Grand Finale

I’m finally here to talk about the last few days on the ship before I forget to entirely!

On April 25, we landed on American soil for the first time since I’d left Albany airport on Jan. 1.  Good old Honolulu, Hawaii! Amazingly, all of our customs and drills and stuff took no time at all!  Customs somehow went incredibly smoothly – I had to do this twice on my last ship and both times involved long lines and took FOREVER – this time, I walked right in, they chatted with me about my job and being American for a couple minutes, tossed a stamp on my passport and let me go.  The drills started early and only took about an hour.  They didn’t come ask us any questions either at my emergency station or at my raft, so they obviously weren’t as thorough as the agents in Fort Lauderdale were when I had to go through a Coast Guard back then.

Either way, we were off the ship by a little after 11am.  Jenn, Alicia and I hopped a cab to the big mall about a 10 minute ride away and proceeded to grab a very American lunch (well, Alicia and I did at least: buffalo chicken subs from Charley’s Subs along with some bacon ranch French fries – so good and so bad for you.  Jenn ate Thai if I recall correctly).  Then we just wandered the mall, stopping here and there for a few things.  I called my mom for quite a while and my dad too, just to check in.  It had a Hilo Hattie’s – best place for souvenirs apparently – where I got all the ladies golf balls and myself a Hawaiian spoon.  The mall even had a full sized grocery store in the basement so I grabbed what I needed to make Beer Margaritas for everyone in the OB.

Then we wandered across the road to the small local’s beach just down from Waikiki, which would have been more of a walk than we had time for.  Alicia lay out for a bit while Jenn and I used our phones again before we rushed back to work because I was going to be late.  I was by a few minutes but no one minded – everyone understood that it was an American port!  Even one still days away from the mainland by boat.

The next day we landed in Hilo, which is on the big island of Hawaii.  I lucked out and got a tour, working out my work schedule so I could leave work early to go.  The best part was I got on the one bus out of the 5 that contained 6 of my favorite guests who had been with us since the previous Auckland!  Already over a month!  We had a ball and got to go all over Volcano National Park.  We saw craters and old lava flow, walked through lava tubes and got to see Mona Loa, which is right next door to the ever exploding Kilauea.  We also went to the Jagger Museum at the crater for Kilauea and got to see it smoking – you can’t see the fresh lava and just the glow at night but we were leaving too early for that.  I bought a couple last minute things and then we headed for the Visitor’s Center, which was extremely well done although their little video was a bit ridiculous and not good like most of them are.  Of course, I compare everything to the movie at Gettysburg’s new Visitor’s Center so perhaps I’m a bit jaded.  I did manage to find a little Hawaiian shirt Christmas ornament, though, for my collection.  We also visited a black sand beach, which was a little superfluous but still pretty.

At around 4pm, a little late due to some tours returning late, we left Hilo and commenced our 5 days at sea heading towards Vancouver.  That night, we had a crew wine tasting that was most excellently done!  The following night was Bingo night so we made that Beer Margarita night too and enjoyed a tasting - they were a qualified hit!  The days were busy but mostly uneventful at the same time, to be honest.  I had book club three of the five days – Days 1 and 3 were regular meetings for the end of Tales of the South Pacific.  Then, on Day 4, we had a End of Cruise party where everyone from both books was invited and Christina and Ryan came, along with Tai, one of our piano players, and performed three songs from South Pacific.  Man was I ever a hero for that one!  Add to that all the freebies I brought and the free champagne as well and I was the hero of the day!  It was actually a ton of fun: we tossed book suggestions around, did a little silly trivia quiz I made up (winners got travel mugs!) and they asked me some questions about book clubs and my future and such.  It was a definite highlight of the entire cruise :)  Three of the days we also jumped forward our last three hours but all of these were done at 2pm, which was excellent as it gave me an hour less at work!  I also got a load of new books, most of which I got on the shelves for my replacement.  The last day was spent almost entirely shelving returned books and making sure everything was in good order for my replacement as well.  That night, I went to the Dining Room with my two favorite couples and had a grand time!  Two nights earlier, I’d gone to Canaletto, the Italian restaurant on board, with Christina, Jenn and Alicia and also had a wonderful time.

Finally, bright and early on May 2, we arrived in Vancouver.  We disembarked a little before ten and went to meet the shuttle but the man there didn’t have my name on his sheet, which made me a little nervous.  When he called, it turned out I was supposed to have left the ship super early that morning because my flight was at 12:25 but no one had told me!  They moved my luggage straight to the van I was in so the moment we arrived at the airport, I could jet (the others had to wait for the larger truck with all the luggage).  I made it through baggage, security and customs (you do American customs right in Vancouver airport which was brilliant) in a less than an hour and had just enough time to grab a tea and a snack before boarding Plane #1.  As luck would have it, I also ran into both my favorite couples so I got to chat with them (and got another hug from each) while waiting in all the lines.

I got super lucky on that plane – from Vancouver to Minneapolis-St. Paul, it was a 3 and 3 seater and I had the window seat but our middle seat was the only seat on the entire plane that was empty!  Both Aisle Guy and I enjoyed having the extra space quite a bit.  We touched down in MSP early so I called my dad for a bit, bought a USA Today to catch up on the world’s news and grabbed okay Chinese food for dinner – HAL paid for it as part of my food stipend so it was all good!  Although it turned out, although the maps didn’t show it, there was a better selection of food closer to my gate.  Oh well.  Sat for maybe 10 minutes at my gate before boarding that plane.  This was one was a 2 and 2 seater and I did have a neighbor but he was a kid about my age so we sort of shared the space well.  Also, our reading lights didn’t work and the window shade wouldn’t stay up, so it was a bit of ‘one of THOSE’ flights but it was generally uneventful and still light enough I could read my Kindle and finish Insurgent by Veronica Roth (SO GOOD).  We landed in Albany about 20 minutes early so Mom was still about 20 minutes away.  I collected my luggage without a problem and Mom was able to just pull up outside and pick me up on the fly.

We arrived home about midnight but I was wired – the jetlag had finally hit!  I made Mom stay up long enough to show her all my purchases and then got online until almost 2am, when I was finally able to fall asleep.  But then, that made sense – if I had still been on West Coast time, I would have only been off work for an hour by 2am EST.

I made the decision while on the ship that I would not take another contract right now and would concentrate on land-based job hunting for a while at least since there were some definite issues over the course of this contract that I could not put up with again.  Although there is a ton about the experience I loved and I met some truly awesome people, I’m fairly certain ships and I have said adieu.  That being said, traveling and I are still hopefully going to be friends for a very long time and this blog will still be used – still debating exactly how I’m going to repurpose it but more on that soon :)  Thanks so much for reading all this and I hope it was enjoyable!  There will definitely be a few selections of pictures in the upcoming weeks and a virtual tour of the library as well (I did eventually get pictures) so stay tuned – it’s not all over yet!