Travel On Easter Sunday
Apr. 23rd, 2007 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakAviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect. — Captain A. G. Lamplugh
The first part of my tale is one of careful over-planning. I arrived at the airport with just two bags. One carry on bag and one 'personal item' a largish bag probably intended for laptop stuff. I also had headphones I got for 'free' from using points off my credit card. I was there quite early, more than an hour and a half ahead of time and quite keyed up. I had spent weeks checking flight loads and being slightly worried that things would go south on me. But whatever gods of travel smiled and not only did I get on the flight to Houston at 7am, but I didn't even had to wait until the last minute to get on the flight to Hawaii. They just called up all the standby passengers and handed out tickets. That is unusual, usually there is some waiting and checking to see if there are any last seats for the few people standing around waiting to get on.
I attempted the movies and ended up mostly listening to Undead and Unreturnable which is rather like an Anita Blake novel with a slightly more self aware valley girl as the lead. Yes, this is a humorous book that is intended to be funny. And I was quietly chuckling at a lot of it. Though not the sex scenes, which are usually the funniest things in an Anita Blake book. Those actually managed to be sexy to be despite being about undead heterosexuals. No sleep on the plane to speak of. I totally envy people who can manage to do that. I cannot do more than doze uneasily when extremely tired. So I arrived in Hawaii at about 3:30 in the afternoon, local time, that's 7:30 at night Denver time. Twelve hours of travel and I was totally keyed up and excited. It was pleasantly warm and the airport was a sort of open air mall. Nice. I could see where it hearkened back to the days before excessive security and also the influence of climate. And a statue of a naked guy doing something athletic.
And then I called Richie, he was at the airport! He had not thought he could come down to meet me, but he was there waiting by the baggage carousel. We met there since it was an easy spot for me to find. After hunting around for some long moments we finally spotted each other. He had one of the flower necklaces, a lei, for me! I was totally charmed and wore the fragrant yellow plumeria blossoms with my bright purple dress shirt without any embarrassment. We caught a taxi back to the ship where everything went smoothly with me getting on board the "Pride of Aloha".
I don't have anything to compare the ship to, but at 260 meters (853 feet) long and 32¼ meters (105.8 feet) it is by far the largest ship I have ever been on (though I was told later it is small by cruise ship standards). As I mentioned on my first voice post on the evening of Sunday the 8th I've only been out on the ocean in a fishing boot before. And a ferry going across to Victoria Island once now that I have a bit more time to think about it. We set sail, so to speak, near sunset. The motion of the ship was very apparent to me and Richie worried that I would be sea sick, but I didn't have any trouble (even when drunk) for the whole cruise. The ship seemed very much a floating hotel, a somewhat classy one, not a Motel 6, but definitely a variety of hotel rather than the old style ocean liners. It all seemed like a Hawaiian themed Sheraton. An attempt had been made to make things pretty, but not much had a real feel outside of the items in the Hawaii Cultural Center, a sort of on board museum I found later. Lots of Disney versions of Hawaii rather than the real thing.
I didn't have a huge amount of time to see it. There was a safety drill to let us know where to go in case of emergency. I found my station without trouble and it seemed to go as smoothly as could be expected. Thereafter I wandered about exploring my diggs and eventually going in search of some food. Dinner was about as good as from a mid-priced restaurant with no particular claim to fame. I cannot remember everything I had now, but I remember that the lamb was juicy. Far too often I've had it over cooked when served from some sort of hotel buffet. I was unhappy that Richie was busy and could not join me for dinner and all through the week he had to dress up in slacks and wear his badge to go up there, a downer.
And here I will draw a curtain on the rest of the right. Gentle rocking of the ship accompanied... well you can guess. And then sleep.
The first part of my tale is one of careful over-planning. I arrived at the airport with just two bags. One carry on bag and one 'personal item' a largish bag probably intended for laptop stuff. I also had headphones I got for 'free' from using points off my credit card. I was there quite early, more than an hour and a half ahead of time and quite keyed up. I had spent weeks checking flight loads and being slightly worried that things would go south on me. But whatever gods of travel smiled and not only did I get on the flight to Houston at 7am, but I didn't even had to wait until the last minute to get on the flight to Hawaii. They just called up all the standby passengers and handed out tickets. That is unusual, usually there is some waiting and checking to see if there are any last seats for the few people standing around waiting to get on.
I attempted the movies and ended up mostly listening to Undead and Unreturnable which is rather like an Anita Blake novel with a slightly more self aware valley girl as the lead. Yes, this is a humorous book that is intended to be funny. And I was quietly chuckling at a lot of it. Though not the sex scenes, which are usually the funniest things in an Anita Blake book. Those actually managed to be sexy to be despite being about undead heterosexuals. No sleep on the plane to speak of. I totally envy people who can manage to do that. I cannot do more than doze uneasily when extremely tired. So I arrived in Hawaii at about 3:30 in the afternoon, local time, that's 7:30 at night Denver time. Twelve hours of travel and I was totally keyed up and excited. It was pleasantly warm and the airport was a sort of open air mall. Nice. I could see where it hearkened back to the days before excessive security and also the influence of climate. And a statue of a naked guy doing something athletic.
And then I called Richie, he was at the airport! He had not thought he could come down to meet me, but he was there waiting by the baggage carousel. We met there since it was an easy spot for me to find. After hunting around for some long moments we finally spotted each other. He had one of the flower necklaces, a lei, for me! I was totally charmed and wore the fragrant yellow plumeria blossoms with my bright purple dress shirt without any embarrassment. We caught a taxi back to the ship where everything went smoothly with me getting on board the "Pride of Aloha".
I don't have anything to compare the ship to, but at 260 meters (853 feet) long and 32¼ meters (105.8 feet) it is by far the largest ship I have ever been on (though I was told later it is small by cruise ship standards). As I mentioned on my first voice post on the evening of Sunday the 8th I've only been out on the ocean in a fishing boot before. And a ferry going across to Victoria Island once now that I have a bit more time to think about it. We set sail, so to speak, near sunset. The motion of the ship was very apparent to me and Richie worried that I would be sea sick, but I didn't have any trouble (even when drunk) for the whole cruise. The ship seemed very much a floating hotel, a somewhat classy one, not a Motel 6, but definitely a variety of hotel rather than the old style ocean liners. It all seemed like a Hawaiian themed Sheraton. An attempt had been made to make things pretty, but not much had a real feel outside of the items in the Hawaii Cultural Center, a sort of on board museum I found later. Lots of Disney versions of Hawaii rather than the real thing.
I didn't have a huge amount of time to see it. There was a safety drill to let us know where to go in case of emergency. I found my station without trouble and it seemed to go as smoothly as could be expected. Thereafter I wandered about exploring my diggs and eventually going in search of some food. Dinner was about as good as from a mid-priced restaurant with no particular claim to fame. I cannot remember everything I had now, but I remember that the lamb was juicy. Far too often I've had it over cooked when served from some sort of hotel buffet. I was unhappy that Richie was busy and could not join me for dinner and all through the week he had to dress up in slacks and wear his badge to go up there, a downer.
And here I will draw a curtain on the rest of the right. Gentle rocking of the ship accompanied... well you can guess. And then sleep.