Day seven had a bad start for me. Helen kept going until 10:30 last night, which was transformed by the magic of time zones into 11:30. This is way, way too late for me. Woke up for dawn coffee, but unusually groggy.
The good part was that as it was a sea day, there is nothing really happening in regards to scheduling. An excellent day for a nap or even two. I think there is also a tango lesson in there somewhere, and a run needs to happen on the hamster wheel. How will I pack it all in?
After a week onboard, my breakfasts have settled into a solid pattern. In the early hours, I drink coffee, and some tropical juice. At that time I eat two croissants. Official breakfast is at 8am, and is more juice, a couple more croissants, and some oatmeal. Then my stomach is off-the-clock until lunch at noon.
We have already received our instructions on how things are supposed to work for the turn-around in Vancouver. There is a system of transit passengers to avoid many of the lines. We'll see. Bernie and Lola need to grab their car from the parking area, and run Phyllis out to her home in Langley. After that, they are parking at the airport, which is cheaper, and catching a taxi or the subway back to the boat.
Helen hasn't voiced any Vancouver plans. There is an Apple Store quite near to the cruise terminal, and there is an item I want to pick up. We'll also get access to about the best wifi anywhere while there, which will be sweet for maybe half an hour. We also need to find a wine store to replenish our two-bottle allowance. We had 5 bottles between all of us for the first week. None was consumed on our loading day, or will be on our return to Vancouver. Each bottle lasts for one "happy hour", but somehow we seem to have one bottle too many. That means that we'll have the same amount for week two, and less people to share with. Wheee.
Turned out I was wrong about the booze. We finished the last bottle of wine on the last day, but between the four of us will be bringing aboard four more bottles tomorrow. In addition, we got the ship to cough up four bottles of hard liquour as well (which we paid for). They only deliver onboard booze purchases on the last evening before guests leave, which would be next week, but we had our departing guest do the buying for us. We have it all tucked away already, and as we have no intention of taking it ashore at this time, will have plenty to drink at happy hour. When we finally go, we will take any unused supplies off through customs. We are all allowed one bottle each, so might even buy a bit more to replace what we will have consumed.
So tonight, Phyllis had her last dinner aboard. She is also facing her last theatrical show soon, and needs to pack her stuff up in preparation for departure. The last day of a cruise is always sad for the departing guests, so the rest of us have to try and not seem too gleeful at being able to stay. If she was not leaving us, we would all be skipping around like kindergarteners at a birthday party.
The Vancouver turn-around stuff went very well. Our booze had all arrived, so the four of us staying had 2 bottles of vodka, 2 bottles of Sheridan's, and we brought aboard our second-cruise allowance of 4 bottles of wine. More than enough.
After a nice breakfast, Lola and Bernie disembarked with Phyllis, to take her to her home in Langley. After that they were parking in a different long-term lot, and returning to the boat via the subway. Helen and I waited aboard a bit longer, as our neither of our two stops on shore were opening before 10am.
The system for continuing passengers, or passengers "in transit" went smoothly. We got to avoid the customs lines leaving the ship, and took routes that avoided all the luggage pick-up zones. We more-or-less walked straight off.
A couple of blocks later and we were in a mall, waiting for the Apple Store to open. We used their fine wifi to check our mail, and Facebook, and the news. When the store opened, I went straight in and was helped by a staffer to find the correct stuff that I was looking for which would make my iPad Pro charging go much faster.
Helen was still using their internet, so I updated a bunch of things, and then we walked the mall. It wasn't a big place, so we were on the street again pretty fast. Another couple of blocks went by in reaching the Government Liquor Store closest to the ship. They had an inexpensive wine that I like, and it was on sale. We got it for $7 a bottle. We returned to the ship by passing through the old Canadian Pacific Railway terminal. It has all been refurbished, and trains haven't stopped there for years. It is now a Skytrain station, and hosts a cluster of restaurants; a pleasant diversion.
Returning as "in transit" passengers was almost as swift as our disembarkation. We wound our way following the in-transit/crew route, bypassing the lines. We were waved straight to the security check, and had to wait for one couple at customs. At each of these spots, we skipped by a hundred new guests. We walked right by the third loading lineup, which is to actually check-in, but we were already all set, and went right back aboard. It was time for lunch.
We set up in the comfy, low chairs in the library area, Helen was texting friends, but I was soon engulfed by a nap, which ended when Lola and Bernie returned from their adventures. After a bit of conversation, it was time for the safety drill, which we followed with Happy Hour, where we killed our first fresh bottle of wine. Dinner followed.
For the first cruise there were 5 of us, and we were given our own table for 6. Our table remained the same, but they gave us 2 new companions.
After dining, we walked the lovely, teak promenade deck, and even got so crazy that we investigated the onboard passenger laundry. It smelled like dirty diapers. After all that, we went our separate ways. Helen set herself up to watch an old movie provided on DVD by the ship, while I headed off to the show. They had the exact same performance last week, but I liked it, as it was full of singing and dancing by the ship's extremely talented entertainment team. Then bedtime.
Slept in a tad for day eight. After my show last night, which didn't finish until about 10:15, Helen was watching a movie. She had the volume very low, but the rooms are small and it made it hard to fall asleep. Much have taken me 30 minutes to nod off, which is about ten times more than what is normal for me. In any case, I slept in until almost 6am.
We had all agreed to switch up our morning eating routine. We all had been enjoying the dining-room breakfasts, but they do take a fair chunk of time. For cruise two, we were switching over to the buffet. Bernie had a full breakfast already during early-morning time.
There wasn't a lot that I had picked from the schedule to do for day eight. Other than meals, the only must-do was the treadmill; 8 km was in the sweaty room waiting for me. After supper, the show would be one of the singing-and-dancing extravaganzas, so that was also firmly on my radar, but that was still off in the distant future.
The morning run was dull again, but by now I'd developed many little time-killing games, like speeding up a while, then slowing down, then not looking at the display again until the next song would come up on my iPod, then staring at the sea for another song; stuff like that. It never got less than tedious.
I don't think anybody in my group really understands how important my runs are to me. I don't want to balloon up in weight, nor to deprive myself of eating pleasure. Over these two weeks of cruising, I fully expect to complete a minimum of 104 kilometers. That's the equivalent of running about 2.5 full marathons. That's a lot of desserts.
Returning to my room, I found Helen playing her ukulele. This was the first time I'd seen it out of its case. I laid my sweaty self down on the bed to listen. It was wonderful, except for the sweat.
I think that this was my favourite day.
Lunch was at the buffet as well, although we called it "the trough". I think I actually consume less there than in the dining room. My breakfast usually consisted of 2 small croissants, juice, coffee, then more juice, coffee, croissants, juice, and at least oatmeal. Today it was the 2 small croissants, coffee and juice, and no more. Less than half in total, and just as satisfying. At lunch and dinner in the dining room, I tend to order all the appetizers that I might conceivably want, and an entree, and all the interesting desserts. At the buffet, it's all out in plain view. I might eat a bit more as an entree, but much less in the way of appetizers or desserts. I thought it would be the other way around, but was totally wrong.
Shortly after lunch, Bernie and I went for a $12 per person beer tasting. Once upon a time, we did a fancy schmancy wine tasting, where all the snooty drinks tasted like old saddles. We had a great time making fun of them, and of the pretentious people claiming to detect fruity, oaky and nutty notes. The only flavour was saddle, I swear. Beer is a less snooty thing, with a wider range of actual flavours.
I get a kick out of the misconceptions people have about ships. For example; one of our group doesn't want to cruise on the Royal Caribbean line's Oasis class of ships. They are the biggest passenger vessels in the world. She is quite convinced that they each hold 10,000 passengers, who are crazy packed in. In comparison to our current vessel, the reality is quite different.
Ship size is measured in tons, but of a type that have nothing to do with weight. Ship tons measure volume, or physical size. Each ton is 1000 cubic feet.
Our current ship is about 63,000 tons and carries up to 1,400 passengers. That works out to roughly 45 tons per person. The Oasis class ships are about 4 times as big at around 240,000 tons, and carry 6,000 guests (not 10,000). On those ships each person has a similar amount of space as in our smaller ship. However, his is even if one only considers the overall size, and not the increased efficiencies caused by that size. A ship like the Oasis really has more like 60 tons of usable space per person, which is a significant increase, and it is all utilized in the public areas to the betterment of all passengers.
Typically, on bigger ships, the cabins are just a little bit bigger, and the hallways a hair wider. The splurges in space are spent in the areas of maximum usability and impact. The dining rooms are shared by all, and are spectacular. This ship has a 3-deck atrium. The big ships have them spanning at least a dozen decks. The pools are bigger, and more numerous. The shopping isn't a couple of closet-sized cubbies, but expand into complete malls surrounded by eateries, and gardens. I like my ships big.
My body doesn't like clock changes much, and at this point in the voyage we hit our third; once getting to Alaska, and then again the other way returning to Vancouver, and now again entering Alaskan waters. I awoke at 5am Vancouver time, which here is 4am Alaskan time. Stupid clocks.
About the only advantage to getting up this extra-stupidly early, is that I have absolutely nothing to do. As a result, I've been reviewing the only two Jiu-Jitsu training videos I have, from end-to-end. I am finding hidden gems tucked in amongst the main flow of the two lessons. These are latched onto, and thoroughly thought about. I expected to miss two Master Cycle classes last week, three this week, and one next week, and to also miss out on a total of 4 open-mat times. That's ten hours of training gone. With my videos so far, I've reclaimed about two hours worth, and they are a bit different than I normally drill. They would easily be worth another couple of review hours, cutting my lost training again. Instead of losing ten hours, it will only be six. That's a significant change for the better. If I can return with only a single one of the points I've been finding added to my repertoire, it will be worth even more than that. I also have written notes from other Los Angeles visits that should be worth a going over.
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