HOMEWARD BOUND, ALMOST

March 16, 2020

Well, through earlier emails you know that we are going to either dock in Long Beach or San Pedro (no preyhunday san pedro) and we are flying out of LAX to DFW to AGS.  Our second leg is the same flight I booked in January.  Carnival is providing free shuttle to the local airports, and they said if there was enough interest, they would provide a bus to take people to San Francisco who couldn’t make other arrangements – haven’t heard about that, but the bus ride is 9.5 hours, and at any rate, we won’t be needing those services.

It is the conclusion of your favorite cruisers that this sailing was cut a day short (a port skipped) to get us back to dry land as soon as possible.  As far as I know, every other Carnival ship is either in a port where she will stay until travel restrictions are eased, or they are at anchor near to a port.

I did my last two talks today, and finished off with the Hub Cap Joke.  I did a total of 10 talks, repeating the Social Media talk and doing 9 singles.  It made for a little extra work on my part, but I think folks enjoyed having a wide variety to choose from.  And some brave souls attended nine for nine.  They deserve a blue ribbon.  Or maybe a purple heart.

I spoke to Roberto, the entertainment director, last night, and he secured Luggage Tag #1 for our disembarkation.  That means we will be going out first with the which of which there is no whicher.  He had told me he would send a bottle of wine to our room or to our table in the dining room as a way to make up the aggravation we experienced during embarkation, but I told him LT 1 made up for it.

Well, the voice of disappointment has been heard, and Mom/Bonnie/Granny will blog tonight.  And her reporting and witticism will make this a non-boring blog.

TTFN

Well, today started about 5:30 for me and he got up at 6:30. We went to breakfast and I had 2 fresh eggs scrambled with cheese from the omelet station. The omelet line and the buffet line are strange!. You get in the omelet line on the left and end in the end of the buffet line. The beginning of the buffet line is on the right. So you have these two lines kind of meeting in the middle and people from both lines competing for the attention of the one server behind the counter to get your toast, butter, jelly, bacon, potatoes, waffles, pancakes, etc. It can be a hassle. Well, after having procured our eggs and such (and we managed to get 4 sets of silverware because we both got 2 not knowing the other had gotten some).  We sat down and consumed it.  Then, I was going for a walk. The temperature was in the fifties with a strong wind so I went down to deck 3. It was cold but not unbearable, but as usual they had one side of the ship blocked. So I only got about 2500 steps.

Then, I headed to the room and got the crocheting bag and went to the Mad Hatter lounge to wait for his talk at 10. Good crowd for the talk and they enjoyed it. After the talk we headed to Lido. We decided on a pizza and ice cream. It was not 11:30 yet and the buffet is not open but pizza is 24 hours. It was good. We got our cones and walked back to the room, braving the cold outside by the pools.

His next talk was at 2 so I just went to the room while he rehearsed. Soon it was time to head downstairs. Again a good crowd and they enjoyed the last talk. YEAH!! As we were heading back to the room, the Captain came on with his announcement of docking and disembarking. He is very difficult to understand and we got most of it. So we headed to the room to start researching changing out tickets to LAX from San Francisco. We didn’t want to do anything yet because there was some letter being made and a form we needed to sign by 6 pm and by now it was 3:30 and we didn’t have the form.  Adam, the cruise director came on shortly after the Captain and more clearly made the announcement.

We checked on line and found a flight from LAX but didn’t make any changes till we got the letter and form. It came about 4. We made our changes and signed the form and headed for supper about 5.   By then Adam had come on again and said not to get upset about 6 pm deadline we could have to 8. But we took no chances and we turned it in by 6.

After supper we headed to the theater for the show. No one was waiting in line and it was after 6:30. I wondered about that but figured everybody was busy with trying to change stuff. We stood until after 7 and they hadn’t opened the doors. So we checked the app and the show wasn’t until 9. It isn’t going see us. We came back to the room and now will be watching some house shows and then, to bed.

No rising early tomorrow. All we have to do is pack and relax. Yeah, I am going to be getting off the ship on Wed, going to an airport and then flying home. I will relax when I get home. Well, that is all. Love you all. Mom, Granny and Bonnie