Sunday, 12 May 2019
At sea south of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada
Three cruise ships in port today. All loading up for an evening sailing. All three will be in convoy up the Inside Passage for a few days.
Have a spare few hours and thought I’d be rushed to research and book things to do for the spare week I now have between landing in Seward and needing to be in Anchorage. Thankfully, and very gratefully, Mrs Cincinnati (whom I met on the train travelling through Ecuador and who has been a very useful travel guru for the USA, thank you very much) emails with a list of hotels and things to do in the region. Saves an awful lot of time on my part, so thank you Mrs C. What would have taken hours, takes a few minutes to book. I know I can trust her judgement on hotels.
Having already done a recce of the cruise ship check in, leave it until after lunch to go and embark. There’s a very short queue at check in and through in a matter of minutes. I’m all over this. Security screening of bags and people also takes a matter of minutes. I’m all over this. This is easy. Good job I did my recce.
Thought I.
And then.
US Immigration.
Oh.
My.
God.
There’s a queue. For the queue. For the queue.
Yep.
US & Canadians are channelled down one line which is free flowing.
Non-US & Canadians are channelled down another. And we queue. This queue is then released to go join another queue.
Which is so long that they’ve provided chairs for us to sit on.
I kid you not.
Told it will only take 20mins.
20mins my arse.
Losing the will to live.
Just under 2hrs of my life I’ll never get back.
Sat waiting…to join another sodding queue.
The rows of chairs are called in the order in which you sat down.
Sitting with old folk all around me. If this is what life holds for me in later life then shoot me now.
Deary me.
We’ve had Top Trumps Medical Conditions. It starts with some lowly ailment, then another pipes up with something slightly worse and ends up with the Top Trump. Cancer, obviously. Then it’s various types of cancer Top Trumps.
Dear God.
Remember once whilst travelling on the Trans Siberian Express that one old dear told the dinner table that she’d donated her husband’s brain for research at the local university. The last thing you want to be discussing whilst eating your mashed potato.
Eventually.
Our row is called.
Thank God.
But.
This is merely to join the standing up queue for the Immigration desks.
Now. Get this. To process the 6,500 people on three cruise ships in a matter of hours. Guess how many Immigration desks there are.
14.
Yep. You read that right.
14.
Bloody ridiculous.
US and Canadian passport holders can go through an automated passport scan kiosk but everyone else has to go and have passports checked by a human US Immigration Officer and have fingerprints taken.
2hrs of my life for that.
Harumph.
However, that’s the final hurdle. It is with some glee that I can now finally embark the ship.
Except.
I can’t.
In a scene that would be perfect for Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights and his character Brian Potter, some old bloke on a mobility scooter is blocking the gang plank. He’s been driving up the zig zag ramps to the ship when his scooter battery runs out half way up.
Stop laughing.
So. There we all are. Backing up in yet another queue. Because a broken down mobility scooter is blocking the way. Have to laugh to myself.
Couple of able bodied blokes help push the scooter up the gang plank. But. The scooter is in gear and they can’t push. Old bloke tries to fix it by pushing the ‘go’ button (or whatever it is they have) and as the batteries have accumulated a smidgeon more power after a brief respite, the scooter lurches forward. Which means the blokes pushing are taken by surprise and stumble over as they’ve been pushing hard a static object which is now mobile. Bit like when you used to jump start a car and it would shoot off. Trying not to laugh at the situation, the scooter finally makes it on to the deck.
What larks.
Once on board find my cabin.
I know it’s an ‘Ocean View’ and that’s about it.
Well, dear reader. Open my cabin door. It is indeed ‘Ocean View’.
Yes.
At.
Sea.
Level.
Ducks are practically floating past my window.
Like Leonardo di Caprio in the film ‘Titanic’, find I’m in what is essentially, steerage. You couldn’t be more lower down in the bowels of the ship.
It’s actually quite nice and pleased with my cabin. Far better than the car ferry cabin that I had anticipated being on. No. This will do very nicely.
Quick orientation tour of the ship before the lifeboat muster. The tannoy expressly says there’s absolutely no need to bring your lifejacket for the purposes of the drill. Surprising how many people bring a lifejacket though.
On my tour, find the theatre and have a quick chat with a techie. Walk down some stairs and find myself at stage level. So, obviously, as I have an interest in such things, walk on to stage. Oh dear. What have I done. No sooner have I stepped on to the stage than a load of voices shriek out, “Sir, you can’t go on the stage!”. Why, I ask. “It’s dangerous, you might fall off!”. FFS. Spend half my life on theatre stages rigging lights at high level up a ladder. Think I can handle standing on an empty stage. And anyway, young man, I’ve been standing on stages longer than you’ve been born.
Dockside is a hive of activity loading up all the food, drinks and baggage. Plenty of cranes, conveyors and fork lift trucks scurrying around. Fascinating stuff.
Set sail just after 1800hrs. The Star Princess and the Westerdam have also departed within the hour.
Au revoir Vancouver. It’s been a blast.
Can hardly tell we’re moving as we sail out. It’s that solid and stable. No noise. No squeaks. No groans. No rattles. Smooth as silk. A very quiet ship.
Surprised by how many people reading this blog have done the Alaska Inside Passage cruise and also how many have sailed on this particular ship. Some very useful advice has been given. Thank you to all. Number 1: avoid the buffet restaurants. Number 2: use the fine dining room. Number 3: find a quiet corner and you won’t know there’s 2,000 other people on board. Number 4: see the BBC show. Number 5: there’s always a trivia quiz and the answer is yoghurt if you get a question on American school kids’ lunches.
So.
Dinner in the fine dining restaurant it is then. Having been to the Lido buffet on deck 9, I now understand why. It’s like a scrum up there, queueing for food at various counters, with the morbidly obese waddling about with plates stacked high of all you can eat and more mobility scooters than you shake a stick at. Yuk. Disgusting.
The fine dining restaurant and the buffet are included in the general price and, in addition, there are two other restaurants which you can pay a supplement for to enter. Very happy with the food and service in the included fine dining restaurant though and find there’s no need to pay the extra.
Ask for a window table. And a window table I get. Right at the stern looking out over the propeller wash. Awesome view. Quiet place away from the main thoroughfare and meet the Indonesian waiter. He used to play in a football team that toured England when he was younger. Tells me that Chelsea and Arsenal beat them 7-2, Leicester 5-3 but that they actually beat a team called Nottingham Forest 3-2. He laughs when I tell him I’m from Nottingham.
Postprandial perambulation along the Promenade Deck admiring the sunset over Hornby Island as we sail past.
Can’t believe it’s a week already since I was on Hornby.
