January 24, 2018 – The Voyage Begins

Our grand world cruise adventure has begun. We’re onboard Crystal Serenity and have left the Port of Los Angeles behind us. A lot has happened since our first blog entry a week ago. We’ll cover them in chronological order.

The night before leaving home we attended a 60^th anniversary party for our dear friends Lex & Eileen Roulston, which was organized by their children. It was a grand affair, with lots of their old friends, co-workers, and current neighbors – delicious dinner, good fellowship, and good time had by all. Of course, everyone was interested in our upcoming cruise, and we regaled them with our plans and expectations.

We can’t say our flight west was uneventful, but we did make it to Los Angeles eventually. Believe it or not, our plane from Ft Myers to Atlanta left two hours late, because of a flat tire! It was necessary to jack the landing gear up off the ground to change the tire. We couldn’t see what they were doing from where we were sitting, but with the weight of the plane and the 200 passengers, that must have been a mighty strong jack. We eventually took off, and the flight to Atlanta was uneventful. Of course, our connecting flight was pulling away from the gate by the time we got there. Delta did a great job, rescheduling us on a later flight to LA.

We stayed at the Doubletree Hotel in San Pedro – site of the Port of Los Angeles. It’s really a pretty location, sitting alongside the very large Cabrillo Yacht Marina. We don’t think we’ve ever seen so many pleasure boats in one place before.

We spent our time here walking around the marina and the local area. We didn’t have a car, as we didn’t want to take any risks driving on the LA freeways. It was more important to make it to the ship on time. We had an interesting breakfast with a couple from Denver who were staying at the same hotel. They were waiting to leave from the same port, a day earlier than us, on a world cruise aboard the Pacific Princess – a smaller ship (only 670 guests compared to 1,080 on Crystal Serenity and 848 on Crystal Symphony).

Our stay in San Pedro was pleasant, but it was time for the real adventure to begin. Crystal arranged a limousine and driver to take us to the port yesterday. He arrived exactly on time and, after a short drive, he dropped us off at a red carpet entrance on the second deck of the terminal building. Many Crystal ground-based staff were there to greet us by name and escort us through security. Then they took us to the VIP lounge where we were checked in very quickly and given our pass-cards (room key/ID, charge card), which had been pre-made for us. More Crystal staff walked with us to the boarding gate. 

As we knew from our 2016 world cruise with Crystal, full-world-cruisers are treated very well, as special guests with this company. It couldn’t have been easier or faster for us. Total time from getting out of the car and stepping onto the ship took about 10 minutes.

We ate lunch in the Main Dining Room, went to the Computer Center to set up our free, no-time-limited Internet service, and then to the Library to sign up for Friday’s “Magic Castle at Sea” show. We always enjoy these magic shows – they’re restricted to a very small number of people (somewhere around 10 -15). By then, our stateroom was ready for us.

Three of our suitcases were already in our room, and the others arrived very quickly after that. Time was somewhat limited, so we were only able to do a partial unpacking. At 4:15 there was a mandatory lifeboat drill for all passengers. Luckily for us, the drill for us our group was held in the Crystal Theater. On other ships we’ve found it necessary to stand by our lifeboat out on the deck. We then had just enough time to return to our room and change clothes for the evening festivities.

Crystal Serenity left port at 5:00, and at 5:15 we attended a special reception in the Stardust Club for full-world-cruise passengers; the room was full. The show band played; Rick Spath, the Cruise Director, welcomed everyone effusively; and we recognized quite a few people we’d cruised with in 2016. In many ways, the beginning of a World Cruise is something like a reunion, as there were many people greeting each other as old friends. The same can be said about crew members, as they tend to work for many years with Crystal and were greeting passengers as old friends as well. At the reception, we sat with a couple who are on their 11^th Crystal World Cruise.

Dinner was at 6:00, where we enjoyed meeting our four table companions – Martin & Judy from near Phoenix, Arizona, and Ken & Sunday from Boynton Beach, Florida. We all seemed to have a lot in common, but they will not be transferring to Crystal Symphony in Sydney with us – too bad, as they seemed like great people. Right after dinner at 8:00 was the exciting start of the World Cruise, with the massive balloon drop — great fun. We retired to our stateroom fairly early, since we needed to move suitcases and clear out space on our bed.

After a good night’s sleep, we wakened to a beautiful day at sea. We’re headed in a west-southwest direction toward Hawaii. There will be five days at sea at the beginning of this cruise and we’ll arrive at Lahaina, Maui on Monday, January 29th. Sea conditions are pleasant, and air temperature 59°F (15°C). We finished unpacking at about 9:30 this morning and attended two enrichment lectures today: Ken Rees, normally the Destination Lecturer, spoke on some of the highlights of his lengthy TV news career. Ken has a cosmopolitan and humorous personality, and it’s always fun to listen to his presentations. In the afternoon, Dennis Mammana, who is a highly acclaimed astronomer and celestial photographer, spoke on “The Seven Wonders of the Universe.’ It was a very interesting talk, and we’re hoping that later in this segment of the World Cruise he’ll be able to go up on the top deck of the ship at night and hold an astronomy class.

Tonight is the first “formal night,” which on Crystal Serenity is called “Black Tie Optional,” followed by a new entertainment production called “Crystal in Motion.”

Jim & Ginny