Julia and I decided on the morning of the cruise our bags needed revisiting: we'd done some re-arranging that last day in Hawaii after a particularly pleasant session with Hawaiian Rainbow cocktails - Julia *AND* Nanny each had two!! - so the bags were packed with more attention of getting everything in with relatively equal weight (to keep them under 50 lbs, for the plane) than keeping things in any particular order.
Now, the big black suitcase had all the "not-gonna-need-until-Vegas" stuff and the grey one had half-Julia's, half-my stuff and all electronic stuff was together, so that was good. We met in the lobby at 11 (check-out time) and hung around a bit playing with our tablets, taking advantage of WiFi and the relative warmth of the lobby. The friendly staff finally called us a van-sized cab (which we really needed because of all the baggage) and off we went to Long Beach.
The wind had died down, but it was still quite cool when we arrived. No question: we're Queenslanders! Heck, we found Holualoa cool at times, cool enough to put on jumpers and long pants. So, our light jackets were only just enough to keep us from shivering in the breeze.
Finally, after the obligatory check-in, we were on the boat. Part of the Carnival line, this one is called "Inspiration". There's all these levels. We were told our room wasn't ready, so we went to the Lido Deck and passing the pool went over to join a queue at the rotisserie (or Mongolian, for Nanny) food thingie. The food was okay: what I had was a bit pub-food, but Nanny's was really nice.
Julia and Nanny each got a pink drink thingie with an umbrella and settled into the warm sun and the festive mood. I thought I'd better save myself for a glass of wine, as I was a bit apprehensive of what grog might cost on a cruise. As it turns out, alcohol is fairly reasonably priced, really: a glass of red priced between $6.50 and $7.50 doesn't really seem excessive, certainly not for being on a cruise. I didn't care for the Mermac, much: ended up with a nice Aussie Shiraz. Or two.
We had set sail - almost imperceptibly, this occurred - when we decided to have dinner in the Mardi-Gras Dining Room. It was beautiful: elegantly presented, the portion-sizes were like for humans, not the usual gargantuan piles of food one stares at aghast as the plates arrive at your table. In a lot of restaurants in the US, hospitality is measured in size-of-portion... if you are able to clear your plate, it is assumed you didn't receive enough food. The waitress even commented something to that effect when I'd cleared my plate at Kincaid's.
Afterwards, we wandered about the ship a bit and set things up so that we could put drinks and purchases on our "Sail & Sign" card.
After a glass of Merlot (for me - the ladies were done for the evening) in what we've gome to call the "Queen Street Mall" lounge, we finally called it a night. You could barely feel the ship move in the swells as we returned to our cabins, to discover that our beds had been turned down and one of the towels had been artfully twisted into a semblance of a seal, complete with little eyes. The attention to detail and the over-all friendliness of the staff on this cruise was really quite remarkable.
Internet: not cheap, but not prohibitive, either. If I felt so inspired to absolutely HAVE to have blog items up online tonight, I could do as I am doing: type everything into a text file, log on (at $75 per minute) and in a few minutes have the whole thing done. *If* I felt so inspired. Which, at this point, I don't.
Email can wait. The blog can wait. We're on a cruise!
The tablet: bigger disappointment. I'm definitely going to have to look around for apps. There's absolutely NOTHING useful on the thing at all. And there's icons to games I'd really like to get rid of: don't intend to ever play any of those. But it will all have to wait till Vegas, I guess. So, interestingly enough, even though I've spent a fair bit more for this tablet than I did for this netbook ($479 for the tablet versus #325 plus $30 for the 2-gig SIMM), data entry is significantly easier and more productive on the netbook.
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