Melsea's Adventures of South America & Pacific Adventures Part 24

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melsea
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Melsea's Adventures of South America & Pacific Adventures Part 24

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Post by melsea »

Melsea's Adventures of South America & Pacific Adventures Part 24

Day 81. 4 of 4 almost there at our penultimate port in the Pacific Ocean.
29th March Evening Casual

Clocks went forward one hour at noon. -7 GMT

Again last night we watched a film until late only this time it was past the hour of 2am!
We woke a little earlier than yesterday and Bill went ahead while I got myself out of the pit, showered & dressed.
Bill had ordered my food, fruit platter & a cranberry juice with no ice. Bill went off to church I sat in the Glass House to finish my tea and Cranberry Juice.
I went in search of friends Brian & Lorraine to show them where to catch the F-Market street car on my pop out map of San Francisco. Then I went to reception to get my door card made again as I can't get in with it at present. Reception area was busy with people leaving the ship tomorrow. They were queuing to have their cases left on board to either be collected at Southampton or be delivered to their home when the ship arrives back at Southampton on 23rd April.
When the clocks went forward at noon I went back to the cabin where Bill was and I said as the clocks went forward everything gets squashed up in time and so I had my lunch without Bill up in the Horizon. There were so many people that I went out the back in the sun, I had the sun on my back, it was nice even though it was a bit windy close to the railings.
Having had lunch I went back to the cabin to collect my paintings to take down to the Casino wall corridor that adjoins Champions bar, as I got there early I was able to place them up on the wall wherever I wanted. There were a few of us that were waiting for James & Linda to bring the blue tack so we could put our paintings up. Got chatting to a number of fellow artist and from the camera club as well. Two couples said they really liked my winning photo. We also commented on the fact that the categories they give us should really have awards for each categories as we felt it seems unfair not to do this. Anyway we are now in our final stage of both the art classes & the camera club photography competition. At the Art exhibition there was a young lad, Logan who is 10 years old who had 11 paintings and a Lego like exhibit which was an image of the ship Aurora, the Irish Cruise Entertainment Officer bought the Aurora piece of art for her Nephew. She is the one that orchestrates the on board passenger choir. I too bought two of his paintings, I was so impressed that one wonders will he continue and will he turn into a famous painter in the future, who knows. All I know is that I liked what he did and so I bought two there and then. Paid him in dollars as they were an American family so dollars was a good thing. Later on I kept thinking I should have got the painting of the Kangaroos under the tree which I liked at the time but could not decide which one not to buy, so later on I rang to ask if he still had it & could I buy it, yes was the answer and so I bought that as well. Had a lovely chat with his mother and I met his two younger brothers they are a nice family. They will be getting off in San Francisco having spent four years in New Zealand. They were heading back to the states because their time allocation to stay in NZ had come to an end and so they were heading back home to Tucson, Arizona.
It's been an odd day in that you really get a sense of things coming to an end. Whether for those getting off tomorrow or for the fact that this is coming to the final leg of our Grand Voyage.
Sat outside the back of the ship where the sun was still shining bright. Although windy it wasn't as cold as he had been during the day.
In the evening I went to see a double bill show in the Curzon Theatre. Will Martin & Paul Emmanuel. Both very good. Will did just three songs as I expect he was wanting to preserve his voice, when he first got on he had a serious sore throat and couldn't really sing, Paul sang songs of the great Nat King Cole, I think he is better suited for these songs.

Day 82. First Day in San Francisco.

30th March
Sunny & Warm and dry too.

I decided not to get up early to see our sail in under the Golden Gate Bridge as it was too early 6am and we were to have a really long day. Also it would have been a little too dark. So the alarm went off at around 8am which we ignored and we got up at around 8.45. We went down to breakfast to the Glass House. We left the ship at around 10.15 I think it was. We took the F-Market street car which we picked up just outside the terminal, very handy that was too. The ride took about 15 to 20 minutes for us to arrive close to Union Square at the junction of Stockton Street where the Apple Store is. When we went in and walked up the stairs where Bill wanted to talk to someone about his ear phones which are not working, we found there were a number of P&O passengers including Jim & Marjorie. Having updated a few things, downloaded some podcast and delete various things also to make room on the iPad. Bill stayed on while I went over the road, Market Street where there is a mall with a couple of shops I wanted to look in on and had made a note of where they were. Fortunately the ones I was looking for were in the same place. Banana Republic & Vera Bradley. I also went into a couple of other shops too including two I use at home, Zara's & H&M. Couldn't find anything new and different in H&M but I did see a couple of things in Zara's. I also saw some things Banana Republic & Vera Bradley. I couldn't decide what to buy so I made my way over to Union Square when I got a call from Bill who was sitting in the sunshine in Union Square so I joined him for a Hot Chocolate. The Hot Choc was really sweet which is not surprising as they do like to ply their drinks with lots of sugar. Having drunk my drink I went over to Macy's to have quick look and to see the 'Art in Bloom' that was adorning the shelves above the counter in the basement. It looked really good, they were flower arrangements on a bigger scale. Having been a while in there I went back to the other shops I looked at earlier and tried on the clothes again to make sure they fitted alright and that I liked them. So having tried on the clothes I decided I would buy them, at the Banana Republic store they were doing some kind of special deals which I could not work out as there seem to be sale items and other items with discounts, well mine had 30% & 40% off. No idea how that worked but I was grateful for the extra discounts. It was all too soon the time to make my way back to the ship but not before I went back to the Apple Store for a final check on things.
Got back to the ship 5pm. Bill was very successful with the shopping in Macy's, all very good bargains, better than mine. Once we had shown each other what we had bought we started to get ready for out night out on the town courtesy of P&O it was for those passengers that are in the Ligurian Tier & were also doing the full world cruise. We were being taken to the Fairmont Hotel where we were to have a meal, drinks and a Jazz band will play for us to dance to, it was a Black Tie dress code as well. We were collected at the terminal by a fleet of coaches, very nice coaches at that. We arrived at the hotel and taken through what was probably the biggest lobby area I have ever seen in a hotel and it was breath taking. We were shown to a room that already had lots of other passengers there that were enjoying a glass or two of bubbly. We managed to get at least one glass, we should have arrived earlier to have had more! It wasn't long before we were taken to a large room which is known as the Gold Room and was to be our arena of the nights activities. All the tables were round and seated 10. On our table we had Verity who was one of the Peninsular Loyalty managers. There were a few speeches made and then the party began. Wine was placed on our table and soon the meal was being delivered. The meal wasn't much to write home about and it was soon clear that the waiter service was not so good either, in fact on our table, two people, one was Bill did not get their main meal until most of us were almost finished, I tried to eat mine slowly. Eventually we all had our desserts at the same time. One thing we did notice was that we still had the same two bottles of wine on our table from the start of our meal and we realised that other tables were getting plenty of wine. This was soon rectified and we had ample to see us through. The band meanwhile had been playing who were very good. It wasn't long before someone had got up and started to dance, Bill had gestured to me we should go up first but I was unsure and shy to do so and later I really wished we had. Once one couple got up we all virtually did and some point or another and in fact you could hardy move as there were so many of us. Bill and I and everyone else danced the night away. The atmosphere was electric and the band were feeding off our energy and excitement & we off them, a truly great night. Getting us to leave was proving difficult and no one wanted to leave. We spoke with the band and they said they had such a great night and we were brilliant!! They said a very interesting thing, when they play to an American crowd they just sit and listen, where as we got up and dance and they loved it and wished more people would do that. Have to hand it to P&O for inviting us to what was quite a different thing to do, so a big Thank You them. We were the last ones to leave with 7 to 8 others and we ended up going back to the ship in a mini bus and not the big coach. It was hilarious, especially watching one lady trying to get onto the bus and kept missing the step. In her defence it was very dark and not very clear to see, fortunately there were two people holding her so that she did not fall flat on her face. The lady driver commented on the fact we were a very happy bunch and did we have a good time. She couldn't help but have a smile on her face all the way back to our ship. Here is a little trivia for you, The Fairmont Hotel was the first place that Tony Bennett sang "I left my heart in San Francisco", we danced to this wonderful song and where better eh!! It had certainly been a long day and we still had another day here in this beautiful city. Needless to say getting to sleep wasn't going to be difficult. Getting up tomorrow might be..

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emjay45
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of South America & Pacific Adventures Part 24

#2

Post by emjay45 »

I saw the show with Will Marten and Paul Emmanuel and I thought Paul Emmanuel was excellent, a good singer and very entertaining. Ooh! one of the things I didn't like about this cruise compared to a circumnavigation was the clocks going forward so many times, and losing the hour during the day. It really did cut the days short.

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melsea
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of South America & Pacific Adventures Part 24

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Post by melsea »

Believe me you don't want to loose those hours in the night, it's a killer, I know I have done it, you become a complete zombie. Best to travel West rather than East..

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