January 6, 2019 - Boarding Day

January 6, 2019 - Sunday

Boarding Day

Yesterday ended pretty much as planned. St. Patrick’s was beautiful. The priest who greeted us at the door had spent some time in Chicago while studying. We had Avery nice chat. Everyone was very friendly. 

On the way back to the hotel we stopped to buy ice cream to take to the hotel. After  consuming it we put the finishing touches on our luggage, and retired. Sleep came easily after such a glorious day. 

This morning we walked into The Attic next door at about 8. We had already decided to eat lightly. We knew that we would be embarking on a voyage with no scarcity of food. We each had a muffin and coffee. 

When we got up this morning, we also decided that walking our luggage to the ship was rather dumb. Since we’re no dummies, we would ask FiFi to call a taxi for us when we checked out. 

This gave us an hour and a half for a walk. We started towards the train station. As we looked down the first cross street, High Street, we could see the Round Tower just 3 blocks away. We set off towards it. 

We passed several interesting shops along the way. It was just after 9 and the only shop open was a beautiful bookstore. After pausing here for a mere 45 minutes we moved on. 

With no need to visit the tower again we turned down a side street. This led us through the Notre Dame campus. Quite nice. 

Back on high street we visited a stereo shop. It was closed earlier, but looked interesting. It had old stereos in the widows along with vinyl albums and even cassettes. It was like entering a time capsule to see walls of shelving loaded with albums. And the old radio and stereo consoles!! Some looked like the old radio sets that I can remember “watching” as I listened to them. The vinyls were expensive unless in poor condition, but the gear seemed reasonably priced. As we were leaving I overheard a man telling the proprietor that for a certain price he could have everything he had brought. He took him outside to his pickup loaded with a console and other stuff. Wild!

Back at the hotel at 10:10 we could not unlock our room. FiFi explained that the locks reset at 10, the normal checkout time. It was quickly corrected. We gathered our things,and went down to wait for our taxi with 2 other couples already waiting. FiFi explained that because there were 2 ships in most of the taxis were running people up to Perth. She was really apologetic for something not of her doing. Suddenly 3 taxis arrived and we were all on our way. 

10 minutes and just $8 US we dropped off our luggage and were waiting for checkin. Over the PA we heard our name and another couple called. We thought this was our priority checkin. NOT !

The ladies did not have to come along as the other man and I were led to the baggage screening area. We each had one bag to open because it appeared that we each had scissors that were too long. Neither he nor I had ever heard of such a thing. The scissors were just a fraction of an inch over the limit and would have to be taken away from us. Our pleading that we would lose our lives if our wives lost their scissors led the kind lady to measure again. With a wink she said the scissors were just under the limit. She let us keep them. You could tell she was doing her job, but did not see why we geezers could not be trusted. 

James and I shared our dismay as we walked back to join our wives in the waiting area. After a short time we were called to check in. While we were being processed James and his wife were led to the station next to us where they were introduced to the clerk as members of the presidential club by the head of customer service. They are royalty with well over 1,000 cruising days. They were zipped through the process and escorted through customs and to their stateroom while we were still being attended to. 

The afternoon passed quickly with a mariners lunch in the dining room, touring the ship to get our bearings and the lifeboat drill. During our ship’s tour we met Rianto, the dining room manager. He remembered us from last year on the World Cruise. He greeted us warmly. He checked us into the dining room for dinner with a table for 2 near the aft windows. This proved to be a great Location with a pleasant couple at the 2 top closest to the windows. We learned that they boarded for the previous cruise and had their table reserved for them. They will be leaving in Singapore, and we will then request their table for our remaining 61 days. We think highly of our steward there. 

Tomorrow’s port is Geraldton, Western Australia. We retired shortly after 10 in preparation.