Once by ship, once by plane!

We'll, the Pacific ocean is behind us, twice and the Pride of Hawaii is now the Jade. Flying is definitely the quicker way to go. :-) Our 4 days at sea were relatively smooth. No rough seas, no saltines crackers for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Actually, we have "rougher" waters going around the Hawaiian Islands then we did crossing the Pacific. We worked a triple every day but Friday and lost an hour sleep two nights in a row so needless to say we were tired. It was relatively boring as well. They scheduled so many of us to work and there were so few guests that we cleaned most things twice and tried to look busy while corporate was on board. Speaking of corporate, we served a party of 13 of them on Friday night. We had the Vice President of Hotel Operations out of Miami at our table. Matt and I were both a little nervous when our restaurant manager told us we would be serving that party. Us!!! Mere Junior waiters and them dinning at Paniolos when they could have had Cagneys, Le Bistro, Jasmin Gardens! I think we did well. Arturo, the Vice President gave us his business card and told another guy there to look after us on our new ship. I don't know if I'd want to be the waiter for a corporate party very often. Waiting on the captain is alright, he is very nice actually. The Hotel Director and Director of Food and Beverage is a little more stressful since they notice the steps of service and ask you where the Chili Fritters are on the Mahi Mahi dish. (the cooks don't want to make them anymore! what can I do :-p) Corporate....too many manager people try and help you and ask you if you are OK and if things are going well and.......their stress makes it hard for you not to be stressed. They are just people who want to eat after all.
So, we crossed the Pacific with little incident, landed in LA, spent most of Saturday getting all of the signatures we needed to be able to leave on Sunday, packing, cleaning the rooms etc. Sunday morning, the shuttles that were supposed to take us to the airport weren't there! 100 of us needing to catch flights, can't get back on the ship to find HR, emergency travel number doesn't know anything but the number of the bus. Taxi's don't exactly line up outside of cruise ships with no passengers on them at 6:30 in the morning. Fortunately for us, security let the word out that we needed taxi's and they started pulling in.
We slept most of the flight over. Were met by a very organized NCLA team who took us to a hotel, feed us and helped us to fill out paperwork. The best thing yet????? We have a room with a queen sized bed for just the two of us! We aren't neighbors tonight. Tomorrow who knows, we could be on different decks! The America is going to be a little crowded with all of us misplaced crew!