Hawaii Cruise Day 1

Leading up, I spent a week on the East Coast and got back on a Thursday night – we were scheduled to leave the following Friday. When I made the plans it felt like plenty of time, but of course when it actually came down to doing it I was overwhelmed. In addition we were having our first fundraiser for Phil Miller on the Tuesday in between, and that night Kepler got hit by a car & had t be taken to the emergency vet and then boarded. But everything got done, as it always does, and by 9:30 on Thursday night we were packed and ready to go, with rather less stress than usual.

We had an early-ish flight to San Diego, a relic of the Christmas several years ago when we had a huge snowstorm and almost didn’t make it to San Gabriel. So we were at the hotel by 1, and went to the hotel restaurant for lunch. I had a pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries that was pretty good, but Dave’s bangers & mash were mediocre at best – well, the bangers and mash were good, but the gravy and beans were both from a can. About the time we finished lunch Mama arrived, so we sat with her while she ate her bowl of onion soup, then headed up to the room for some relaxing before dinner. When we got to the room it wasn’t done, even though they’d said it was, so we hung out in Mama & Aunt Merna’s room until it was ready. Dave helped Merna set up her new iPad. IT to go!

For dinner we went to Ruth Chris, which was just as overpriced and oversized as ever. But mama and I split a filet (we should have split the petit filet, but who knew?) and we only got two sides – creamed spinach (yummy! Get 2!) and shoestring fried (also yummy, but 1 is sufficient). Then we went back to the room and pretty much went right to bed. Why Ruth Chris again, you might wonder, since I’m not in love with it? I had spend quite some time on yelp looking for better choices, and honestly didn’t find any – all the reviews had the word “overpriced” in them somewhere. And Ruth Chris is right in the hotel. So it is a good choice.
Dave had gotten us rooms in the South tower, which is quite literally across the street from the ship. It was very foggy, so we all heard the ship come in at about 6:30 in the morning, blowing its horn. I went back to sleep until about 7:30, and then we got up and after dealing with a shampoo leak disaster in my bathbag had some breakfast at the restaurant downstairs. I had realized the night before that I forgot to bring earplugs for the snorkeling, so we walked over to the Rite-Aid and got some, and also an economy pack of earplugs for Dave in case our room was noisy. When we got back it was about 10:15, so we made a plan for getting on the ship that ended up working very well. Dave and I went at 11 and dropped off our luggage (2 garment bags, 1 large suitcase, 1 carry-on), then went back to the hotel and got Mama and Merna and their bags. Our boarding process was very quick and smooth, theirs not as much as they had to wait about an hour in the wheelchair line.
Once on the ship we knew what we had to do. This is a big ship – 1,900 passengers – and the activities are only scaled up so far. So we headed to the front office and signed up for the hands-on cooking class – only 12 spots per class. Then we went to the explorer lounge to try to change out dinner seating – we had not been able to reserve a slot in the early fixed seating, and we got on a wait list for it. Then we headed up to the spa to sign up for personal trainer time, but instead I signed up for a body sculpting class. Well, it turned out that none of this was necessary. When we were last on this ship, two year ago at Christmas, the demographic was very different – much younger. Lots of kids, lots of families, lots of folks our age. Because this is a longer cruise, it’s a much, much older crowd. As a result there were still spaces available for personal trainers and in the culinary classes the next day and maybe even after that.

We found Mama and Merna in the Lido (we still had cell service), and went down to the dining room for lunch. It was good to be back, and the food was better than we remembered – difficult to tell if we’d just set our expectations lower or if it’s actually better. Either way, we had a very enjoyable lunch. After lunch we watched them loading the ship. It’s always fun to watch them load the ship – they have two forklifts with long extendable booms. One of them was loading luggage and large white rolls of what looked like carpeting, while the other was loading food. When we got there one of the forklift drivers – the one loading food – was munching on what looked like half a watermelon that had been split open. Later was saw the same guy loading a pallet of food that had three watermelons balanced on top… but this time they none fell off. Our luggage came and we unpacked, and then it was pretty much hanging out until time for the lifeboat drill. We had gone to see our lifeboat, which is on the other side of the ship, and wondered how we’d get to it since the galley is between us and the lifeboat. Turns out you can go through crew-only doors in an emergency, which was a relief – it was unclear if we’d be able to get to our lifeboat otherwise.

After lifeboat drill we went topside to watch departure, but we ended up leaving late – Dave said they were looking for the missing watermelon. So we went down to dinner. There are two big disadvantages to not having fixed seating - first, we need to go in to dinner with Mama and Merna to make sure we’d be at the same table, and second, you don’t get to know your waitstaff. But we did get a very nice table with a view out the back and side windows, and had an enjoyable dinner.
After dinner it was off to Foodie Trivia. You may recall that last cruise I was undefeated in food trivia. Not so anymore – we lost by 1 point. To help recover from our disappointment we headed up to the Crow’s Nest, where Chris was playing guitar and singing. He has a very nice voice, but interesting styling – on many songs he sings the words double time, so he has lots of time left at the end of each line to do fancy guitar playing. It was very peaceful and enjoyable, and we had each had a perrier with lime. Chris was done at 9, so our next stop was Vivenne and the HALcats in the Queen’s lounge. Also enjoyable – although these HALcats are not quite as tight as last time’s. Then it was off to the show, where they introduced the Oosterdam dancers and singers. I was interested to see them as my cousin Nate had been one for 6 months not very long ago. The show was fun, and I especially enjoyed the magician. It turned out to be a very good thing we went, because I found out there is both Zumba and water aerobics on the ship. Yay!

After the show we went back to the Queens lounge for a little more V&THC, and then we were both ready for bed. Unfortunately when we got back to the room I found that I’d lost my camera sometime during the night. I went back to the Queen’s lounge, because we thought I might have lost it there, but it wasn’t there. So that was sad. Tonight’s towel animal: Lobster.