Here’s the welcome we got. :)
Gun from the balcony – day 34
We got in late thanks to late tours in St. John’s, and since this was the first stop in the US, we had to get our passports looked at by Immigration. The notice said wait in your room until your group is called, and do NOT queue up. We were supposed to be first because we had early tour tickets. We waited, being informed it would be about an hour late, and waited, and waited. I finally went down to see what was happening, and found no activity yet, save for a line stretching through the casino, and then through the shops. What the hell, can anyone follow instructions?
Back to the room, more waiting. After another half hour, I went down to find the line moving with no announcements made. OK, now I was pissed. This was a total cluster****. I got Neesh, and we waited in the long line, and it was clear not everyone had excursion tickets. No one was announcing that, and I was worried we were going to miss it. Turns out no tenders had left yet.
Finally get up to the officer, who simply looked at the passports, and asked stuff like where do you live. Probably just checking accents, who knows. Not terribly thorough, although they obviously had all the info. on file somewhere. He looked at my hat and said “Welcome back to Red Sox Nation. They’re still terrible.” A good laugh broke my funk.
Off to the showroom to get our tender and we were informed the tour to Acadia was being merged with the 11:15 tour. Not terribly surprised since it was 9:30, so we had to get regular tender tickets. Neesh was already sketchy about this as she wanted to walk around Bar Harbor, but I assured her we’d have time. The usual announcements that things would be moving quickly, and sure enough, not at all. Two groups in 50 minutes, and we were not even close to our tender number. I really had enjoyed nearly every aspect of Holland America, but the tendering has been flat out horrible. They finally called the tour ahead of everyone else. Phew.
Once we got ashore, we made our way to the bus to be informed it would be leaving at 11:45 instead. That was enough for Neesh, we’d skip the tour. What she didn’t realize is that we wouldn’t get reimbursed once we got ashore (turns out they did regardless – thank you Shorex dept.!).
We tooled about, and found a place for lunch with something I had been craving for days now. A meatball sub. Oh was I happy. It was good being back in the US, and I had fun telling the bartender we sailed for 34 days from Boston to come to Maine. More sampling of the local beers. Good stuff here.
More walking and shopping, including some great t-shirts (“Always bring a compass. It’s awkward when you have to eat your friends.”), more, emmmm, rest stops (glug glug glug), and after 4 hours, we were toast. We got in the tender line, and of course, the folks in front of us filled it. Hmmm, bar right there, I don’t see another tender, let’s have another drink! Against my better judgment. Of course, as soon as we got our drinks, another tender was loading. Hey, where was that thing hiding? Neesh gave me that look, you guys all know what that is. :)
Drank our drinks, got on the tender, back on the ship. I was pretty buzzed at this point, oops. Still have the final packing to do. This truly sucked, and took some time, and the dulffle bag was heavy as hell, as well as my backpack with two laptops. It was not going to be pretty tomorrow getting off the ship. That being done, my dinner consisted of chocolate ice cream, which even that didn’t sit well on my stomach. 35 days of vacation was finally catching up to me.
Still, stuff to do. We were able to find the cabin stewards easily enough, and then we headed to the Crow’s Nest to find as many of the four waiters as we could, but on the way we ran into Glen coming out of the front. I reminded him of the CD, and he said, come with me, through the emergency exit only door. I was like, wow, can we go in there, but he assured me it was ok, and off into the unknown I went. Turns out it’s all “V” cabins, for the talent. They are small, with a small single person bed, and little room for anything else (I suppose there was storage that I couldn’t see). Neat to see that. So with CD in hand, we were on the waiter hunt. A couple had been reassigned during the cruise, but I was keyed in on where they were at by now. Success. Erwin, Roselle, Roldan and Melanie all found.
Our absolute favorite was Melanie. She was finishing a 10 month contract tomorrow, and she is one hard worker. They put in 12 hours or maybe more on the ship, 7 days a week, and she said she usually doesn’t take much time off. The two months she was thinking of taking was an exception. This girl was doing everything she could to take care of her family in the Philippines, and at this point, we had talked enough about our lives to consider her our friend. We let her know all this, and traded facebook names to stay in touch.
All tasks accomplished, we hit the room and set out the luggage. Holy crap, they must be filled with lead. Dear porters, I am so sorry. Off to bed with a 6:30 alarm. Home tomorrow!
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