A new day and a new harem
This last day at sea started out on kind of a sour note. The whole morning into early afternoon was pretty much blocked out for a face to passport immigration inspection with only 2 officers on board to process 1250 plus guests. The event was held in the Main Showroom so all events (the few that there were) had to be held elsewhere. The inspection was organized by deck of the ship with Deck 4 being assigned the time slot 8am to 9am. However, it took much longer than that and we were on Deck 5 assigned to the 9am time slot. We joined the line at 9:15am and were finally done at 10:30am causing us to miss a 10am ukelele jam session. HAL was doing the best they could, and they had an orderly process; there were simply not enough inspectors. On the flip side, once we reach Papeete, we could be standing in the heat on the dock alongside the ship in a long line. There are no port facilities to handle a cruise ship of this size. The whole process got significantly delayed causing the afternoon programming to be delayed and shuffled around and put into different venues.
A group of us gathered in the main atrium and we staged a new picture of me with my harem. We joked that it was a different day and a different harem!
We did watch Rose & Tani in the Lido Pool area which was hard to hear due to the splashing of the waves from the pool. I listened part of Kay's port talk on Moorea and Papeete before attending Jo Bradford's phoneography class on editing. I think she spent too much time rehashing material we previously covered and not nearly enough time on editing.
This final gala night dinner was pretty special. A group of ten of us (Ann & JOHN, Kate & Jim, Barb & Alex, Arlene and Marny, Tim & Angela) who have been on since the beginning of the cruise in Ft. Lauderdale shared a table together and we all enjoyed fun conversations and memories along with a surf & turf meal.
The evening's entertainment was The Unexpected Boys doing their fourth set 'The Finale' in which they announce they are now the Jersey Tenors. We went to both the 8 and 10pm shows with the Chocolate Surprise sandwiched in at 9:45. Of their 16 performances since joining the ship, we've seen 15 of them. We only missed one due to a dinner obligation. At the 10pm performance, they received an enthusiastic standing ovation. They are truly the best live non cast entertainment we've seen on a ship and we have nearly 400 days on HAL and 4 other lines.
Tomorrow we are visiting a new port in Raiatea, French Polynesia. Stay tuned for what appears to be another great day in Paradise.
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