"" Writer's Wanderings: Vacation Mail Woes

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Vacation Mail Woes

Last year when we did our 108 day World Cruise, we had our mail forwarded to a post office box at home and had a friend pick it up once in a while, check it for anything that looked really important, and save it. That went pretty smoothly and didn't cost an enormous amount of money.

This year we thought we had it all set in place but the glitches began with our arrival in Key Largo. Bob had arranged for our mail to be forwarded to the Key Largo Post Office and then sent a hold mail card so that they would keep our mail until we arrived after our two week cruise.

Upon arrival, we asked for a key to the mailbox for the condo. Added to all the other "surprises" we found at the condo (see my post) the owner said that it was somewhere around the condo but he couldn't remember where he'd stuck it. When we couldn't find it, he suggested we have the complex manager change the lock on the mailbox and we were to tell him that he'd pay for it.

After the manager arrived back from a short time off, he refused to change locks because the last time he did it for this owner, he didn't pay for it. We were back to square one with our mail on hold at the local PO.

Meanwhile there was no mail showing up for them to hold. Phone calls to our home PO revealed that they'd never got the information from the online request Bob had made. Luckily he'd kept all the reference numbers and they finally found it and released the mail they were holding to forward. They thought it was strange because our carrier had brought the mail into the office and said there was something wrong. We have a great mail carrier and he knows we travel a lot so at least he didn't call the police to break in and see if we were dead.

Well, the mail got forwarded but now Bob had to change the forwarding address to the PO box. He did it online again. As weeks went by and there was nothing showing up in the mailbox and the hold on our mail at the Key Largo PO was about to run out, he called home again. Now here it got even more confusing. The mail gets sent to someplace, I think Bob said Michigan, and then it gets the forwarding sticker put on and gets sent on its way.

Bottom line: By the time this all gets straightened out it'll be time to come home. Yikes! Next year we need to work on lining this up a little more efficiently. Like just getting a PO box right away which can be reserved online and having the mail forwarded there. No holds barred.

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