Days18, 19… 26 - 27th April- on board, day after two deaths last night & tenders onto the island of Kona, Hawaii

 Day 18, 26th April

It was a sombre start to the day today, everyone was quite subdued after such a late night last night, and all the drama and realisation that two people have died and  one in not a very pleasant way - they could not find the guy that had jumped overboard (turns out he was a 35-year-old from Brisbane). 

Spent most of the day just following the news, we went up to the library and saw Vicki and Robyn again and were chatting. I think it helps for people to discuss things and  we were talking about how the Chinese whispers were changing the story about what happened with the lady, and the guy that passed away– As there is so much speculation, and nothing has been made very clear from the captain.

I decided to put a post up on the quantum of the seas, FB page offering to contact people who didn’t have the internet package onboard and who wanted to speak to their relatives. I thought that it would be people onboard the ship that would hear about it, but it was actually people back in Australia, desperate to check with their families who were sailing. Some people weren’t getting much help because they didn’t know there relatives cabin numbers, so I decided the best thing was to go down to guest services and talk to them. They weren’t answering their phones as they were probably so busy with everyone, and there was certainly a big queue at guest services. But I showed them the messages I had from relatives in Australia on my phone each time, and they rang me through to the relatives cabins. One was a father and one was a grandfather and grandmother, so I passed on the messages and then was able to message the people in Australia back – they were so relieved and I totally understand.

I remember being in Fiji during the grade 4 cyclone in 2011 and it was the one and only time I decided to go away and not take any technology – and of course that happened. So we couldn’t get hold of family who were worried at home, couldn’t talk to the airline and an Indian guy in the room next door saw me in the hallway and let me go into their room, a couple of times to use his iPad, which I really appreciated, that’s why I did what I did today :-).

Oh - with everything happening yesterday, I forgot to mention the great puzzle challenge we had in the afternoon of Anzac day. We had booked into the royal society of puzzles, which is kind like an escape room challenge, where you are locked in a room with others - we had 9 of us, and they give you an hour to work out all these cryptic clues, find the hidden keys to locked boxes, decipher the codes, work out the puzzles and calculate the final padlock code, to win.  We did it in 39 mins and given how hard it was, we were pretty rapt!🤔👏. 

Graeme and a couple of other guys were standouts at calculating how to find hidden numbers in things like a sheet with lines on it that you had to realise, needed to be rolled up and laid over a circle on a table. Then you look down thru the tube to spy coded numbers inside the lines. It was hard!

We went to the specialty restaurant chops again tonight it was our last one, what a meal! You can get lobster for $21 usd and the rest is included in the price you paid at the start - I think it was about $415 Aud for 5 nights of specialty, dining, restaurants. So we got surf and turf steaks and lobster. It was lovely then we went to the theatre and saw the Freddie Mercury impersonator – he is a Kiwi and he is actually really funny as well. Back up to our room to try and get an early night as we are all up so late with what happened yesterday and into today. Thoughts are with all those involved.

Day 19 - 27th April

Our last day on the cruise today! They had put out the times for going through US immigration yesterday – you have to have a face-to-face interview with officials they fly in from Honolulu to Kona, where we are coming into the states from. Of course our deck was given the very last spot and doubled up with deck 3, so we wouldn’t have got off until about 2 pm which was rubbish. So we discussed it and I decided to book a royal Caribbean excursion, because if you had one of those, you are let off first thing in the morning and your interview was at 8 am – they really do hold you to ransom! Anyway, I booked a zodiac raft tour that was meant to promised dolphins, turtles and maybe whales. Thought it would hopefully be worth it,  seeing these, even though you were paying over $250aud each.

We went down through immigration, no problems. they obviously had our Esta’s on record and they just checked a form we had to fill-in and then off onto the ship tenders over to the pier. 

Mum and Sam had been following the news about the death on Anzac Day – it’s strange that he news channels have not picked up about the lady dying right before the guy jumped off? But anyway we saw the channel 9 Australian news reporters on the piece online before we came onto the pier, and sure enough the reporters were there with cameras, trying to entice people to talk about – ‘their feelings’ about what it happened -Think it would’ve been pretty obvious. Some people jumped in quickly and were keen to be on TV, but a lot of us felt the same way - that trying to entice emotion on TV was uncomfortable and felt disrespectful to the people that have died. 

We got on our Zodiac and had 16 of the raft – you sit sideways on the pontoon edges and they took us out to a bay about 20 mins away. They provided all the snorkelling gear which werereally good quality, and we had a good snorkel around on the reef. There was just so many tourists in the small bay thoughand absolutely no dolphins, turtles or whales! The coral looked like it was mostly dead but there were brilliant, yellow fish and  also a lot of black and white fish, so was quite cool but certainly not what they had sold The excursion as. Still glad we did it though.

Went back to the pier and decided to go walking around Kona as the shops are all along the waterfront. Spent a lovely afternoon doing that – we went to a place called The Cheeky Tiki, which was a hotel where you sit upstairs and look out over all the bay. We ordered cocktails – Graeme had a spicy margarita, which was bright purple – it had dragon fruit and some sort of chilli in it. He loves spice, but that was the hottest drink he has ever had, and I wouldn’t have been able to drink it! I had a piña colada then Graeme wanted to try the local beers too. Felt like a bit much after the cocktail but had to join in ha ha🤣. We had some local beers which were very nice. Think the bill was about $39usd + tip, so not cheap, but when in Rome……

We went out and walked up and down the lovely shopping strip, bought a T-shirt each and some bits and pieces. Then we were going to get the bus they called ‘the trolley’ that takes you around the town. But it was getting quite hot and Graeme started to feel quite faint – as he has got vety large arteries in his heart, when he gets hot his blood flow gets really slow because of it, and he starts to feel like he’s going to pass out, So I decided to get the tender back to the ship and into the cool room.

Got a nice cold coke and a piece of pizza from Sorrento’s on board for him, then when he was feeling better, we decided to face the challenge of packing – that’s the one thing I love about cruising, once you’ve unpacked you have 17 days without living out of a suitcase! 

But we got it all packed, no problems – we are going to take our egg crate mattress in Graeme‘s suitcase. as he has room and we have heard that the beds are really hard on the next ship as well  – this is the first time we have sailed on cruise ships and had beds that were like lying on steel🥺. But then we will donate the topper to the room attendant after that cruise has finished. 

Went up to the windjammer cafe as we didn’t feel like doing much for dinner, then took out dessert and sat outside to enjoy it for the last time. Did a couple of laps around the walking track, but it was starting to rain which was actually lovely as it was warm, but also they have stacked up all the loungers across the space where the guy jumped off the ship and put yellow tape around it - I guess to preserve the scene, but it isn’t nice and reminds you of what happened.

But all in all, a lovely end to our first cruise – don’t know where the time has gone!