Day 8--Debarkation

Day 8—Debarkation

Although the seas were somewhat calm, there was some rolling and pitching during the night.  Although I enjoyed being rocked to sleep, I had to get up and stop the wooden hangars from banging together, so I pushed them all to one side and wrapped a towel around them.  Since the ship needed to increase speed to arrive in Los Angeles on time, the Sapphire was running without the stabilizers (the Staff Captain had told me that previously).

I had set my alarm this morning just be sure that I woke up on time since we had to be out of the room by 8:00 in the morning.  We also had a time change during the night and moved the clock back an hour.  So instead of waking up at 5:30 like usual, I ended up waking up at 4:30—well before my alarm woke me up.  I took a shower, got dressed, and had coffee out on the Lido deck.  It was definitely much colder than it had been, but I wanted to watch the sunrise one last time over the ocean and watch our approach into Los Angeles.

As I sat there, I thought I should send a thank you note to the Staff Captain for dinner, but had no idea how to mail a letter to a ship.  I decided to use the personal stationery I had received as a gift from the printing plant during the Ultimate Ships Tour to write a thank you note.  I thanked him for both the tour and the dinner and said I had enjoyed our conversations.

The dining room started serving breakfast at 6:30, so after I finished writing the thank you note and finished my final packing, I went downstairs to have breakfast.  I stopped by Passenger Services and asked if they could deliver my letter to the Staff Captain and they assured me they would see that he got it.  I figured it wouldn’t be delivered for a while, but at least he would get it (instead of trying to mail it to Princess headquarters and hope they actually delivered it to the ship).  After breakfast, it was time to get my luggage out of my room, so I went back upstairs.  Arnold, my cabin steward was in the hallway, so I thanked him for taking good care of me then went into my room.  I checked to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything and got my carry-on luggage and was just leaving my room when the Staff Captain came down the hallway.

He said he was looking for me and had a few minutes before he had to be back on the bridge and was glad he caught me upstairs.  We stood in the hallway and talked.  I told him he did a good job docking the ship and he smiled and said that’s good since that means he’ll get paid at the end of the month.  He thanked me for the note and I said I was surprised he had received it so soon.  But he said the crew has strict instructions to always deliver any messages for the Captain or for himself immediately.  We kept getting interrupted by passengers who stopped to ask him questions or to talk to him.  One lady stopped and looked at him and when he asked if he could help her, she said she was just looking at his uniform and that he looked good, then turned and left.  He looked at me and grinned, and said it was always like this with passengers, that they always wanted to speak to him, asked questions, or he ended up directing them where to go, so he normally tries to avoid being in the passenger areas.  (I imagine that could be tiring day after day, year after year.)

During a brief lull in the trail of passengers vacating their rooms, he told me that he would very much like to come to Las Vegas, but that it would be difficult since the ship is only in port for a day and although he can leave the ship, he isn’t allowed to travel.  I asked what will happen in January when the Sapphire goes into dry dock for the month and he said that unfortunately, one of the senior officers must remain with the ship and supervise the work of the contractors the entire time, and he is the officer that must stay.  I said that I understood that he had responsibilities to the ship and hoped that someday he would be able to visit.  He then asked me to please keep in contact with him and I said that would be up to him since I had no contact information for him, but that he had my business card.  He thanked me again for the pleasure of my company at dinner, told me he had to get back to the bridge, gave me a very brief hug and the traditional Italian cheek-to-cheek touching, and wished me a pleasant journey.  He then went back down the hall to the bridge and I took the elevator to Deck 7 and the Explorers Lounge where I waited to disembark.

Disembarkation, clearing customs, getting my luggage, getting on the bus and arriving at LAX all went smoothly.  The flight back home was uneventful. 

Princess Cruise Line’s motto is “Escape Completely” and in a way that’s exactly what I did.  But the cruise was now over and it was now time to get back to reality, back to work, and back to the day-to-day routine.

Since I don’t have unlimited vacation time or unlimited funds, I won’t be going on a cruise again for a while.  But this second cruise definitely did NOT cure me of my cruising addiction.   I know I’ll be checking the cruise schedules and sometime next year, I’ll go again.  I have no idea when, where, or what ship, but I do know this has not been my last cruise.