Day 18
We got up at our normal time and got ready. I could not believe that the cruise was already over. I really do not know where the time had gone. We got up, got ready, took our handluggage and left the cabin. On the way out, we managed to catch up with our stateroom host to say goodbye to her . We then headed up to deck 4 to retrieve our Photo CD. There were a few people at Shutters doing the same, but the line moved quickly and this time I checked very carefully that all of the photos I expected were on the print out.
Because we managed to pick up our CD so quickly, it was still a little while until it was our allloted time for breakfast. Thinks were absolutely manic. They had just changed the debarkation process and this was showing some teething problems. At dinner the previous night, we were each given a sticker with a character on. Rather than everybody being able to get off when they were good and ready, they were now calling groups by character for disembarkation. The idea for this is good, but the problem was that people were not cooperating with this. Rather than waiting for their character to be called, people where just lining up. The line stretched the whole length of deck 3. They then called a couple of characters and asked them to come and wait in some of the entertainment venues, but the success rate of this was not wonderful either. We sat down on the landing on the stairs going up to deck 4 and watched the chaos.
One thing that they had sorted out very well is that they had roped off a separate line for Tritons so that people going to breakfast did not get mixed up with the debarkation crowd. So when it was time for us to go for breakfast, we had no problem getting to the dining room. They also seemed to have learned something else from the earlier chaos. Breakfast was much slower than this is normally the case on the last morning. I am pretty sure that they slowed the service down to allow for the lines to go down. We were nearly finished when we were told that we could disembark as soon as we were finished. Graham had fresh fruit followed by scrambled eggs, sausages, ham, bacon and hash brown and I had a open-faced omelette topped with barbecued chicken, green peppers, onion and melted Swiss cheese. Once we had finished our food, we said goodbye to our table mates and our serving team, took our handluggage and headed towards the gangway. By this time there was noline at all until we were well clear of the ship.
Immigration in Los Angeles is much for formal than this is the case at Port Canaveral, but was also much better organized. Port staff separated US citizens from non-US citizens and sent them to separate lines. When we got to the front of the line, staff checked how many people were waiting to clear immigration and would call small groups of people forward to enter the immigration hall. Once we were in there, we only had a minimal wait. Immigration was much like at the airport. We had our finger prints and photo taken. However, we did not get a new stamp, but the immigration official just signed the stamp that we got in Florida. Nobody asked us for the ESTA form. Considering how much trouble the fact that we did not have this on us at Port Canaveral, this was a let down. The immigration offical was very nice. He had cruise on the Magic before and was really excited that the Wonder is now sailing out of Los Angeles. We compared notes ranging from the cost of cruising to our favourite dishes at Palo.
Once we had cleared the immigration formalities, we went downstairs to collect our luggage. Somehow they managed to put our suitcases in different areas of the room even though we had the same luggage tag. I found my suitcase straightaway, but Graham took a bit longer to find his suitcase. When we had all of our stuff, we went to the customs desk and were waived through. At the other side of the customs desks, members of staff from the port directed people in the right direction. The bus transfers left from one exit and people who had a car at the port or where picked up by car were directed to another exit. Two of our table mates from our Med cruise last year live in Los Angeles and one of them had offered to pick us up from the port and to spend the day with us. Shortly after we had come out of the terminal building, she arrived. This could not have worked out any better.
Once we had loaded our luggage in the boot and had said hello to each other, we decided what we would do with the day. In the end we decided to head for Santa Monica. We might have been surrounded by the sea for the last 15 days, but it still had a powerful pull. We parked a short distance away from Santa Monica pier and walked along the seafront. It was kind of amusing watching people on rollerblades. Some even had dogs with them. When we got to the pier, we enjoyed the scenary and generally soaked up the atmosphere. There were even two people in obviously fake Mickey and Minnie costumes that offered to have their photos taken with people for a small fee. I could not believe the cheek of this especially as we were so close to
Disneyland. The costumes were also spectacularly bad. I would have loved to take some photos, but was worried that they would try to charge me.
When we got to the end of the pier, we decided that it was time to think about some lunch. At the end of the pier there was a Mexican restaurant and we decided to give this a go. The food was simply but nice. We all had a combination platter of some sort. I am still not entirely sure what I was eating, but it was tasty. I also finally managed to get some orange soda. I love the American orange soda, but unfortunately they do not offer this on the ships.
After lunch we discussed what we could do with the rest of the afternoon as we still had a couple of hours until we had to make our way to the airport. Graham suggested that we could have a look at the La Brea Tar Pits. He had been there previously when I spend the day at the Disney parks, but for me it was the first time. I had heard about the La Brea Tar pits before, but had no clear idea of what to expect. The area around this is the new museum quarter for Los Angeles. This development is fairly recent and our friend had not seen this before either. This is definitely worth another look in future. The actual tar pits are surrounded by a beautiful park. Asphalt or tar has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with water. This is what we encountered that day. Essentially it looked like a pond that had a thin film of oil on the top. Animals would wander in to drink, become trapped, and eventually die. Predators would also enter to eat the trapped animals and become stuck. This has been recreated by a couple of scenes of mammoth becoming stuck in the tar pits. The skeletons of the animals that were found in the tar pits are on display in a museum that is also in the park. Methane is also present in the tar pits, which causes them to bubble. The whole thing is very fascinating.