Day 20
Mickey called us one last time at 7:00 AM. We got up and got ready and packed the things that we had still needed in the hand luggage. We then checked that we had everything and headed out. We managed to find our stateroom host and said goodbye to him. We then headed up to Shutters to pick up my photo CD. This was well organized by deck and we had a minimal wait to get the CDs. I checked that everything I expected was on there and then signed for it. This was handled so efficiently that we still had plenty of time until we had to go to breakfast. The ship was very busy with people waiting to get off especially as people who had early breakfast were already finished. They had changed the system for getting off again and rather than giving out stickers, disembarkation was now by luggage tags. The luggage tags that had already been called where displayed on all the screens around the ship.
Eventually it was time for us to go to breakfast. We were the first people from our table to arrive, but the others arrived shortly afterwards. Of course, just as soon as we had sat down our luggage tag was called. The other people on our table where in the same position. We decided to ignore this and enjoy our breakfast. Breakfast actually was a fairly slow process for the last day. It took our serving team a while to come and take our order and then it took ages for things to arrive. Still, we were in no hurry, so it was all good. We both had some juice and coffee and I had the Barbecue Chicken Omelette and Graham had fresh fruit and some bacon, sausage and scrambled egg. Once we finished our breakfast, we said goodbye to our serving team and our table mates and then headed to the atrium. The atrium was a zoo so we just stayed on the staircase in front of Tritons and waited for the crowds to go down a bit. Eventually people started to disperse and we headed towards the gangway. Captain Fabian was around to say goodbye to people, which was a nice touch. Our card was swiped one last time and our cruise had officially ended.
Sometimes it has advantages to be foreign. The line for passport control for US citizens was huge. The line for non-US citizens was much shorter and rather than standing in line on the walkways leading up to the building, we were able to enter the immigration hall straightaway. There were a couple of families ahead of us, but the line moved pretty quickly. Once we had cleared immigration, we went downstairs to retrieve our luggage. For once, it was all together and near the entrance. We headed through customs, which again went quickly and then we were directed to the buses. This is where the fun and games started. They had multiple buses going to the airport, but only one bus heading to
Disneyland. This would under normal circumstances not have been a big problem as most people were actually heading to the airport. What they had not taken into account is that people had just come back from a 15 night cruise and had a lot more luggage than they would have on a 7 night cruise. This meant that there were plenty of seats on the bus, but not enough room for the luggage. They radioed for another bus and this arrived a short time after the first bus left. We were among the first people to get on this second bus. So we had a bit of a wait until everybody, and more importantly their luggage, was on the bus. In the end, as there were plenty of seats left, they just put some luggage at the back of the bus.
We were finally on our way. When we left the port, we hit the next snag. There were some roadworks and we had to take a detour. This worked out in my favour. We passed the port again from a different directions and I got to see the Wonder one last time and managed to take a couple of photos. From there it was plain sailing until we arrived at Disneyland. We dropped off people at Paradise Pier and Disneyland Hotel first before heading to the Grand Californian. There was absolute chaos in front of the hotel when we got there. Not only were there quite a few people that had come off our bus, but there were also a lot of people that had arrived for some conference. There were people and luggage everywhere. This was a bit of a shock as the Grand Californian is normally quite a serene place. The line for check in was also quite long. I parked Graham and the luggage out of the way and then I braved check in. The line actually moved pretty fast. Our room was not ready yet and they were a little thrown that I did not have a US mobile number to give them. They were going to send me a text when the room was ready. I was not worried as we were not going far and I could check periodically. With the formalities out of the way, I rejoined Graham and we found ourselves some comfortable seats.
Originally I had planned to head straight to one of the parks after check in. That morning I had decided that an afternoon by the pool was a more tempting proposition. When it came to it, I did not even have the energy for this. I was quite happy to just sit in a comfortable chair in the lobby, watch the world go by and listen to the piano player. I also had a bit of a nasty surprise. I decided to catch up with my emails and realised that in my absence, somebody had hacked my email account and had used it to send spam. Fortunately Gmail had realised very quickly what was going on and had suspended access to the account. To get access to the account again, they needed to send me a recovery code to my iPhone and with that, I could then reset my password. Of course, after a 15 night cruise, the phone was flat. So I quickly found my adapter and charger. Fortunately there was a socket not too far away. Once the phone had enough of a charge to switch on, I was able to retrieve the code and I was back in business. I reset the password and this one even Graham could not guess.
Once I had checked through my emails, I decided to check if our room was ready. Unfortunately there was no such luck. I decided to check out the gift shop. Something caught my eyes straightaway. I am a huge fan of the Disney Dooney and Bourke designs and where they keep their Dooney and Bourke bags were some bags with a design that I had never seen before. This turned out to be the new Disneyland Retro design, which was released two days earlier. I really like this. What got me even more excited is that they had an iPad case in this design. I had never been able to find an iPad case in a design I liked. I resisted it for the time being and headed back to join Graham. By then I was quite thirsty and checked with Graham if he wanted something to drink as well. I ended up going to Whitewater Snacks to get us some coffee.
When we finished our coffee, some of our fellow cruisers came past and told me that they just had been advised that their room is ready. So I decided to head back to the front desk to check if our room was ready as well. It was. I went and got Graham and our luggage and we headed up to our room. We were on the forth floor overlooking Paradise Pier. I quickly called the dining line to change our breakfast reservation for Steakhouse 55. I had this booked for the following morning, but now we would have lunch at Blue Bayou. Fortunately I was able to move the reservation to Thursday morning. With this sorted out, we settled down for a nap.
Fortunately I had set a Mickey wake up call as I am pretty sure we would not have woken up for dinner without it. We got up and got ready and decided to walk across to Downtown Disney. We had discovered a bit of a gem last year and decided to give this another go. Naples is operated by the same people that operate Tutto Italia and Via Napoli at Epcot and like those two, it specialises in Italian food. This time it was a lot busier than last year, but we still got seated immediately. Graham had some Italian beer and I had an Italian soda with French Vanilla. For our starter, we shared Panzerotti, which was fried pizza dough filled with fresh mozzarella, artisan ricotta and Parmesan cheese served with marinara sauce. I had expected that this would be dough balls, but it was more like Fried Ravioli and was very good. For my main course, I had Candele, which was baked candlestick pasta, sausage ragu, meatballs and bechamel. Graham had the Pizza Americana with green peppers, mushrooms, red onions, black olives, sausage and pepperoni. We both enjoyed our dinner and were too stuffed for dessert.
After dinner, we headed straight back to our room. I know that we had some Disney movie on the TV, but I was so tired that I can't even remember what it was. There was a bit of an irritating noise. It sounded like somebody had put something metallic in a tumble dryer. I figured that we must be next to a one bedroom villa and they were doing the laundry. I just ignored it as much as I could. I had every intention to watch my beloved World of Color, but gave up about 30 minutes before it started and went to sleep.