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Part Six, 5/8/07-5/9/07, is here.

May 10 (Thursday, Day 14, Docking in Los Angeles at 1 PM) –

We were awakened this morning at 6:50 AM by the ship’s horn.  Janet jumped up and ran out on the balcony thinking she would see a ship in our way or something.  All she saw was fog.  For the next few hours, the ship continued to blow a 5 second long foghorn burst every 90 seconds.  I guess it’s a maritime safety thing when the fog is too thick to see very far in front of the ship.  Phil and Janet had breakfast and then went to the 12th floor observation lounge.  The fog was pretty bad, but every now and then we would get out of it.  Around 9:30 AM we noticed a bunch of birds and a bunch of splashes in the water.  Then after a few minutes we got closer and realized the splashes were dolphins.  Janet was the first one to spot them and yelled “Dolphins” and everyone else in the lounge started looking at them.  There were lots and lots of them.  She found out later that Mom was the first one to spot them in the restaurant so she and Dad saw them all, too.  As we were pulling into Los Angeles we saw sea lions, too, sunning on the buoys.  This, of course, allowed Phil to over-exercise his excellent sea lion bark.

Dolphins riding the bow wave

Everyone had to disembark to go through Customs.  We got off the ship at 1:45 and managed to get back on at 3:40.  There were a couple of passengers that didn’t get off when they were supposed to so everyone had to wait, since the rules were that we couldn’t get back on the ship until ALL passengers had gotten off.  And, there was absolutely no Regent personnel in the embarkation area of the cruise terminal so it was just chaotic.  Janet was miffed since “The Guardian” movie started at 3:00 and she wanted to see it.  They went ahead and started it on time even though passengers weren’t on board.  There were lots of complaints about how the re-boarding process was handled (or the fact that it wasn’t really handled and it was just a free-for-all).  Oh, well…

The scenic Port of Los Angeles

When we got back on board, Phil and Janet grabbed four glasses of champagne and took them to Mom and Dad’s room.  That made them happy.  We went back to our suite and were pleasantly surprised to see a two-tier tray of chocolate dipped and fresh strawberries along with a note apologizing for running out of strawberries earlier at breakfast.  (Janet asked for strawberries at breakfast, a normal buffet item, and was told they had run out.  Then she voiced displeasure on running out of something on such a short cruise when we had just docked in Mexico.  She told the head waiter that she understood running out on Day 24 of our 26 day cruise last year since we were in the South Pacific but couldn’t fathom running out in North America.)  Janet took the tray to Mom and Dad’s and Mom was excitedly oogling the birthday cake and two glasses of champagne that a steward had just delivered.  So, Mom was in hog heaven – two kinds of good champagne, gourmet chocolate raspberry mousse cake, chocolate covered strawberries and fresh strawberries!  And, there was a single sea lion (or seal?) swimming in our docking area for a few minutes, too, that we all enjoyed watching.

Since this was LA, many crew members got off since their contracts were over.  Last year our stewardess left us in LA even though we had two more days to go so we weren’t too surprised to see some of the crew leave. When we went to dinner we were seated at a table outside our “normal” dining area.  Since the dining room was pretty empty, we just assumed it meant that the waiter and head waiter that we had gotten to know had left the ship.  But, no, that wasn’t the case since we spotted them 20 minutes later.  The dining room manager just kind of had a brain drain and assigned us to a table with a brand new waiter that had just boarded the ship that afternoon.  Needless to say that waiter wasn’t the world’s best and we ended up leaving before dessert was served since it took so long.  We don’t think we’ll have that problem tomorrow night!

After dinner Janet went to sleep, but Phil watched us leave the Port of Los Angeles at 11 PM from the 12th deck Observation Lounge.  He was miffed that it took 15 minutes for a waiter to ask him for his drink order and then he noticed that two couples walked in and two different waiters descended on them within 15 seconds of arrival.  It just wasn’t a good day for Phil!  But, while leaving, he saw the fire that was ravaging 4,000 acres of Catalina Island.  He said it was a curved orange line out at sea.  Very weird.

May 11 (Friday, Day 15, Port Hueneme) –

When we woke up, the ship had already docked at Port Hueneme.  This is a military port and if you wanted to get off, you needed to arrange for a taxi 48 hours in advance and have two forms of photo id.  We stayed on-board.  The only shore excursion was to the Reagan Library.  This was an included stop since a local travel agency contacted Regent several years ago and bought 90 cabins and requested this as a port so its travelers could get off close to home.  Our suite neighbors from Ventura live about 5 miles from here and got off today.

It’s about 50 degrees and we picked up a bunch of Alaska cruise passengers in Los Angeles and also in Port Hueneme so there are new people on board.  It started feeling like our cruise was done yesterday in Los Angeles since there are new crew members and passengers.  The big transfer of passengers happens tomorrow in San Francisco, but there are enough new faces that it kind of feels like our cruise is over a couple of days early.

In fact, while we were sitting by the pool talking with Bill, another old friend from the 26-day Hawaii/Tahiti cruise, Nanette, walked by and recognized the three of us.  She got on in Los Angeles and her mother and sister will get on in San Francisco.  She had her same suite as last time, which is one of the two master suites on the ship. Anyway, she invited us to her suite at 6 PM for a party.

WARNING - - WARNING - - RESTRICTED HARBOR – KEEP OUT – AUTHORIZED ENTRY ONLY.  Oh, by the way, Port Hueneme welcomes you!

We didn’t see any wildlife today but we did see oil platforms along the way from Port Hueneme to San Francisco.

Oil rig.  Fortunately, no sign of Jack Bauer.  That will make no sense to you unless you saw the season finale of 24.

There was an ice cream social scheduled for 2 PM today, but when I went out to get some it was so cold that Janet figured I didn’t need any.  Sigh.

We had a champagne party in Mom and Dad’s suite this afternoon.  When our afternoon hors d’oeuvres were delivered (crab legs today) we took them to Mom and Dad’s cabin and Mom had already ordered the international cheese plate and champagne.  Combined with their plate of crab legs, it was a nice finale to the cruise.  Mom and Dad passed on going to Nanette’s suite for her party, but Phil and Janet went, and we were blown away. The butler was standing in the corner waiting for Nanette’s orders to serve the appetizers and beverages.  The master suite is the most expensive suite on the ship.  It is on the 9th deck at the very front of the ship (directly under the bridge so at night they have to keep their curtains closed so the lights from suite 901 don’t interfere with the bridge!).  The two suites split the ship in half so that each one is ½ the width of the ship.  It is 1204 sq. ft. and has two balconies.  The front balcony is 727 sq. ft. and the side one is 71 sq. ft.  It has 2 bedrooms and 2 ½ baths, seating for 7 on easy chairs, a dining room table for 6, a high dollar coffee/espresso machine and a bar.  Both Phil and Janet’s eyes glowed a little bit . . . something to think about when planning future cruises, don’t ya know?

Mom and Dad were all packed but Phil and Janet saved our packing until after dinner.  Phil is the packer in our family.  Janet buttoned and folded clean clothes (Janet frequently did laundry) and put everything on the bed and he distributed it among the 4 bags we were going to check.

May 12 (Saturday, Day 16, San Francisco)

Since everyone getting off in San Francisco had to vacate their suites at 9 AM (and our arrival was scheduled for 10:30), we realized that it would be a lot easier if the four of us could congregate in Nanette’s suite rather than in a public area.  So, we left her a note on her door and she got it in time so we went to her suite and had a great view of sailing in under the Golden Gate Bridge from her front balcony.  Mom and Dad were leaning against the railing and I was running from side to side.  Phil would go inside to the second bedroom and check out the view from the side balcony every now and then and he made four cups of espresso and coffee.  Anyway, it was a beautiful sunny day and we saw sea lions and even some more whales.

This waiting strategy had the unintended consequence of making it impossible for our friend Bill to track us down before we disembarked.  Oops.  Sorry about that, Bill.

Under the gate

Family portrait in the suite

We disembarked at 10:45 and gathered our luggage (6 pieces of checked luggage and 5 carryons!) and went to the taxi line.  There were no van taxis in sight so one of the Yellow Cab drivers called for one and said it would come at some point.  In the meantime, a policeman saw us standing there.  Janet told him we were waiting for a van cab.  The policeman waved one to the front of the line for us!  We managed to get all the luggage, Dad’s wheelchair and ourselves in the minivan and got to our gate at Oakland Airport by 11:45.  We ate lunch while waiting for our 1:40 Southwest flight and then boarded it with 50 other passengers so that it was a nice, empty flight.  (No Joe-Bob in sight.)  We landed in KC early and got to Mom and Dad’s around 8:15 PM.  It was a long day, but no part of it could have gone any better.  It was a perfect ending to an (almost) perfect cruise.  

Caribbean clouds at sunset

Cruise Boxscore - - -

Our sailing distances on our great cruise were:
April 27       Ft. Lauderdale to Gatun Lake Yacht Club, Panama – 1,411 nautical miles
May 1       Gatun Lake Yacht Club, Panama to Puntarenas, Costa Rica – 478 nautical miles
May 3       Puntarenas, Costa Rica to Huatulco, Mexico – 788 nautical miles
May 5       Huatulco, Mexico to Acapulco, Mexico – 251 nautical miles
May 6       Acapulco, Mexico to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico – 685 nautical miles
May 8       Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to Los Angeles – 832 nautical miles
May 10       Los Angeles to Port Hueneme – 62 nautical miles
May 11       Port Hueneme to San Francisco – 317 nautical miles
May 12       San Francisco (end of voyage)
Total distance   4,824 nautical miles (or 5,551 statute miles)

Cruise Highlights

Day 1 – Seeing a drunk passenger on Southwest get off before his scheduled stop
Day 1 – Having just about every crew member from our last cruise greet us by name
Day 1 – Seeing Bill Bishofberger
Day 2 – Eating dinner with Dominique Nicolle
Day 3 – Watching a Jamaican Defence Force helicopter perform a medical evacuation
Day 5 – Going through the Panama Canal
Day 8 – Seeing lots of dolphins, turtles and sting rays from our balcony
Day 8 – Seeing the results of “shade burn” on Phil (aka Lobster-Man)
Day 9 – Eating a made to order Indian dinner while watching dolphins
Day 11 – Watching a medical evacuation via a boat off the coast of Puerto Vallarta while a pirate party ship was sailing out of port shooting cannons and playing loud music
Day 13 – Seeing whale spouts, a whale’s fluke and several backs of whales
Day 14 – Being awoken by the ship’s horn due to the thick fog
Day 14 – Watching Mom on the balcony really savor her birthday cake and champagne and the “apology” chocolate covered strawberries after the chaotic customs experience
Day 15 – Ending the cruise with a champagne party in Mom and Dad’s suite
Day 16 – Sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge from the master suite (rather than a public area) and getting back to KC with no hassles at all

See you on the open ocean!

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