Alaska #11 -- July 30, 2008

On Wednesday I woke up about 6am and looked out the window. I saw Yerba Buena Island, the Bay Bridge, and the police boat. My daughter said she thought she had heard the engines stop for a while while we took the harbor pilot. I missed another chance to see us pass under the Golden Gate Bridge.

My wife went to get her parents and my daughter and I waited by the dining room, where we had breakfast. We went to their cabin and grabbed their carry on items. On the way back to ours, we passed through the casino, which was thronged with people. It was one of the gathering spots for people to disembark.

We headed down to deck 7 and waited in a quiet area for our turn to go through immigration, in the lounge at the stern. It went very quickly. The officers barely looked at our passports. We didn't have to go through customs because the amount on our declaration was far under $800 each. We went down to deck 5 and waited our turn to disembark. We had a color code (light blue 2) that indicated when we would get off and where we would find our luggage.

Once in the Pier 35 shed, we found our luggage and then set out to find a porter. I finally learned that the trick is to find the ILWU supervisor. There was a massive crowd out along the Embarcadero. We helped the in-laws flag down their ride, then waited for our car.

When we got home, we found the cat in a remarkably good mood.

My favorite part of any trip is getting home and sleeping in my own bed.

We might do a cruise again some day. Not to Alaska from San Francisco -- too long.