Well, all good things have to come to and end, and this series of cruises is one of them. We still are fascinated at how quickly the time flies while we are on these trips. All of our cruise friends totally agree.
A few days ago, we got the notices concerning disembarkation on Wednesday. The first letter came from the hotel general manager, Glenn, who reminded the folks that taking the self-assist option for leaving was best for those with flights before 1pm. That way you would not need to locate your tagged luggage in the San Diego cruise terminal, which is always mixed with hundreds of bags that look the same. Of course, you must be able to handle all of your luggage hauling it from your room all the way to the exit and the customs check. When we watched the folks getting off the ship after a 7 day Alaska cruise, many of them packed so lightly, all they had was carry-ons. This is different because everyone had at least 51 days of stuff to bring. So their time to get off will be between 8 and 9:30am.
The other options for debarking included having all of your bags outside the rooms before midnight, which would show up tomorrow in the terminal, arranged by color-coded tags. The colors are brown, green, and red 1, 2, and 3. The approximate time to begin leaving would be after 8am with the final call by 9:15am more or less.
Club Orange, President's Club, and 4 & 5 Star Mariners received a package with blue tags, and we have the option of exiting any time between 8:00am and 9:30am. And that will include us. The HAL bus transfer was available for those who wished to be driven to the San Diego Airport or if their flight was later in the late afternoon, they offered a tour with a transfer to the airport as well. We believe the cost for the transfer only was $29 per person. We intend to take a taxi as the airport is only 3 miles away from the cruise terminal.
By the way, no final statements are delivered to the rooms anymore. If you wish to have a copy, it is best to visit the front desk, and they will print you one. We did that this morning, and asked for the last page only. We realized that we had some credit left to spend, and would do that later in the day. Of course, if you owed any money on your registered credit card, it would automatically be billed. And for the guest's convenience, the Navigator App will have access to your account when you return home.
All we need to have to get off is our room key, a luggage tag stub, and our passport to show when we pass by the Customs and Border Protection Inspection officers. And don't bring any organic products off of the ship or you are in trouble.
We thought we had the majority of our stuff packed, but the rest took us all morning. We did good, however, not exceeding the weight on all of the bags, depending on if our scale is still accurate. Since the sun was out and the temperature was in the low 70's, we headed up to the Seaview Pool to relax for a while. There were even folks still sunbathing even though it was very windy, this was their last chance to get that suntan.
Our good buddies did the same thing coming out for some fresh air, and joined us for a while. We're all sad to see the trip end, but with the holidays are around the corner, and we shall be busy as bees quite soon. Captain Paul came on the speakers for his noon talk. He extended many thanks to the crew and the guests equally as he was quite proud to have been on this particular cruise. Sounds to us like it has been a long time since he has visited the South Pacific, even admitting some of our ports were new to him. And he expressed his thanks with three toots of the ship's horn. Very funny, as we have never heard that before on all of the cruises we have been on over the years.
The day was full of promotions, as you might expect, especially in the Shops. Some of us even received a personal call from the front desk girls reminding us that we had credit to spend. That's nice because it was "use it or lose it" money. Checking out every shop on the ship, we came up with no ideas. So we decided to order cocktails at the dinner table, which would use up the money fast.
Then we had to drink a bottle of champagne (really sparkling wine) and the best time for that was during the sunset. The afternoon clouds had cleared up and we actually had a decent sunset after 5pm. Maybe it looked even better due to the several glasses of the bubbly.
Dinner was in the dining room with a regular menu. We had been expecting the Culinary menu like we had at the end of every Alaska trip. But tonight, we had a different menu with many nice choices. We did have those cocktails, then ordered a shrimp and artichoke dip with a bread stick. It was hot and really tasty. One of us had the cabbage bacon soup, and the other preferred the Caesar salad – hold the anchovies. Mains were the chicken cordon bleu with potatoes and peas. Simple and quite good. After our desserts of a lemon meringue cheesecake, friends Leta and Bill strolled over to say goodbye. Unfortunately, they will not be on the world cruise, but are going to Japan next year. The grand trips have become too long for them, so they like shorter ones that leave from Seattle or Vancouver because they live near there. We will miss them. On the way out, we said our goodbyes to our good buddies that we will see at lunch sometime in December. When we are all at home and not cruising, we make it a point to meet at least once a month. Before dinner, Rosie and Randy came over to give us hugs as well. Hopefully they will be on another cruise like this and we will meet again. Nice kids. We will all keep in touch via the internet or the mail.
Back in our room, we spotted some luggage out in the hall, and we needed to do the same thing. Checking tags and locks, it took two minutes and the job was done. Breakfast is at 6:30am tomorrow in the Pinnacle Grill, so it is early to bed for us. By this time tomorrow, we shall be home if the traffic is not horrible. It is hard to predict because it is a Wednesday that many people take off for the long holiday weekend. That might be our only savior for not getting in the middle of commute traffic.
Thanks for tagging along. Once again, it has been a pleasure.
Bill & Mary Ann
