Well, it’s been a long time coming, but I thought I would share our two week cruise to Hawaii with everyone. Jeez, was that over a year ago? Wow! Anyway, we decided on Hawaii for our babymoon for a couple of reasons. For one, Hyla was due in early August so we needed to go somewhere relatively warm, since we intended to do our trip in winter or at least early spring. For another, my request was that we go somewhere that has no roller coasters, as I knew the temptation would be too great, and I didn’t want to risk riding one while pregnant nor face the disappointment of missing out. Hawaii was perfect on both counts! Not a single stationary coaster graces any of the islands, and wintery weather would certainly spare us in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Upon looking into the details of our trip, we discovered that flights were extremely expensive, and once there we’d have to worry about lodging and food and all that good stuff. Plus, we wanted to see more than one island, so it would cost us even more to island hop. Nathan did some more research and discovered that Celebrity Cruises offered a 2 week cruise to and from the Islands that was pretty close in cost to the airfare alone…and, in this case, we wouldn’t have to worry about lodging or food! What a great deal! We were lucky to be able to take 2 weeks to do this, and it would prove more than worth it. We booked our trip and looked forward to our last big adventure, just the two of us.
Sun. March 3, 2013
I was up before 3am to tend to our animals, making sure they’d be set for the next few days until Angie arrived to check on them. We had to be out of the house by 4, so we hurried, packing last minute things, and hit the road. At the airport, I opted for my usual pat down, rather than subjecting the baby and myself to who knows what kinds of harmful rays. A quick stop at the bathroom just recemented my disgust with automatic flushers. One of the claims is that they save water, but how can that be when they flush multiple times before you’re ready? And then there's the nasty water they splash everywhere – awful!!! If you don’t want to touch the handle to flush, just use toilet paper to do it. I could go on and on, and probably will again, but I think this invention is one of the most wasteful and most disgusting.
Once at the gate, we checked our bags, making things much easier. Our flight to San Diego was smooth and uneventful. Nate slept, and I dozed slightly. We had a layover at LAX with bathrooms that were not self-flushing. Yay! I did have to put up with people cutting in line at the snack bar, but it wasn’t like we were in any hurry. Our flight from LAX to San Diego was a whole 27 minutes long, so of course there was no drink service. Once in San Diego, we got our bags without a hassle at the smallest gate that even had its own attached baggage carousel. Then we grabbed our shuttle which took us to the Days Inn Harbor View. We checked in and noticed that we could see our ship from our room! How exciting!
After getting our room, we headed over to the waterfront where we visited the Maritime Museum, which was really cool. We toured a number of ships and submarines that were actually partially submerged. It was fascinating! The Star of India ship was especially cool, though we had to dodge the often overzealous volunteers who wanted to stop and talk your ear off.
We ate dinner at the Fish Market. They seated us outside, where we dealt with harsh sun, cold breezes, and greedy pigeons and seagulls. The view of the Pacific was phenomenal, though. Nate had a crab sandwich, and I had rather mediocre clam chowder and a very tasty shrimp cocktail. From there, we walked along the boardwalk some more, exploring Embarcadero Park North, before veering into the city itself in search of one of the comedy clubs we’d seen advertised. We wound up finding The Mad House at Horton Plaza Mall, but decided that we were too tired to bother coming back for their show that evening. We wandered the outdoor mall a bit before heading back to our room. We were both super tired, so Nate took a nap while I took down my notes. I eventually took a nap myself and played on the internet a bit more until Nate woke up. His back wasn’t feeling so well, so that cemented our plans to take it easy that evening. We walked down about a block to Los Panchito’s, a fast food Mexican place, and brought it back to our room. I had a quesadilla, and Nate had rolled tacos, both of which were pretty gross. Then we watched tv and fell asleep early. We had an exciting day ahead of us tomorrow!
Mon. March 4, 2013
I woke up really early, about 5, and pretty much stayed awake after that. I had to run over to Rite Aid to pick up some antibacterial wipes (a must for any trip!) and Reese’s Sticks (another staple). On the 6 minute walk over, I admired our ship, the Celebrity Century, quietly awaiting its guests. X marks the spot! I grabbed breakfast downstairs at the motel and then played on the computer until Nate woke up. We watched some tv until it was time to head over to our shuttle around 11:30. While waiting, we met other people who were also on our cruise (but whom I don’t think we’d ever actually run into on the ship). We rode the shuttle over to the Port of San Diego, less than a mile away, found someone to take our bags, and went through security. We noticed many, many older people, and were convinced we may have been the youngest ones on board. We also noticed that many people looked really unhappy. Um, you’re about to take a cruise! To Hawaii! A fabulous vacation that many people only dream of! What on earth is there to be so unhappy about?! Sigh.
Security was pretty easy, and we didn’t even have to take out our bags. We got our boarding cards and walked up to deck 6 where we were offered lovely looking mimosas that I couldn’t enjoy. Then we explored the ship a bit while our room was being prepared. We viewed the upper decks, had some lunch at the buffet, and when the announcement was made that our rooms were ready, we went down to drop off the items we had with us. After a short rest, we explored the rest of the ship, noting a fair number of bars, none of which I could partake in. There was also a nice theater, a basketball court, a cinema, game room, computer room, art hall, fancy restaurants, arcade, and spa. At 4:15 we had our safety meeting in the theater, and then Nate and I went to an upper deck at the front of the ship to watch us shove off. It was cold and windy, and not much happened. Our ship eventually backed out quite a bit and sat there for an eternity. It was getting cold, so we decided to go to the indoor lounge one deck below to watch from the warmth. We sat there forever, and we did start our 180 degree turn, but we sat there for ages again. We did get some beautiful views of downtown San Diego, all lit up in the darkening dusk.
I decided to take a shower before dinner, while Nate stayed above. By dinnertime (8pm) we still hadn’t moved! At dinner, we were seated at a 10-person table, and it took a while for anyone to join us. We actually would have preferred a private table if given the choice, but it is probably good for us to break out of our shells and meet some new people. Eventually we were joined by only one couple: Linda (who is trained as a gardener and loves botanical gardens) and Ian (software engineer) from the UK. I couldn’t believe what a match they were for us! They were quite friendly and talkative, though, knowing me, I could easily run out of things to say after a while. Dinner was nice – always a reason to dress up and enjoy some interesting cuisine. I started the meal with a cold tangerine and granny smith apple soup, followed by a shrimp cocktail, spaghetti, and an ice cream pastry of some sort with chocolate sauce. Nate had mushroom soup, Thai spring rolls, vegetable korma, and crepes. The engines started up just as we began eating, and when we left, I was caught off guard by the movement of the ship. After dinner, we went back to our room and debated whether or not to attend the variety show that evening. I was dead tired, so after much thought, I opted to stay in. We tried to watch “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” but I fell asleep about 20 minutes in. Oh well. After today, I slept considerably well.
Tues. March 5, 2013
Woke up around 6:30, not sure what time it was. We had an inside room, so with the lights off, it’s nighttime all the time. The motion of the ship was pretty extreme this morning, maybe because we were at the front of the ship. In fact, we were front and center, deck 9! The creaking the room made reminded me of rain, which I actually enjoyed. I finally got up around 9:30 and attempted to shower, which was a challenge with the lurching of the boat. I started to feel a bit motion sick, but I think a lot of that was due to lack of food and drink. We ran up to the buffet to get some breakfast, and that helped tremendously. Then we headed over to the fancy Milagro restaurant for a cooking demo where we got to sample a very good chateaubriand. Then we attended a talk on Hawaiian volcanoes and finally saw “This Means War” at the cinema, which was pretty bad. The funniest part was when they made some joke about cataracts, and all the people in the room laughed. Is no one our age? Haha! They had a tanzanite unveiling down in the jewelry shop, and since that’s one of my favorite stones, we considered going, but ultimately I felt it was silly and somehow stereotypical to fawn over jewelry, so we returned to our room instead. We got our books and tried to read up in the Forward Bar, but they decided to do trivia there, so we moved to the middle of the ship and read there instead. I was determined to finish the book “Jaguar,” which had been loaned to me more than a year prior, so I could get it back to my friend. I was already making quite a dent. Unfortunately, before long a band started singing, so we retreated to our room until dinner.
At dinner, we were joined by an older couple and a single gentleman whose names escape me, as well as Linda and Ian. It was nice, and I felt less pressure to talk with a larger group. Dinner tonight was potato masala, tomato chickpea soup, shrimp cocktail, and chocolate ice cream (which I would have a lot of on this cruise). We then went up and had drinks at Michael’s Bar, a small whiskey bar where I had the daily non-alcoholic drink, a peach sangria, which was good. Then we called it a night.
Wed. March 6, 2013
Got up rather late, showered, and got ready for the day. I was fine until after my shower. By then, the pitching of the ship queased me out. Perhaps it was also from the lack of fresh air in the room, coupled with dehydration and hunger, but it was just awful. The entire room would rotate clockwise and forward, corkscrewing out of control. We carefully made our way up to the buffet and got some food and water in us. Relentlessly, the ship spiraled forward. It was so bad that they closed the pool up deck because it was splashing spectacularly all over the decks in great watery explosions. After eating, we rested briefly, reading a bit, before going down to the dining room for lunch. While there, the boat tipped so much that it knocked the wine list into my water which crashed, spilling it all into my lap and onto my book. It was embarrassing, and I was still thirsty, and I got the impression they didn't want to risk giving me more water. I sat in a puddle the entire meal. The food was ok – rigatoni, salad, and chocolate ice cream (which finally cured me of the motion sickness, for the most part). Overall, we weren’t very impressed with lunch at the dining room. Oh well.
After lunch, we went down to the art auction. The host was Welsh and quite the comedian. He especially enjoyed talking about the lovely country of “Canadia.” The art, on the other hand, was “meh.” It would have been way better if I could have enjoyed the free champagne going around. As it was, it was awfully crowded and hard to see much. We did discover everyone seemed to have an almost unhealthy love of artist Peter Max. Nate and I just couldn’t see the draw.
From there, we headed back up to the buffet for afternoon tea. I was certain I ate something with artificial sweeteners in it because it made me feel even more awful, and it just kept coming back up on me. Rather that than into the baby, in my opinion. We retreated to the room after that to watch tv and tried to ignore the constant heaving of the ship. At one point, still feeling ill, I decided to just lay on the bed with my eyes shut. I did that for a good hour and a half, and it felt marvelous! I really didn’t feel like getting up, much less going to formal night dinner, but I did anyway. I wore my purple dress, and I didn’t look nearly as pregnant as I did the night before in my maternity dress, thankfully. This evening, it was just the five of us – the elderly couple didn’t feel like dressing up. The dining room was only about half full, and it sounded like sea sickness was the culprit. Jim (the single guy at the table, who we suspected may work for the ship and be a plant to find out peoples’ thoughts about various things on the ship) said that he did the behind the scenes tour of the ship and found out that we were off course quite a bit because, had we stayed on course, everyone would be sick due to the 15 foot swells (which I wasn’t convinced we weren’t still experiencing anyway).
Dinner tonight wasn’t great, in my opinion. Not sure if it was because of my weird, artificially sweetened taste buds, being sick, or what, but I hardly ate a thing. I got the frog legs, which were bland, followed up by French onion soup, which tasted off. Then I had the shrimp scampi which was on pasta (too much food!) and rather bland, too. I had my ice cream for dessert, which really seems to help with the sea sickness. It was the best part of the meal, but I don’t know that it helped much. After dinner, we went down to see the showtunes show, which was actually pretty good! Lots of songs we enjoyed were featured from Abba and Queen and shows like Cabaret and Hairspray, among others. I’m glad we went, and having something to focus on helped my weakened constitution. Then we came back to the room and read until we fell asleep.
Thurs. March 7, 2013
I woke up feeling relaxed and well-rested, thankfully. The clocks had turned back an hour overnight, so it was 8 am. The ship didn’t seem to be moving as much, though still enough to be noticeable. I felt good, so I hesitated to take a shower, which I suspect adds to my seasickness. I took a quick one anyway, and got ready for a busy day ahead. We headed up for breakfast at the buffet – a maritime tradition for us on this trip, so it seemed. It was good, as always, and I was glad that I felt well enough to not have to eat much to make it through the morning. I think this was also the day that Nate and I played a game of horse at the basketball court just as the winds picked up and the clouds got ominous. At 10:45 we met down in the main restaurant for a tour of the galley. It started with a Q and A session with the head chef who apparently owns restaurants and spas in his spare time. On top of that, he was extremely young. Amazing. It was interesting to see where all the food was prepared and the organization thereof. The tour ran late, so we missed most of the whale talk (we always tried to see the environmental presentations), but luckily we caught the end of it and were later able to see it in its entirety on tv.
From the talk, we went to get lunch at the poolside café where a very rude lady cut in front of me. I had a mediocre tuna sandwich, and Nate had a burger. Then we headed to the cinema where we saw “Snow White and the Huntsman,“ which was decent. We went back to the room and saw the rest of the whale talk and killed some time watching tv and reading.
After resting, we decided to head up to try the sushi bar, which was free and served daily in the main buffet. I wanted to avoid too much sushi, being pregnant and all, but I thought I’d choose my items carefully. Well, we discovered one of the best things on the ship! The sushi was good, but the miso was some of the best I’ve ever had! They had the broth, seaweed, green onion, and tofu separate so you could have it made to order. Amazingly, the miso experts were all Ukrainian, so I guess you have to go to Ukraine to get the best miso, or at least be afloat in the Pacific. Who knew?
From there, we saw the puppeteer and comedian Michael Ziegfeld, which was meh. We got ready for dinner and headed down immediately thereafter. The conversation was decent again, and everyone got a kick out of the fact that our room is right above the stage, so we can hear everything, from rehearsals to entire shows, all the time. My meal consisted of shrimp cocktail, apple salad of some sort, and turkey parmesan with tiramisu for dessert. Nate had cape hake, which was weird. From there we called it a night.
Fri. March 8, 2013
Woo hoo! Feeling well yet again! Showered and had breakfast before heading over to see oceanographer Chelsea Behymer’s presentation on coral reefs. We really, really enjoyed all her science talks, and I kind of wish I’d thought about doing the same on a cruise ship somewhere. What a neat job just out of college. And we learned a whole bunch about what we may see on our trip. From there, we headed downstairs to partake in the ship’s Effy ring treasure hunt. Our geocaching skills worked well for us, and we found them both and entered our answers into the contest. Next up we went to see the navigational officer’s talk, which was informative. There was a crazy woman who was obsessed about female captains and their salaries. Apparently she’d harassed nearly every authority on the ship about this. The officer handled it diplomatically, while not really answering her question. Then we went to lunch before heading back to the art auction. Champagne, while served, was a lot sparser than at our previous cruise’s art auctions, not that it mattered to me. I ran off mid-auction to see if we’d won the Effy prize, but it turned out that our tablemate Linda did! Good for her! Then I ran back to the auction. This one was a bit better with some interesting African animal paintings, though I’m not sure whose home those would fit in. Sadly we didn’t have any success in the art raffle, our main reason for attending. From there, we noshed some more (we seriously ate about 5 meals a day) and ran up to see if we’d won the “which amber isn’t real?” contest. Our guess was right, but we weren’t picked…but Linda was! Talk about a lucky day for her! We ran off to read some more before heading up for sushi. Next we saw Sean O’Shea, the musical impersonator, who was high energy and pretty good. He did Shaggy, Elvis, Neil Diamond, Dean Martin, and Kermit the Frog. It was a trip! Then we went down for dinner, though I was anything but hungry. We debated seeing “Anna Karenina,” but opted to read some more instead. Phew!
Sat. March 9, 2013
We turned the clocks back overnight again, and we found out we were to lose 3 hours on the return sail due to daylight savings time. Oh well. I showered again and had to contend with brown water coming out of all our faucets. We’d routinely have to run the water about a minute to clear out the nastiness. Then it was off to breakfast. After that, we entered the “guess the real diamond” contest, which seemed easy. Then it was off to play some shuffleboard. After several days of chilly weather, today was perfect! The air was warm, the breeze was gentle, and we were treated to sun and only slight choppiness. Unlike our last cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, we were not shooed off the shuffleboard court. In fact, we were smiled at by the crew as we played. How nice!
After taking a break to read in the room, we headed up for lunch at the dining room. You’d have thought we learned our lesson the first time, but we thought we’d give it a second chance. They should warn you it’s going to take over an hour to complete a meal, because we had a talk we wanted to see in the next 45 minutes. Well, we got through the meal, surrounded by crabby-looking diners, and I was getting really anxious about having to wait 15 to 20 minutes between courses. Because we chose to eat here, we only caught the last 2 minutes of the sea birds presentation and caught the Q and A session. From there, we went to the cafeteria for some ice cream (dessert only – I was trying to not have 5 meals EVERY day) before heading up to the diamond drawing. Again, we guessed right but lost (I knew the others were obviously an emerald and a ruby – the true diamond was blue). Fun times, anyway!
We headed back up to the room to read some more. Nate went to work out while I finally finished “Jaguar!” Yay! It was a quiet day, overall, with not much of interest to do on the activities sheet. I decided to start reading “Odd Thomas” at last now, though. Nothing like a light activity cruise to finally catch up on one’s reading. When Nate came back, we headed down to sushi. Then we checked the dinner menu and didn’t find it all that riveting. I also really didn’t feel like being social, so I suggested we stay in for the night. Nate was amenable to that. Instead of dinner, we got a drink at the Rendezvous Bar in the ship’s center, where the waiter was excited to finally see people his age, but we snuck out before we could say goodbye to him because we were late for the magic show featuring Jay Matiolli. It was pretty good and very high energy.
After the show, we went for a walk up deck, trying not to slide on the wet surfaces. It must have recently rained, but only one side of the ship was wet. We walked to the front and were blasted with wind, watching lightning in the distance and seeing what few stars we could. We’d hoped to see the lights of Hawaii, but not quite yet. The cool blast was exhilarating! We went to the back of the ship, where the stars were slightly more visible and the wind was slightly blocked. It was a beautiful, romantic location that reminded me of the private deck Nate and I found on the Oasis, above the dance party, where we danced unabashedly on our own exclusive dance floor. I wouldn’t have minded staying the night if it were slightly warmer.
We retreated to the shelter of our room and decided to try out the room service. We opted for tomato and avocado quesadillas and a four seasons pizza. It was nice. Then we went up to the buffet for dessert and water. We attempted to go on deck again to see the lights after that, but it was raining and the decks had a half inch of water on them. Treacherous! We took the high deck, which was slightly less wet, and enjoyed the evening before retreating inside to hit they hay early for our big day in Honolulu tomorrow.
