Cruising to Honolulu

It is the morning of Day 3 of our journey and I wonder how the first two went by so quickly! I guess it is true that time flies when you are having fun.

We managed to get out of Pearson on Friday morning before the accident there. That must have resulted in a lot of delays. We were an hour late leaving but it was because of a “no show” passenger whose luggage had to be found and taken off the plane. The rest of the flight was uneventful and we arrived in Los Angeles to balmy 67F weather. We were met by a car and driver and whisked to our hotel in decent time considering the usual traffic delays in L.A.

We realized on the plane that we had forgotten to pack a few things so we asked Hector, the Concierge, how to get to the nearest shops. He summoned the Hotel’s limo driver to take us to a nearby Mall and gave us his direct phone number to arrange our pick up when we were ready to return. Very nice indeed!!

Saturday morning was a bit cool and cloudy but compared to what we’ve all been experiencing back home, it felt wonderful just not to be wearing a heavy coat and boots! After a leisurely breakfast, we were driven to the ship and received a very warm welcome from many staff.

It was only noon and we were informed that the suites would be ready at two o’clock so we hunkered down at the pool bar (where else?) and spent the next few hours getting re-acquainted with old cruising friends and crew. There are only 262 passengers on this segment of the trip. Apparently 99 are doing the full 100+ days.

We set sail at 6 p.m. that evening and will arrive in Honolulu on Friday. Lots of lovely, relaxing sea days. We have plenty of reading material but are spending more time getting caught up with old friends than anything else so far.

The internet is very slow on the ship and sometimes it goes out completely. I will try and send some photos after Hawaii. In the meantime, Happy New Year to all.

D & K

P.S. We have a new butler (female) and we asked her to bring us a power bar (so we could connect all of our electronic devices). She came back later to very apologetically explain that the ship was out of them. That seemed strange so the next morning, we mentioned this to Norman the hotel director. Flash forward an hour and of course a power bar was delivered. Minutes later, Raquel arrived apologizing for the mixup. She thought we wanted edible energy bars!! Do we look like we eat those things??? She’s new and has never met us before!! She will learn!!