Sunday - 5 miles to the Ryndam
soft bed, dry sheets, hot water, flush toilets …
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25 miles to soft bed, dry sheets, hot water, and flush toilets.
The hostel we were in didn’t have a washer or dryer, but they did have a good sized closet and a space heater. So we hung our clothes up in the closet and turned the space heater on all the way. It got so hot in the room we had to open a window. Our clothes were still damp, but not dripping at least. Except for the socks and shoes which were still dripping.
It definitely rained last night, which is good because I would have been bitter if it hadn’t, however this morning it wasn’t raining.
I have a sore throat.
This room has a little two burner stove and sink, so we could cook breakfast in our room which was nice. As we were getting our breakfast and getting packed and ready it still was not raining. We went out on our bicycles to pick up a few things and it still was not raining. We went by the cruise ship terminal, but there was a huge line, so we went back to into Seward. It still was not raining. I swear to God if it had rained on us all night Friday while camping, all day Saturday while riding, but then not on Sunday when we were going to be on the ship I was going to be pissed.
Just as I was about to get a serious bitter on, it started raining.
We did some more errands in the rain, to make sure we were good and wet for our arrival, then loaded up the bicycles and headed back to the cruise terminal. It was completely empty. The terminal is in a huge hangar and with nobody in it, it was very spacious and empty. I rode my bicycle in, as I was riding in the security people got all upset saying you can’t ride in here! And waved us over to the security area.
The comedy of errors begins here.
We went over to the security area and amidst security personnel directing us and waving we unloaded our stuff from our bicycles onto the x-ray machine, they took our bicycles and pulled them around the machine. You’d think these people hadn’t ever seen a bicycle before they were acting like they were a strange beast. Once we got the bicycles past the security area and all of our stuff through the x-ray machine they asked for our ID.
"It’s in my bag over there on the other side of the x-ray," I said.
This was a real conundrum for the security people as they aren’t allowed to let anybody through without ID, yet they can’t touch our stuff to get our ID out. There was quite a bit of ineffectual flapping and finally they decided to let me go through, get the ID and come back. After she checked our ID she asked for our boarding cards.
"Boarding cards? We don’t have any boarding cards."
They were so hysterical about the presence of bicycles in their enormous hangar that they waved us right past the check in for Holland America Line and directly to security.
Yet another conundrum for security as our stuff had already been through the x-ray, but no bag shall be left unattended. Yet we had to leave unattended bags in order to go to the HAL counter and check in. More ineffectual flapping and finally they sent us over to the HAL counter to check in, leaving the bags *gasp* unattended at the x-ray machine.
At one point one of the security guards quipped, trying to be funny, ‘what’d you do, ride from Anchorage?’
"Yes, we did," I deadpanned back, "We left on Friday. It took us two days to get here."
We finally got checked in, got boarding cards, security checked our ID *again*, we walked through security *again* and were able to get onto the ship.
Our suitcase with dry clothes hadn’t arrived yet so I squished around in wet shorts and t-shirt to do laundry. My shoes squished water with each step. I took off my nasty wet socks and was walking in the shoes with no socks, but they rub and hurt, so I took dinner napkins and wrapped them around my feet. They got wet instantly, but at least my feet didn’t rub so bad. I could wash and dry our clothes so we could be clean and dry, except for our feet. We both had disgusting wet shoes and none dry. We stayed in the room until our suitcase arrived so we could put on dry shoes. It was a marvelous thing.
The rest of the day is pretty typical cruise ship stuff. We had lunch in the Lido buffet. We had lifeboat drill, which unlike the Queen Mary HAL takes very seriously. Statistically, the people that survive emergencies are the ones that paid attention to the emergency information. HAL is a bit archaic in that they still do the ‘women and children first’ thing for getting into the lifeboats even though there’s enough space in the lifeboats for everyone. For the sake of peace I stood in the front row with the women, but strategize with Wendell that should a real emergency arise I wouldn’t be getting into the lifeboat until he gets into the lifeboat.
When you book through AMEX one of the perks you get is a complementary dinner for two on the first night in the specialty restaurant which happened to be the Pinnacle Grill. The reason they do this on the first night is because nobody goes to dinner in the specialty restaurant on the first night. We were the only ones in there so we got a lot of special attention.
I feel bad for all of the housekeeping staff because Indonesia is being hit with earthquakes right now and they are all worried about their families. At port stops all of them that have shore leave go use the pay phones to call home. One of our staff in the Pinnacle Grill, one of his families houses had been destroyed.
Wendell contemplates the purchase of an Alaskan grade RV
Hobbit riding her bike down the port passageway on A Deck
Luckily none of the stewards saw her.
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