We weren't the only ones up early as people were saying their final goodbyes, having their last breakfast and tossing things into carry-ons. Looking out our cabin window we could see some of the 10,000 + pieces of luggage being put into the terminal. I don't know what time they started removing it from the ship but they began picking up from the hallways about 4:00 pm Saturday and continued all night. We had 10 suitcases outside our cabin door but the people down the hall had at least 15 cardboard cartons and two of the largest suitcases I have ever seen. At the last minute Saturday night, we purchased a smallish, soft sided bag as we thought we might be very close to the 50 pound per bag limit for check-in luggage.
We had put down we had a 12:30 flight (actually it was 12:44) and received luggage tags labeled Black #1. Silly us, thinking Black #1 would be called first. About 9:15am the announcement came that the ship had been cleared and all passengers holding Blue #1 could proceed to the gangway. And at intervals, Blue #2, 3, 4, and 5. At about 10 pm Black #1 was called, but not before a few people with other tags had tried to get off prematurely....and told in no uncertain terms by waiting passengers to get out of line and nicely by the staff.
Off we went, having our room cards scanned for the last time. Customs was a breeze, the line non-existent but the agent did look at our slip and say, "Is that all you spent?" Fortunately, we had no large purchases so we could honestly say yes.
Luggage was arranged fairly well in color coded groups but our 10th bag had been misplaced with the Black #5s and took a while to find. Porters were plentiful and the terminal staff helpful in locating errant bags. The porter loaded all 10 bags and we grabbed our two carry-ons, my large but soft over the shoulder bag and the lap-top.
Holland America had the DHL truck right at the terminal, we handed six bags over to them, placed six more on the shuttle bus and headed for the airport. My worries were for naught, our pre-printed boarding passes got us quickly through check-in and we had time for the bathrooms and catching our breath before we boarded our Air Tran flight.
The first leg of the flight was uneventful, as was the second from Newport News (no plane change) and we arrived in Boston about 5 or 10 minutes early. As we were waiting for our last bag to come out, I spied the 5:15 Bonanza bus arriving outside .....and leaving.Another two minutes and we would have made it. Instead we had to wait for the 7:30. Our final bus ride for a while ended in Falmouth, we called a cab and were in the house about 10:30.
A fantastic journey has ended. We will have memories to last a lifetime. We have been fortunate to have done what most people only dream of and what some would never imagine. We've meet interesting people --fellow passengers, crew members, and people from other lands. We've mingled with people from almost every religion and belief, nationality and race. We transited the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, sailed the Caribbean, the Pacific Ocean, the South China Sea, the Tasman Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, The Java Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Straits of Malacca with pirate watches on deck, the Bosporus, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Grand Canal in Venice, the Atlantic Ocean and the Hudson River and more I've forgotten. We sailed over 36,500 miles.
We learned the history of over 40 cities and ports, the customs of the people who live there now and who lived there thousands of years ago. We were humbled by the lasting monuments and temples at Angkor Wat, awed by the beauty of the Taj Mahal and the love story that inspired it, enchanted by the serenity of some of the South Pacific Islands, horrified by living conditions in Cambodia and India, amazed at the market places of Egypt, Hong Kong and Istanbul. We had a drink at Bloody Mary's on Bora Bora, another at Raffles in Singapore, tried Turkey coffee in Istanbul, green tea in Halong Bay in Vietnam, were captivated by koalas and blue penguins, overwhelmed by caves and caverns, inspired by the courage and bravery of people who overcame insurmountable odds in places like Gibraltar and Malta, and astonished by the traffic in Hong Kong and Vietnam.
We flew on airlines with names like JetLite. Traveled by ferries, buses from the sleek to the rickety, trams, cable cars, subways, tenders, cars, elephant, walking sidewalks, tuk tuks, junks, and more. We went to the tops of mountains and down into caves. We saw opulence and poverty. We had dinner in a Roman cistern, wandered in catacombs and over streets that were laid down by Romans, Greeks and Phoenicians.
We were pampered, overfed, and entertained (from Regis Philbin to the Osmond Brothers and everything in between.) We attended lectures about the ocean, outer space, animals, the ports of call, history, geography, photography, cooking, flower arrangement, bridge, philosophy and more. Wee skipped tai chi classes and the fitness center, dance lessons, crafts, cooking lessons, tours of the kitchens. We had breakfast by the pool, dinner on the outside deck, and coffee in our cabin. We could have danced or drank the nights away, gone to the movies, gambled or shopped. We didn't make a bed, clean a bathroom, cook a meal, wash a dish or do laundry. We leaned that some of the crew members who did all that for us hadn't seen their families for 5, 8 or 10 months so they could work on the ship and send money home. And they did it with a smile, all day, every day, 7 days a week.
We learned that you get out of a place what you put into it. Were there lines
sometimes? Yes. But at the end of the line was something we had never experienced and probably never will again. Was the sea a bit rough once in a while? Yes, but there are pills and people who suffered worse things than seasickness. Was it unbearable hot at times? Yes, but we had water. Did we understand the language in many places? No, but we got by. Did we agree with the laws or customs of some countries or religions? No, but we were visitors and respected them.
We ended the journey with more tolerance and patience than we possessed when we boarded the ship.
We made wonderful new friends. Some were on their first world cruise, some on their 18th or 19th. Some had more money than Croesus but were as friendly and as much fun as those like us who still drink four-buck-chuck-wine. We finally met friends of friends that we had corresponded with via e-mail for months. We put faces to names of people from the web-site CruiseCritic that we had shared questions and travel tips with. Unfortunately we probably won’t see many of them again but with e-mail we'll keep in touch and hopefully cross paths in the future.
Would we go again? Maybe but not likely. The length of time of the journey did not bother us, but the cost of such a cruise is of course a factor. Before traveling around the world again, (and all world cruises seem to go to many of the same ports) we would like to see other parts of the world. Would we like to go back to any of the places we visited? Absolutely. A day or two in any place is just enough to get a glimpse of what it’s like. Do we have any desire to go back to a couple of the places we visited? No.
We can’t believe it’s over. It seems just yesterday that we were planning. And we’re happy to say that it was much, much more than we anticipated.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our wonderful adventure. Writing the blog has helped me record our impressions of Holland America's 50th Anniversary World Odyssey. Now I have to go and sort through the over 12,000 pictures we took. And that’s after deleting the bad ones.
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