Getting on board

Having cleared customs – less token than in the US as the lady scrutinised our form - we were able to turn the corner and look for the Princess Cruises rep.  Success - we found a thin young man with a Princess board who, it was to turn out, had very few English language skills and even fewer organisational ones!  After all the hours we had experienced on the move, he asked us to wait and meet him in an hour at the designated Meeting Point in the airport as he was expecting further flights – at least, that’s what we think the reason was!

Then we made our first misjudgement of the day.  We sat down at the Meeting Point opposite an elderly Aussie couple.  The man quickly realised that we were on the cruise and was determined to strike up a conversation with us, wanting to impress us that he was a Princess Platinum member – yawn, yawn, so we thought we would discuss cricket!  Well, well, he might have been an Aussie, but now claimed that he was really of Dutch extraction and not interested in it.  I thought - I’ve heard it all – an Aussie who suddenly wasn’t interested in cricket now that we were winning for once!  He wanted to talk about anything and everything else while all the time we were fighting the good fight to get on to the airport’s free wifi system in order to update Facebook and the blog!  Eventually we just carried on while he was talking to thin air and his wife had a glazed look as if she had got fed up with him years ago!

Well, 10am came and went and finally we seemed to be expected to make a move.  The wagon train of weary travellers and their luggage snaked its way across the car park towards a row of coaches.  There weren’t even enough of us to fill one coach, but we were told that that there were two coaches for us.  Splitting up the party into the two coaches was quite an event.  Second misjudgement – we decided we would stand back and go on the second coach while those at the front scrambled to get on the first one.  We got on the second coach, making sure that our luggage was also on board!) and then we sat there and sat there – the guide was on his mobile phone all the time while we waited to move.

After quite some time, two large and scruffy American women appeared and got on the coach.  A heated argument ensued, as it turned out, over whether or not one of the women had paid for the transfer from the airport to the ship.  Voices were raised – well, the American’s was - and she seemed convinced that all this back and forth was discriminating against her as she was a diabetic – almost certainly brought on because she tended to eat too much!

Mutiny among the other passengers was in the air as some began to urge the guide to get started and sort it out on arrival at the ship.  Almost three hours after we had landed, the coach finally set off for the ship amid ironic cheers and applause from the occupants!

We managed to snatch a little sleep on the coach as we sped along a motorway towards the port – a journey of about an hour and 20 minutes.  Towards the end we reached to coast and climbed high above an estuary before starting to drop down towards the open sea and the entrance to a long sea tunnel.  It was while we were in the middle of the tunnel that I remembered that we were also in the middle of a prime earthquake zone.  What might happen if ....?  Don’t even think about it!  The last part of our journey was past an attractive waterside park and we stopped at a whacky boardwalk area where embarkation was taking place.

We joined a queue in the stifling heat as it snaked into the building and as we looked to persuade someone to take our luggage from us.  Third misjudgement:  we allowed a very loud American man to get into conversation with us.  I had already overheard him talking to others and everything seemed to revolve around the fact that something or other “would cost them a drink.”  Well, of course, he had been everywhere and done it all, but he couldn’t believe that we had been to Iceland as we hadn’t either ridden horses bareback up some volcano or gone husky sledding across a glacier – or “glaysher” as he repeatedly described it.  I told him we didn’t do horses or camels and moved on to talking about visiting the Faroe Islands which might as well have been the moon as far as he was concerned.  And is it true that many Americans seem to suffer from some form of congenital hearing impairment?

The one consolation for us was that our new American friend had already done a round-Britain cruise and kindly offered to put us in touch with the guide he had used if we ever needed one when touring our own country!   Our luggage was finally taken from us and we filled in the “have you had the trots in the past 3 days?” form each and found a desk where we could get our sea pass cards.  The whole check-in process was one of the slowest we have ever experienced and we were delighted to have our jolly boarding photo taken together then a serious one each on our own and we had made it!  We were on board the Sun Princess in Japan!

The ship is the smallest in the Princess fleet and probably the oldest too.  There is lots of varnished wood to be seen, but public rooms are elegant and attractive and the seating is varied but comfortable.  We found our cabin easily enough.  It must be the smallest balcony cabin we have ever had with the usual very bijou bathroom.  Indeed, using the loo is very reminiscent of using the toilet in our main bathroom at home, except that here there is less space to move!

The captain – and some of the other senior crew members – are British.  He was born in Hastings and has homes in Bournemouth and on the Gold Coast of Australia – he met his Aussie wife on board a ship.  The passengers are the most cosmopolitan set we have travelled with.  The largest groups are Americans and Australians.  There are some Brits on board plus some Spanish and Italians, Mexicans and even New Zealanders, as well as, of course, some Japanese.  There are also some American men who are 10 years or so older than me who have oriental partners of a similar age and I can only think that they are Vietnam veterans with their wives.  It all brings back memories of the US helicopters taking off from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon as the Vietcong finally stormed the city with the GIs’ girl friends clinging on to the skids of the helicopters so as not to be left behind to face victors’ justice as collaborators.  As always on cruises these days there are some Russians.  They always seem to go round in gangs of at least 4 and they are loud in the lifts and seem to have left their manners at home, pushing into lifts before those wanting to leave can get out and treading on your feet in the process!

We were to discover later that the ship had a major refit some time ago when they converted all their ocean view cabins to balcony cabins by putting a new partition in to create a balcony and by taking the window out.  That would explain an awful lot.  Storage is fairly good, but there’s no room for a sofa, only a single easy chair and that has been squeezed in.  We met our cabin attendant - Sunil from Mumbai in India - who seems a little shy and we then determined to find out about the evening dinner seating arrangements.

There was a lady in the dining room, but she couldn’t tell us where our table was as there were no numbers on the tables.  She assured us that they would know at Guest Relations.  They said they didn’t (and the body language suggested why would anyone think they would know?) and then they did and – yes – we were on a table for two.  We had a snack lunch in Horizon Court (the cafeteria) and then decided to catch up on some sleep.  We were woken an hour and a half later by the announcement that the muster would start shortly, so off we went, life jacket in hand, to muster in the casino.  It took us back to the muster on our MSC cruise.

The captain mentioned during muster that the heavens had opened and we left to find he was right.  It was absolutely tipping it down - worthy of a Florida post-lunch downpour.  There was a farewell party on the dockside.  A swing band made up of a group of high school girls played us out of Yokohama and lots of the locals came to bid us farewell.  Although it was only a shower, it went on for a bit and water poured from gutters and down drainpipes.

We then unpacked and got ready for dinner.  Needless to say, we arrived at the dining room to be shown to a table of about 12 people – to which we said “No” and were taken back to the Maitre D at the entrance who was able to put us as the only two on a table for 6!  We’d chosen a table for two this time as we didn’t want a repeat of the Iceland cruise where we were on a table for 6 with one nice cruising couple plus their two friends whom they had persuaded to cruise and who hated every minute of it – and didn’t we have to hear about it?!

After dinner that was it for the day and, at 9.30pm and after about 36 hours without a proper sleep, we said goodbye to whatever day it was – but would we be able to sleep?