MARCH 29

MARCH 29 HILO, HAWAII

After breakfast I packed up my 29 inch suitcase with stuff I have bought and some clothes I won't be needing anymore as we only have 6 sea days left before we reach Ensenada and I have read that when we get to the border we all have to get off the bus and carry all our hand luggage across the border where we will get back on the bus. We'd like to catch an earlier flight so we can fly into West Palm Beach instead of landing in Miami at 12:30 AM. I have a 10AM doctor appointment for my wrist and it would make life so much easier for both of us. We have requested to get off as soon as people are allowed and they say the disembarkation will begin at 5:45AM so it will be a very early wakeup but hopefully means we'll sleep on the plane.
So we go to get off the ship (thankfully it was docked so no tender) andthey stop us thinking we were not getting back on and to place a call to see if it was okay. When they said we could get off we found an information booth and asked where we could find a place that would pac and ship. She tried calling UPS (an 800 number) and they said they had boxes we could buy but souldn't giv her the local store phone number. I thought that was ridiculousand wanted somewhere else so she gave us a place in town and we got in a taxi and off we went. We asked if she would take us on a tour around the island and she said 75 and hour so we told her no since we know that is way too much. She finally found the store we wanted and the man inside was very nice and he found a box for Enid and she shipped 14 lbs. home. I, on the other hand, had a very big box and mine weighed 40 lbs. I am so thankful I did that as it will make my life much easier when I have to pack in 5 days. I was very close to the allowed weight on the way to Sydney so now I am worry free. It was very hot so we grabbed another cab and went back to the ship. Forgot to say that when we got back to the cabin after breakfast there was a call from guest services asking us to call them. They were doing some repair work to the cables on (of course) the liefboat under our floor and had repair people on the balconies on either side of us and one man was hanging off our balcony so for the inconvenience they were sending a bottle of wine to our cabin. By the time we got back from shipping our stuff we had it in our cabin. We finally went to a show tonight and watched an illusionist do card tricks. He kept on repeating the same thing over and over and was putting us to sleep. He was good but after a while we had enough. Had a good night in the casino afterward and am still playing wit the money I started with when I got on in Perth so I can't complain. Tomorrow we start our 1st sea day for the trip acros the Pacific.