me, I had to send a text message to Ingelin. It might take a while.

Why did it take so long? From distance it looks like nothing was done – only talking. When coming closer to the checkpoint I realized people had to repeat the fingerprint scanning and the photographing again and again. System problems.

What I do when I have such problems? I restart my machine. But not these guys. After 2 hours and 30 minutes, we (all the foreign tourist) were told: Sorry we have Computer Problems. All machines were shut down (36 passport controls they have here) – and restarted again.

New round: Read the Passport in the magnetic stripe reader. No problems. But: Fingerprint and photo – trouble again. Now they ha to restart their machines between each yoyager.

I passed the passport control at 5:15 pm. And Ingelin picked me up.

Here I am at her veranda. Luckely to see Ingelin.

And here is Ingelin.

Some comments: You are not allowed to use your phone until you have passed the control point. What about people waiting for passengers without knowing what’s going on? For 3 hours.

Some people were very tired and sat down on the floor. OH, No. That’s forbidden.

It’s also forbidden to leave your luggage unattended. But what happens when you arrive to the Baggage Claim 3 hours after arrival? Have never in my life seen so much unattended luggage at an Airport when I finally come to the Baggage Claim Hall. And to days regulations do not allow you to lock your luggage. Scary.

What is most scary is the fact that US Authorities have implemented new procedures 100% depending on IT – and deployed it without checking the quality and stability of the application and equipment. Not to speak about basic user training. That’s so arrogant to the usual air traveller and foreign tourists I’m tempted to use the word: Terrorism.

We went for a walk to the beach. Papa is Wading at Night


Then we went to the locals favourite cafe and had a wonderful Salad.

More to come...