Transpacific Cruise: Hawaii Hotspots, LA Party Animals, and Where to Next?

Our 30-day transpacific cruise reminded me a bit of our 30 years of marriage, and FYI our anniversary is TODAY –the old married folks say Woo Hoo! (See end of article for info on our upcoming Irish Honeymoon Re-do 30^th Anniversary Trip.) 

On both journeys, there have been constant surprises (Padre turned into a gardener, and onboard we both turned into classical cello groupies! Who knew?), threats to survival (eruptions and Rapid ‘Ōhi’a Death – yikes! – and then there was that time with the circular saw….), and fortunately, plenty of successful teamwork. I shudder to think what life in a tiny cabin must be like for an unhappily married couple for thirty days (that could be divorce by cruise ship, right there). And at odds for thirty years? No way.

If there is anything we’ve learned over the years it’s that we’re smarter together, also true on a long trip. Sure we squabble sometimes, since we both like to be right. We’ve been lost onshore more times than I can count, passionately ‘discussing’ which way the map says to go. And of course we’ve been stumped in terms of which direction to go in real life, too – I mean who hasn’t? Our life ‘map’ has been filled with twists and turns, but during our thirty years together our collective brainpower has saved our bacon many, many times. So we listen to each other. Mostly. (Except that time in Rome, because I was definitely right).

In honor of this illustrious occasion, let’s see how far I can take the comparison (long-time marriage to long cruise) as I finally finish one last post from our recent spring journey – more on why it took me so long, below. So should we do this? We should!

1) On a transpacific cruise and in our long-time marriage, things keep changing.

On our 30-day cruise, we traveled from Australia (G-day, mates) to New Zealand (Kia ora) to Tahiti ((la Orana) to Hawaii (Aloha) to LA, where everything’s plastic, they say, and people reinvent themselves all the time – change is definitely an LA thing. Then we followed the coastline up to Vancouver, B.C., and finally had to say goodbye to our crew, who took such good care of us during a month at sea. Our cabin steward invited us to visit his family when we stop in Goa, India next year, in fact, and we hope to take him up on his generous offer if we possibly can.

Some evenings we dodged luggage stacked in the hallways as passengers disembarked on stops along our journey, and every time we said goodbye to a new cruise friend it felt a bit like the last day of camp. Then we welcomed new shipmates in Auckland, Honolulu, and LA (when the party animals hit the decks. So, so LA). And we tried to give the new folks a chance, of course – we could easily pick ‘em out, clustered around deck maps by the elevators or with champagne flutes clutched in their hands. But change is hard. 

In our 30-year marriage, we’ve gone from old house to new house, from every-bedroom-filled nest to empty nest, from broke to financially secure (mostly, as long as I keep it reasonable on all these cruises), from employed to retired (mostly), and from rather young to maybe a bit old-ish (but definitely not between the ears). We’ve said mournful goodbyes to far too many loved ones and close friends, to our long-time home, to fantastic neighbors and co-workers, to a lush 25-year-carefully-nurtured garden. The kids grew up and moved away, so we grew up and moved away too. I suppose we could have stayed where we were, and I’m sure that would have been more than ok. But moving on has opened up new worlds, ones that we never would have reached without all the letting go. 

At home, I’ve been procrastinating on this last trip post for ever so long, my form of denying reality: if I never write it, maybe we never walked down the Golden Princess gangplank and boarded the Seattle-bound bus to return to normal life? Of course, the distractions of home played a part in my procrastination, but as we sailed into Vancouver’s harbor on our last early morning aboard, we sadly shook our heads and agreed we did NOT want to get off the boat.

And of course we don’t want our life journey to ever end either, and we wish we didn’t have to get old (whose face is that staring back at me in the mirror, anyway?) But hey there’s this little thing called reality, on cruises and in real life, and someday we have to walk the final gangplank whether we want to or not. So change is constant, onboard and in real life. 

That said, it’s also true that some things never change: 

2) On a transpacific cruise and in our long-time marriage, certain things always stay the same.

On a cruise ship, you’ll find chocolate on your pillow every night. Two pieces of chocolate, in fact. That makes 60 pieces of chocolate. I ate two of them. So Padre has a sweet tooth, and I can always find M and M’s somewhere in the house, although sometimes I have to hunt for them (but I do know all the hiding places by now). On a Princess ship, there is also the Loveboat Dream dessert, and you can count on it being there for you every night, no matter what. 

At home and on board I do my best to avoid the sweet stuff, but when I just have to have some chocolate I can always count on Padre to run to the grocery store (or down to the ship dessert bar) to pick something up for me. He’s thoughtful that way, always has been. I can also count on him keeping the cars gassed up and running, so much so that I still haven’t learned how to put gas in the new car we bought a couple years ago (so obviously, I’m spoiled. I know).

And onboard and along the road of life, the learning never stops. We’re reading fiends, so we use all those sea days to find out everything we can about our next destination, which on this crossing included a return visit to the Big Island of Hawaii (where this whole trip began back in March). This time, we hiked the crater rim road at Hawaii’s Volcano National Park to see for ourselves how Kiluaea’s recent eruption altered Hawaii’s landscapes. 

That’s where we learned about Rapid ‘Ōhi’a Death, a tree-murdering disease that had us carefully cleaning our hiking shoes so we didn’t contribute to its spread. And even though we’d visited Oahu several times in the past, we took another photo tour at our Honolulu stop, to soak in vistas from high above all the stupendous island scenery. On that tour we also learned about the Island’s struggles to maintain her natural beauty, despite all the development inevitably creeping up Oahu’s lush hillsides. An impossible battle, it seems – reminds me of the battle to stop all those wrinkles that keep showing up on our faces. 

And speaking of wrinkles, onboard there are constant battles waged against the ravages of aging. Princess’s activity sheet, the Patter, arrives like clockwork each evening, and it come stuffed with brochures for anti-aging laser treatments, botox, ‘age-defying’ makeup, fitness checkups, you name it. If some entrepreneur has created an anti-aging product that will sell to gullible baby boomers, it is being hocked by somebody on a cruise ship somewhere. 

But not to us. We ignore all the upselling, including brochures on our cabin door for jewelry, art, designer bags, photos, watches – just what baby boomers need, more stuff (not).  Except for a photo here or there, the only thing we always seem to buy onboard is our next cruise – we love to hang out at the future cruises desk. We also buy future cruise credits, a great deal in our opinion – we never want to run out of those! So while the aging process marches on, we always keep anticipating the next trip. I mean, why not?

And one more note about the aging battle we’ll inevitably lose. I’ve always thought that a good question for a potential mate is, “Will you still love me if I gain weight, or if my face was mangled in an accident?” All one has to do is look in the family photo album to see how crucial this question is. 

I see my lovely young mother, right next to the photo of an elderly woman (her again) that looks a lot like me, now. How did that happen, anyway? One day at a time, of course, but thank heavens that in this marriage at least, we’re ok with all that, and always have been. And I have proof this has always been true: We printed the entire text of Shakespeare’s sonnet 116 on our wedding invitation 30 years ago. (Hey I was an English teacher at the time. What did you expect?). 

Here’s the crucial part: 

Love is not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

Now I do wish we weren’t so close to that ‘edge of doom’ thing, but hey – Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll have more years to enjoy another aspect of our relationship that’s never changed:

3) On a transpacific cruise and in our long-time marriage, we’re always up for the next adventure.

I suppose the honeymoon foreshadowed married life for us: Thirty years ago we wandered around Ireland’s narrow roads in our tiny rental car, following cart paths to nowhere or to the edge of cliffs, praying that Ireland’s death-wish drivers wouldn’t send us on to gloryland as we rounded the next blind corner. Sheer terror at moments, but we were mostly thrilled to see what awaited us around the next bend.

On our transpacific cruise, we thrilled to the adventure of crossing the open ocean, including our second equator crossing. For twenty years during our long marriage, we owned a sailboat so we know terror  – we’re both ok with a bit of that, as long as we survive. Onboard Golden Princess, we both loved to stroll the top decks while she plowed through the vast ocean seas. Padre sometimes imagines himself at the helm again, I think, adjusting the ship’s course for constantly changing seas and weather conditions, just as we did all those years as sailors (without having to actually dock the behemoth, thank heavens).

To celebrate our thirty-year anniversary, we plan to set off on another adventure in October. We’re headed back to Ireland (and London) to recreate that honeymoon trip, and we’ll stay in some of the same lodgings, including the luxe Waterford Castle. That was our honeymoon splurge, but unfortunately in 1989 we both had Leprechaun’s Revenge (gastrointestinal distress) on our stay there. So this time we’ll avoid the farm-fresh produce we ate with abandon last time around. One good thing about aging – you really do get smarter and wiser. And we’ve also figured out by now what’s most important, not only on a cruise but on our life journey: 

4) On a transpacific cruise and in a long-time marriage, the folks who share the route with you are the best part of the journey, by far.

We’re not party people any more (Padre never was), so when the LA party animals climbed onboard we were amused. We also wondered where all the children splashing in the ship pools came from.  All the long-timers who boarded in Sydney 27 days prior laughed together about how the new arrivals had ‘ruined’ our peaceful ship, but we didn’t really mean it. 

There’s plenty of room for everyone on a cruise ship, and I could still wander off to find my quiet spaces as usual. Padre and I have always been interested in people’s stories, and we enjoyed chatting up the couple who paid $99 each for the four-day LA to Vancouver trip, and the family taking a first-ever Alaska cruise, hoping to see Orca whales and bears. When we disembarked in Vancouver, we did so with a wallet-full of new addresses, and plan to keep in touch with the wonderful people we met on this trip, and on all our prior trips, as well. So it bears repeating: The best thing about all our travels? The people we meet.

In our long marriage, of course, need I even say how important all the people we’ve shared our journey are, now that we’re creeping into the later stages of life? The kids, the family, the friends: Their stories and journeys mean the world to us too, and without them our marriage ‘cruise’ would never have been as fun, thrilling, challenging, or fulfilling as it actually has been, all these years. So thank you, and thank you again, everyone. 

So here’s to thirty years together, Padre – my guy, even to the edge of doom, I say! And definitely to the nearest gangplank – no one else I’d rather walk off the boat with than you, my dear.

Thanks, as always, for following along, everyone! And we do hope you’ll stay tuned for the 30^th Anniversary Re-do Trip, coming October, 2019. (Sign up for an email reminder when those posts drop, at the link below).