Saturday, February 1, 2020; Disembarkation and Return to Seattle
We woke to find the port of San Pedro’s cranes out our balcony with the pink of dawn edging up the horizon. Our stateroom M623 was plagued by a vibration whenever the ship was in motion, so it came as a relief to feel the stern thrusters come on to push the ship against it’s berth against the dock. The Royal Princess must be due shortly for a dry dock to rebalance the propellers. It’s funny how resonance nodes can show up in odd places around the ship where the vibrations can concentrate. We had encountered that once in the Crown Grill on a ship where they just used a closed area of the Buffett to host the Crown Grill. The table where we were first seated had such a severe vibration that the silverware and glasses worked their way to the edge of the table and threatened to leap to the floor on their own. The waiter reseated us just 10 feet away, and there was virtually no vibration at that second location. We will be complaining to Princess about that vibration and recommend that M623 be taken out of inventory until the vibration can be fixed. Ben had taken to wedging paper between the mirror and cabinets and the walls to minimize the rattling that the vibrations caused. In the bed, it felt like sleeping next to someone having a grand mal seizure.
We met up in the Horizon Buffett for breakfast and then had a choice of places to go for our disembarkation. We could have gone to the regular Princess Theater waiting area for our Pink 1 disembarkation group, Alfredo’s restaurant in the Piazza for the Wheelchair Assistance disembarkation waiting area, or the Vista Lounge Elite disembarkation waiting area. We all ended up at Alfredo’s since that would not require using an elevator or stairs to disembark on deck 6, where the disembarkation ramps were set up on for this port. It was also conveniently close to the International Cafe. Ben loaded up a take out tray with double shot Lattes with his last coffee card punches and handed them out to people waiting to disembark to use them up after Janet had already gotten Lattes for the family and Ben with the last of her coffee card punches. If they let us carry over those coffee card punches, we’d probably end up with free espresso for life on Princess.
Disembarkation was smooth, although this time, only Franklin accompanied Betty in the wheelchair van to the airport. The rest of us boarded the bus. Interestingly though, the bus we boarded did indeed have a wheelchair lift halfway back on the passenger side, just like we had seen in Alaska, but this bus had a row of regular seats bolted into that position, so even though they could have used that bus to transport non-ambulatory passengers, they chose instead to pay for a wheelchair van with vouchers instead. Amtrak was in the news recently for having sent a wheelchair bound passenger a bill for $30,000 to accommodate his wheel chair on a train because in their logic, the two wheel chair spaces required by law were already booked, and Amtrak argued that they would have to take the car out of service to remove another row of seats to accommodate another wheelchair bound passenger in that car. A US Senator stepped in and had the $30,000 bill waived.
Dave flew out of Terminal 3 on Delta Airlines while the rest of us ended up in Terminal 6 for Alaska Airlines. We encountered a continuous stream of troubles with trying to get our boarding passes and seating assignments because George had apparently booked our seats with an extremely cheap “Basic Economy” fare. To be fair, it was just $50 per person, but if George didn’t have an Alaska Airlines Visa card that he paid for the reservations on, the single carry on bags would have cost $35 each, and one checked bag another $35. And they wanted $50 if you wanted to select a seat on the plane. Even though Betty was wheel chair confined, and had to be be in an Aisle seat with an attendant near by, they wouldn’t even give her that until after boarding had begun. So they ended up jostling her amidst other passengers clamoring to get aboard during the boarding process instead of pre-boarding her in her wheel chair with the wheelchair bound passengers. That certainly didn’t work out very well. Ultimately, our boarding group was given 5 boarding passes with 2 being an adjacent aisle and center seat, but those did not have Betty and Franklin’s names on them, so we had to juggle boarding passes and seating assignments at the jetway ramp. Janet and I are just so DONE with these kinds of aggravations that we generally fly premium economy now.
As we boarded the plane, we encountered a fellow family of Oak Harbor travelers who we know well. They own the local drive-in movie theater, one of the couple left in the state, and their kids went to school with our kids. They were coming back from a vacation to Disneyland with the grandkids. The husband had a very recent brush with the grim reaper when he had a heart attack over the middle of the Pacific Ocean flying back from Maui. Fortunately, there was an ER doctor and his RN wife, who were able to administer oxygen and nitroglycerin on the plane. He survived and is doing cardiac rehabilitation. They called this trip Disneyland Rehab.
After arriving at Sea-Tac, we said our farewells to George, Franklin and Betty as we went to catch our Whidbey Island Shuttle bus services. After we boarded, another woman we know, who’s kids went to school with our kids boarded the bus with her mother. They had just returned from Singapore, just steps ahead of the Corona Virus outbreak. They had gone to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Cambodia, and were probably the last cruise ship to be allowed to pass through Hong Kong before the travel restrictions we put into place. They said it was totally freaky because the Hong Kong was deserted, like scenes from a Zombie apocalypse movie. And then, just before the shuttle was bout to leave, the last two passengers to board were our good friends Mark and Jan, who had joined us on our Galapagos cruise last year. They were returning from doing a month of post hurricane medical missionary work in Bahamas. They had pictures that looked like the ones we had taken in St. Martin after it was devastated by hurricanes. It was raining and cold as we rode the shuttle home, but we can’t help but realize what a special and wonderful place we live in despite the cold, wet and windy winters we have.
