Another
day closer to home and the final day of this cruise run.
It
was a beautiful day when the Maasdam lowered her anchors. For me it
was another session to see officials from the Department of
Immigration before I could leave the ship. As I was on a tour, and
also Shore Excursions had asked me to help them with stickering, I
made sure I was waiting early in the casino for the immigration
process, sitting first in line in the queue, about an hour early than
expected immigration officials' arrival. Although the doors to the
Neptune Lounge were closed, some guests didn't want to listen to
other guests about the fact that they had to sit and wait for
immigration officials, saying that they had tours and had to go to
the Neptune Lounge. Well, so did we! Crew duly sent them back out
again to wait. Unfortunately a group of guests, who had been told to
go back outside and wait, go it into their heads to stand right out
side the doors thus queue-jumping ahead of fellow guests who they
could see were waiting. Also they wouldn't listen to the fact that
they were in the wrong line – they had to go to USA Nationals line.
But because there was no notice on the door to that effect – they
thought people were taking the piss. But in actual fact it had been
announced time and time again which queue to line up in. I kept
quiet – I was close to loosing my sense of humour altogether. As
the group had queue-jumped and they weren't listening to what anyone
was saying, I picked up my rucksack and went to the front of the
group of guests, and stood between them at the door. One chap
yelled at me and said 'hey, get back'! I looked him squarely in the
face and said that in actual fact I and others had been sitting at
the front of the queue on chairs since 7am. He looked at me and said
'whatever' but nothing more. The group still didn't take the hint
and move to the back of the queue.
Eventually
the immigration officials arrived and I got through the process
without any further ado. Shore Ex was very busy with the tours
stickering when I arrived so I ended up helping usher guests to the
waiting tender platform on deck 3. An elderly couple in my tour
group were slow – the chap had mobility problems – so they were
allowed to proceed to the tender platform ahead of the rest of the
tour group. Just as well because he took ages to get down the steps
into the tender. The tour group themselves ended up going on the
next tender and so by the time the couple I accompanied had slowly
walked up the pier from their tender, the next tender had arrived.
The ship's staff were absolutely fantastic with helping the
gentleman; from getting him down onto the tender to helping him off
the tender and onto the pier and up the ramp to a balcony and waiting
area. We had actually gone on a catamaran-type boat which had been
commissioned by the ship to help with the tender process. The ride
to the pier was fast and quite exhilarating.
We
were on a big boat for the historic lighthouse tour and I stayed with
the couple as we made our way down to the boat in case they needed
help. I chose to sit outside as the boat made its way out of the
harbour and along the coastline and between islands. Unfortunately
after an hour of sitting outside I was absolutely freezing cold so
went inside and purchased a cup of hot chocolate to help my hands and
innards defrost. After having defrosted I remained inside the boat
but left the warmth of the cabin now and then to take photographs.
The boat ride was very interesting and, apart from seeing Acadia
National Park and lighthouses from the sea, we also saw seals and a
variety of birdlife. A whale was even spotted but it dived too
quickly for most people to see it.
Our
captain got the boat safely back to the pier and the majority of
guests headed into town whereas I decided to go back to the ship.
Paul and I met up for lunch after which I had a short nap before
heading downstairs to help the Shore Ex ladies with collating the
next excursions brochure. In the end I got cracking on with stapling
the collated brochures and everything was finished within just over
an hour. Before leaving I said my goodbyes to the Shore Ex ladies –
they were a really nice pair to work with.
Time
for me to start packing for home!
You can see my photographs on facebook via this link: Excursion: Historic Lighthouses & Acadia National Park by Sea
 |
| Final leg of our journey to Boston! |
No comments:
Post a Comment