Pre Day... Journey to Long Beach for the Night before the Hawaiian Cruise. January 15,2013 and Embarkation, on the Golden Princess
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We left Merced at 3pm on Tuesday. Our trip to Long Beach was unadventful except for the prospect of the grapevine pass at night. Construction is still on going by the Getty Museum on the 405. Our destination was our usual Holiday Inn. This Holiday Inn is located away about 8 blocks from the beach on Atlantic Blvd. and closest to St. Mary's Hospital.Our room was waiting and we crashed for the night at 10pm.
Wednesday morning arrived and we had a phone message from the ship informing us that because of the bad weather, the ship would be late arriving to San Pedro. The message told us that our deck, would be loading at 2:45pm instead of the usual 11:30-1:00.
I discovered that the heel to my shes were coming loose from the rubber sole. We used the extra time to hunt down a Walmart and get a pair to depart. It was in Carson, about 6 miles down the major freeway from Long Beach. We used the Iphone navigation to for location. At first we were looking for a Famous Foot ware Store, but the one that was listed apparently had gone out of business and was replaced by some other more lucrative store. LA by Iphone navigation is a real trip.
I bought a pair of Dr. Schools gel athletic shoes for $29 dollars and we picked up a bunch of other items we had forgotten to pick up before we left.
We had stashed our bags in the Expedition and had to make some minor changes from our overnight bag that was to stay in the truck while we cruised with two bags and the manual wheelchair that we took along. All this rearragement occurred in the Walmart parking lot. We must have been a sight to the onlookers.
The Santa Monica Freeway took us back to the 110 and San Pedro, the location of our ship and home for the next two weeks, the Golden Princess.
I dropped off the bags on the curb and Sue got a porter to get the bags on the racks to go in. I found a parking place relatively near the ship. All the prep work that had been done on the computer back at home had been done including boarding passes We showed our passports and rolled right on. It was the least stressful embarkation we had ever had on any ship. No lines, no problem with the ship board elevators . We were in our room at 3:20. with all of our bags beating us to the room with the exception of the one that held two 12 packs of soda. It arrived after the muster. Wonderful.
Since the Concordia accident in Italy, all ships are stressing their muster drills. The captain came over the public address system while we were all at the muster station and talked for 8and half minutes. Our muster station along with all the people in wheel chairs and many more is the casino on deck 7. Our cabin in on the Lido deck, deck 14. This year we had no trouble getting down to our muster station deck with life jackets in hand . We had an issue trying to get back up to our rooms after the muster. All the passengers want to use the elevators to move up or down to their rooms.... all at once. In the meantime, bags and other luggage items are still coming up to the rooms and the power for only so many elevators at once is problematic.
We waited 45 minutes to get Sue into an elevator. I used the stairs and climbed the 6 decks of stairs we both arrived at the cabin at the same time.
Usually muster drills are held when the ship heads out to sea. Not this time. The ship was clearly in port and and would be there for 2 more hours as darkness fell on the city, and San Pedro and the Terminal Island became lit with its evening lights. This sort of put a damper on the "sail away" party luau as people had already eaten and were back into their cabins getting clothes put away and meeting their room stewards. Our steward is Adul. He was happy to see us. We explained that we needed the egg crate and rubber pad under Sue's side of the bed each time. He said that he had done it before so not to worry.
It was really good to be in the same cabin again. We had been in the same cabin on the same ship a year and a piece ago. When we went to Hawaii in October/November 2011. The artwork in the cabin had not changed.
Later I talked Sue into taking the elevator to the International cafe in the center of the ship. She enjoyed the shrimp salad, the tapioca pudding, and the whole wheat bagel with tuna fish salad. To get to the plaza it was very easy from our cabin. Our cabin is close to the elevators that take passengers to the plaza deck which is deck 5. On deck 5 we walk through the art gallery and arrive at the central part of the ship that has wine tastings, the computer lab, library, the international cafe, and the the light shaft to the sky. It also houses the coffee bar with service. The International cafe is supposed to be open 24/7. It is much more relaxed because the chefs serve you rather than you helping yourself as is the Lido buffet on the first evening. The menu is smaller and has more class.
It was all we needed after the crazy day of excitement of getting on the ship.
The ship finally eased away from the dock and headed out to sea.
The Pipe fitter From Indiana
The first night on board, the Movie on Board had not started yet but a handful of us were eating pizza under the walkway just 30 feet from our cabin on Lido deck. A man introduced himself to me and we started the conversation. We went trough the usual topics. He was a big Peyton Manning fan. He was happy to see that he was doing well in Denver. He thought that Andrew Luck, the new quarterback from Stanford was doing well but needed some years to be able to read the defenses. He worked (now retired) for some food factories in the Indiana. He helped put together the condiment factory that made packs for mustard, ketchup, and others. His greatest claim to fame was working in the factory that was the major competitor to fiddle faddle (candy coated popcorn).
He was traveling with his brother who has spina bifida. This impacts his travel since his 55 year old brother cannot travel in the air. His 50 year old girl friend had a stroke when she was 29. She has ll her facilities except for short term memory and form constancy.
He was interested like most of the passengers on this trip as to when it was going to get warm. I answered as best I knew from the reviews of this trip. The usual rule of thumb is that 2 1/2 days from port the seas and the air usually get warmer. It is still very cool outside and he was shocked that the in the evening it was not particularly comfortable.
He went on about how the German farmers are in Indiana and how they are reluctant to change. As a student of history, he forwarded the opinion that how the allies were able to defeat the Germans in WWII. The ability of the American soldier to adapt to the changing conditions when the net barrier was superior to the German one way with persistent thinking.
I asked his last name it was Stanz. It was German. His German father had married a gal from Sicily. I asked him if he had ever been to Italy. He responded no, I cannot travel that far with my brother.
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We finally got all the clothes put away, I set up my machine and our changers for electronics. I knew that I needed to bring a long extension cord as there are very few electrical plugs in the rooms. The nearest one for my CPAP machine was 20 feet to the head of the bed.
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