Day 33: home

The final day was uneventful.

We caught a shuttle to the airport filled with other Aussies. Half of them wanted to come back, and the other half didn't want to go.

The weather was perfect, with crystal clear views of the mountains. Our driver told us it was rare to get such cloud-free views, which was a nice present on our last day.

Processing at the airport was drama-free, apart from finding out my phone was dead, which I can hardly blame the airline or airport for.

Surprisingly, on this flight everything worked just fine, including the entertainment service. Between a couple of movies (Despicable Me and Dinner for Schmucks), my Kindle e-reader (I love that damn thing), two science magazines (Scientific American and Scientific American Mind), and a nap the trip just flew.

On landing we had the usual "welcome to Sydney" announcement, with a slight twist. The chief steward added one small note "we also have a couple onboard celebrating their 19th wedding anniversary, so we'd like to extend our congratulations to Warren - oh, that's me - and Natalie. I love you."

Which elicted a round of applause as well as "ooohs" and "ahhhs". Sweet.

Customs and immigration was painless, and Simon was waiting for us, having arrived just a few minutes before we cleared Customs.

We didn't have any traffic on the way home, it was a beautiful evening, and our cat Lily didn't scratch us for abandoning her for five weeks. It doesn't get any easier than this.

I hate not having problems. It just doesn't leave much to blog about.

But it was good to be home. I love travelling, but I love coming home too.

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So that was the holiday. It was amazing.

It's impossible to pick a highlight because there were so many.

I enjoyed spending so much quality time with Emma, and I loved seeing my family in Idaho after a seven year absence. These things don't make great blog-copy, but they're moments I deeply treasure.

New York is the most phenomenal city, and one we're both eager to go back to. We barely scratched the surface, and there's a holiday there to be had.

Then there were all the cruise tour experiences: riding an airboat through the Everglades, holding a stingray in Grand Cayman, passing through the Panama Canal, taking a train into the heart of a Costa Rican cloud forest, holding a lion cub - all amazing.

Plus the total cruise experience on Crystal, between the level of service, the people we met, the shows, the classes and lectures, the sail-out parties, the dolphins - speaking of animals...

...the squirrels kind of pissed me off, of course, with their evasive animal antics. Not that we had a lot of them on the ship (that I know of, but they're insidious little bastards), but they did plague me on land.

Downsides? Not too many. Our credit card bill will be one (who wants to retire at 65 anyway?), Emma wasn't crazy about the in-your-faceness of the vendors in Cartegenia, and getting sick was annoying. After that I'm struggling to find a problem. The good massively outweighed the bad.

To my mind the key sign of good holiday is that I feel like I've had a holiday, and I'm ready to get on with my normal life - at least as normal as life ever is.

This trip certainly qualifies. We loved it.

Day 32: Honolulu. What a headache.

Shortly after waking Emma was hit by a horrific migraine. One of those burning-nails-in-the-brain migraines. Not the kind of thing you want on the last day of your holiday.

Fortunately a combination of headache tablets plus a few hours extra sleep dealt with the worst of it.

Emma was disappointed that she lost half a day sleeping. I was relieved that we weren't due to fly-out that day, and figure this was just her body's way of getting her to slow down and rest. Either that or the aircon from the previous night's flight had poisoned her. Either way, better on the ground than in the air.

Besides I like late breakfasts. There's always an upside.

Breakfast was a few doors up at The Cheesecake Factory. Despite the name there is plenty else on the menu, as you might expect from a freaking 22-page menu.

This menu is so big that they sell ads in. Yes, you too can advertise to patrons of The Cheesecake Factory. Amazing. I've seen smaller telephone books.

I went for the Breakfast Burrito which, in keeping with the them of "large", was simply massive. I only intended to order breakfast. This was more of a lifetime commitment.

Note that Emma's hand is included in the pic for scale. For those of you wondering if I managed to finish it: not a chance.

We had a walk along the beach after breakfast. Waikiki is hardly wild Hawaii, but it is still a very attractive place. It beats the hell out of Bakersfield or Bourke - although the day we were there the surf was pretty much the same in all three places: non-existent.

We spent a bit of time on the balcony. It gave us a lovely view of the water in the late afternoon.

That was all the incentive we needed to head for the bar to watch the sunset. Everybody else had the same idea, so we didn't have much like finding a chair and a drink. But we did find the sunset, which was as stunning as any we've seen.

We had dinner downstairs at Duke's Waikiki Restaurant & Bar, one of the many iconic restaurants in Honolulu. We went for the healthy option. Kind of weird after the past few weeks, but in a good way.

Afterward we walked along the beach, and aided a young Aussie couple trying to photograph themselves with the local scenery in the background. The standard "you stand there while I take a shot, then we'll swap places, so everybody knows we were both here" pose.

It turned out to be a really nice shot. Unfortunately it was on their camera, so I don't have a copy. I considered stealing their camera, but decided this might be a bit rude.

All that was left was to pack and get ready for the flight home...

Day 31: LA and onwards

My hope that a hurricane might have swept us out towards Bora Bora had not come to pass. Alas, we had reached LA.

It was raining as we sailed in. It seemed fitting, as the sky gods wept for us as our cruise came to an end. It may have been a passing rain cloud, but I'll stick with the sky gods grieving.


Emma didn't want to get off the ship. I was more ready to wind up the holiday and get back to our normal lives. Not by much.

The customs process was seamless, and we waited in the Bistro and had coffee as we waited to disembark. Then we waited some more. And a bit more. And a bit more...

Three cruise ships had hit the Port of Los Angeles on the same morning, so disembarkation was delayed as they tried to handle the massive influx of arrivals. We couldn't see the point of standing in a queue in the lobby, so we went back to our stateroom. Just as well, as we didn't get off for a good hour later than planned, and better to lounge in comfort than stand impatiently.

So finally, around 11.30, we finally hit land. Goodbye Crystal Symphony: you were great.

Then onto the next round of chaos as we tried to find our bags and organise transport to LAX.

Even the people who work in the port looked stunned at the massive islands of luggage and thousands of people swarming over the terminal. I heard several comment they'd never seen so much activity.

Fortunately we were adopted by a couple taking a shuttle to LAX. At this stage just getting there was looking like a challenge, and a few people had already missed flights. We'd deliberagtley chosen a later flight just in case there were problems (how prescient). Getting a trip in for a bargain price was a bonus.

We had about a four-hour wait until our flight to Honolulu. The terminal was rather sparse in terms of places to hang-out, much less so than the one we arrived into four weeks ago, so we dug out our magazines and netbook to kill time until our flight.

The actual flight didn't put Hawaiian Airlines in the best light. Our seats were double-booked, the entertainment system was broken, the aircon had a weird chemical smell, plus the usual annoying things about travelling these days, like having to pay for snacks, and cramped seats.

Hawaiian Airlines.
Beats swimming. Almost.

At least the staff were friendly. Hawaiian has been consistently good on this measure in our experience.

I was keen to save money, and suggested this place a short walk outside (about 12km) from Waikiki:


Emma favoured staying right in Waikiki on the beach, at the Outrigger Waikiki:

Guess who won.

Day 30: Like we hadn’t had enough to eat

This was our last day before reaching LA, and a sea day, so the ship put on a massive buffet. Yeah, because we were all so damn hungry.

Table after table of amazing food. I should have taken a shot from the upper deck to capture the scale of the thing. It took hours just to set up – here’s a pic of the early part of the process.

Some of the prep was too cute, like the egg-and-olive penguins. How could I eat something as adorable as this?

And I’m also rather fond of ice sculptures. There were three, my favourite being the fish.

I spoke to one of the main chefs, who had a huge grin on his face. “This is my favourite part of the cruise,” he told me.

“Because you get to cut loose with all your favourites?”

“Exactly.”

With the entire ship crammed into the lobby finding somewhere to sit in the public was near impossible. As our stateroom was only about 10 meters off the lobby we simply retreated to there. Problem solved.

Lunch was about the most demanding thing we did that day. I went to Jim Brochu’s last talk on Ethel Merman (not my favourite performer, but he did show a marvellous clip of Merman with Fred Astair shot in the 1960s), and I attended my final Spanish class. Luz had done a fabulous job over the past 2 1/2 weeks, and received a well-deserved round of applause for her efforts.

I’d really enjoyed the language classes, and intend to continue when I get back to Sydney. I just need to pick one language and stick with it until I achieve basic fluency.

Being our last sea day we also made a point of sitting on the top deck while. We were on a cruise ship, dammit, and sitting on the deck is one of the reasons why we cruise. We were in no doubt that we were moving north as this was our first cool-weather day since Charleston. The towels spread out on the recliners had to do double duty as rugs.

Adios, tropics.

This was also our last view of a dolphin, which seemed fitting. The dolphin highlight for the day had been at breakfast, when just after taking our seats in the restaurant our ship passed through a pod mid-feed. I’m guessing there were 30+ dolphins putting on a show worthy of Sea World.

The night’s entertainment (two dance acts and two musician/comedians) was pre-dinner, so people could get to bed early in readiness for the 7am US Customs inspection in LA.

An early night seemed like a good idea so we were in bed by 11pm. Hardcore party animals that we are.

Day 29: Cabo San Lucas: as good as it gets

Puerto Vallerta was good. But Cabo San Lucas was better. So much so I was actually starting to feel like a Mexican.

Cabo is right at the southern tip of Baja California. On one side is the Sea of Cortez, on the other the Pacific Ocean. And it’s gorgeous.

Cabo was only a half day stop, so we tendered in early and hit the streets. Plenty of street vendors and tour spruikers, but not as in-your-face as in Cartegenia, where they were literally in your face.

In Puerto Vallerta I thought the skeleton people were just figures of art. In Cabo they walk the streets, and they are extremely friendly to visitors. Here are two who spent some time chatting to Emma and I.

We had been told to have a drink at a bar called the Giggling Marlin. A bit cheesy, but fun, and as you know when I’m in Mexico I love a drink in the morning. Nor were we the first people there. At the bar was the resident barfly from our cruiseship, and he was on the way out.

Emma told me that we were taking a glass-bottomed boat. I wasn’t allowed an opinion, so it was merely a question of which one. Ken doesn’t like the water much, so Jim, and I joined Emma for a 45 minute boat ride.

The glass bottom was crap. It was leaky and algae covered. It didn’t matter because there were so many fish in the water you didn’t need the glass. And the best bits were above the water, with stunning beaches, outcrops covered with pelicans and sea lions, and striking rock formations.

The rock with the donut-shaped hole is particularly famous. Emma reckons it’s called Lands End. This suits neither the culture nor the shape, I think Krispero Kremo or Dunking Donutuerro suits it better.

The 45 minutes just flew. It was fabulous. But the highlight was waiting for us back on shore.

On the foreshore were some people raising money for an animal sanctuary. The big money spinner was charging tourists $25-35 for a photo of them holding a lion cub. Emma told me that we were doing the shots, and I wasn’t allowed an opinion, so just pay the man.

It was pretty cool. She held the passive female, and I held the aggressive male, who scratched me and had to be taken away from me. I took a photo of the wound, but something was wrong with my camera and the scratches only looked like mosquito bites. Here is a better representation of the wound:

We have an official photo of us each holding a cub, but here’s one from my camera showing Emma in total animal-rapture, and me unsuccessfully trying to bend the cub to my will.

That night was out final formal night. We had the Captain’s Party in the Starlite Lounge, which was delightfully sales-pitch free, and then joined our table for dinner. Being in Mexico I decided it would be appropriate to wear my formal luchadore (Mexican wresting) match to the table. Apparently this is not as common as I expected.

Our table’s mood was suitably festive for a final formal night, especially the couple who had done the “Baja Outback” tour that included the tequila-making facility. They also introduced us to the cork-balancing game.

When they go out for dinner, after the meal they take turns bouncing a wine cork on the table top. The first person to bounce the cork so that it stands on its end wins dinner, loser pays.

This may be the dumbest idea for an after dinner-game I’ve ever heard of. Needless to say I fell in love with it, and managed four “on-enders” by the meals end.

The only downside of the day was the final production show, “Curtain Call”. The songs from “Cats” and ”Phantom of the Opera” were hard going, but survivable. Then they closed with a medley of Abba songs from “Mama Mia”. I tried to knock myself unconscious by slamming my head into the drinks table, but failed.

Over the past few years, with musicals like “The Producers”, “Wicked” and “The Addams Family” I had been re-evaluating my traditional dislike of musicals. Years of attitude changing wiped out in 10 minutes of cheesy Abba music. The worst part was Emma grinning at me, relishing my torment.

I had my revenge. The next morning one of us woke up with a hangover, and it wasn’t me.

Day 28: Puerto Vallerta: one tequila, two tequilas, three tequilas, floor

Our oceanic exile eventually ended. Land. We had reached land.

We woke up in Puerto Vallerta. The ship was stable, there were no rioting mobs, and the warring drug lords were thankfully absent.

Emma started the day by spotting wildlife. She saw some sort of ray in the water outside our stateroom window. Which was gone by the time I got there. It came back after I walked away. Emma called for me to come, I ran over – and it dived out of sight. And again.

I finally saw one of the rays, briefly, before it disappeared. Just enough of a sighting to know Emma wasn’t making the whole thing up.

I concluded there were a pair of squirrel spotters with high-powered binoculars co-ordinating the rays movements.

We took a van into Purto Vallerta with eight other people from the ship. Our feeble bartering skills were exposed before we left the docks when we found out we were paying five dollars each, while the others were only charged $3.50.

It was a pretty place to drive in to. The town is clearly designed to appeal to tourists, with newly cobble-stoned streets in the old town, and plenty of galleries, jewellery stores and tourist shops, but for the most part they’re tastefully done, and still quite Mexican in style and content.

I should qualify that. Usually they're Mexican in style. I freely admit that I have no idea why someone from north of the border would travel all the way to Mexico to eat at a Pizza Hut.

Emma and I hung out with Jim and Ken, who had been to Puerto Vallerta before. The highlight for Emma, Jim and Ken were the shops. The highlight for me was hitting the bar at 10am.

Because of the view, of course.

We walked along the esplanade after this. Or at least Jim and I did, while Emma and Ken walked along the shop-side of the road, looking for opportunities to further max-out our credit cards.

The beach-side walk gave me a chance to have a good look at some of the sand sculptures local artists were building on the beach.

The detail on some of them was amazing. I have neither the skill nor patience to attempt something like this:

Emma indulged her passion for buying tchotchkes (tchotchkes being the Yiddish word for “tourist crap”), particularly with t-shirts. In fairness I have to admit the t-shirts here were rather nice, and I added a few to the pile.

Another feature of Mexican tchotchkes are the skeletons paintings and figurines. This style of artwork has a complex history, drawing on ancient Mexican traditions involved with the Day of the Dead, and various artists that have adapted it for political reasons.

Some of them are quite stunning works of art, some our cheap bits of junk, and the variety of subjects is staggering. Here’s one of the ancient Mexican folk hero Hulk Hogan.

Back on the ship, while waiting for the sail-out party, I put myself hard to work blogging.

The weather for the sail-out was perfect, and the party was a blast. Roger McGuinn joined the Filipino band to perform the Byrd’s hit “Turn, Turn, Turn”, and the dance team led the guests in a performance of the Village People’s “YMCA”.

Best of all were the free Coronas, Margaritas and Tequila Sunrise. They were rather nice, nice enough that Emma broke a 25 year tequila-drinking drought. This is our table at the half-way point:

Which probably explains how Emma saw a whale as we sailed out.

Actually I saw it too, just as it was diving. Pretty cool. And the drinks weren’t that strong.

The only downside of the party was about an hour out of port we had to turn around due to a medical emergency. We heard later that one of the Australians had collapsed, and had to be taken to shore. We later learned that she was still in intensive care, but would be OK.

That night’s performance was from comedian named Jim Travis, who opened his set with 15 minutes on the dramas he had gone through getting to the ship.

He was originally supposed to board at Acapulco, then Hualtulco, and finally made it onboard in Puerto Vallerta. Because the scheduling was being re-written by the hour this entailed him flying from Florida to Charleston, then Atlanta, Fort Worth, Mexico City, Hualtulco, back to Mexico City, then finally to Puerto Vallerta where he spent the night in some spider-ridden dump. Just what you need after 36 hours of air-travel.

As they say, comedy is pain. Preferably somebody else's.

Day 27: Lost at sea

How is it we can do nothing and not have time to scratch ourselves? We seem to have less free time on sea days than we do when we go on shore.

Some of it is dull stuff like doing the laundry. I help Emma drag it up to Deck 9, then I head off to Spanish class, and catch up with her after this for lunch.

Jim Brochu talked about Lucille Ball. He was quite good friends with her, and teared up more than once talking about her.

The first time he met her was a near-disaster: he had dropped a play off for her to read, which she liked. The next day he came around to discuss it, and when he went to sit down he broke a chair: “I broke your chair.”

“Get another one,” was Lucy’s response.

So he did. That one broke too.

He picked up a third chair. “This one seems solid.”

“So did the other two” she replied.

This one didn’t break.

After this they played backgammon and talked about the play – more the former than the latter, so Lucy said he’d have to come back the next day. That was Jim’s birthday, so he jokingly told her “it’s my birthday, so you need to buy me a present.”

“How about a chair?”

She actually did buy him a present. A watch, with a note that read “I’ll always have time for you”, which he still wears today.

In the afternoon was the Mozart Chocolate Tea in Palm Court. That’s “Chocolate Tea” as in “chocolate and tea served separately”, which was nice, as opposed to “chocolate and tea served in the one cup”, which would be horrible.

In Emma’s words, “too much food and a Mozart’s outfit”. The staff dressed up in 18^th century clothing, while we pigged out on chocolate in 21^st century style.

At 4.30 we did the galley tour. The logistics of planning, stocking and preparing food for 980 guests and 560 crew is challenging, especially when the ship misses a port it’s meant to stock up in. In that case the Executive Chef hits the shore and goes shopping. I can’t imagine what it would be like on one of the huge 4,000 guest ships. The logistics would be nightmarish.

We were the last group through, so we were lead by the Executive Chef himself, Manfred Schaller.

One of the guests asked what his worst disaster story was.

On this cruise it was running out of escargot on French night. Bad, but not disastrous.

But the very worst was his first cruise with Crystal in 1999, when the crew hadn’t told the kitchen staff to expect rough weather that night. In true Pacific Ocean style the ship hit huge swells, and the kitchen showed up the next morning to the food prep from the night before all over the floors. The serving plates hadn’t been secured either, so the galley and serving areas were covered with broken plates and crockery. To make things worse, all the other breakfast serving areas were shut down due to the rough conditions, so the demand on the main restaurant was higher than normal.

Now that’s disastrous.

Then was has a sunset that was so awesome it deserves two photos, even if they suffer from being taken from our stateroom:

After dinner with Arnold and Joy we caught the Liar’s Club show in the Starlite Lounge. Jim Brochu, Ken Rees, Ronn Lucas, and comedian Jon Courtenay were given four words. One of them had to give the real definition, the other three had to make up some bit of nonsense, and the audience tried to pick who was telling the truth.

I have a reasonable vocabulary, but I have never heard of any of these words, and didn’t have the slightest clue what they meant. “Eruption” and “Biggin” we can remember. The other two were something like “chrematophobia” and “threpedophilia” or something near-impossible to remember like that.

The answers they gave were hysterical, and rather more adult than usual. I guess all the kiddies were in bed, and since it was coming to the end of the cruise none of the performers worried about being thrown off the cruise.

Whatever. It was hysterical.

Then, since there was a strong rumour that our exile at sea was coming to end, we went to bed. Just in case.