Day 17
When Mickey called that morning, he was not entirely truthful. He told me that he was glad we were there when all he wanted at that stage is to get us off the ship. Our wonderful cruise had come to an end. We got up and put the last few things into my handbag and Graham's carry on, got ready and then we left our cabin for the last time. We managed to say goodbye to our stateroom host and then we headed to Shutters to pick up my photo CD.
On our last three cruises, the CD had been ready for collection at 22:00 on the last night and I had hoped this would be the case on this cruise, too. Shutters opens at 7:00, which was also the time we were supposed to meet at the Walt Disney Theater as we had asked for early debarkation. In the end everything worked out fine. We got to Shutters and there were only very few people around. There was only one person in front of us so it did not take us long to collect our CD. I found out after the cruise that we had been very lucky to get it that morning. Apparently they had some issues with burning the CDs on that cruise and a number of families on our Facebook cruise had their CDs sent to their homes 4 to 6 weeks later.
Even though we were about 15 minutes behind schedule when we got to the Walt Disney Theater, this was still closed. We headed outside and watched the world go by for a bit. When we got back inside at around 7:30, they were just starting to let people in. We sat down and shortly afterwards there was an announcement that the ship had not been cleared yet and there would be a delay of approximately 30 minutes. We decided to go downstairs and stayed out of the way in the atrium. I had never quite understood what they meant by clearing the ship. In the day and age of electronic communications, I figured that they could just send the manifest ahead after they left the previous port and know exactly who is on the ship. After this morning, I have a better understanding on what is involved. A seemingly endless line of crew from all departments was leaving the ship and then came back. It was clearly not everybody, but it was a fairly large group and we saw uniforms from every department on the ship. It looked like a certain percentage of crew had to go through immigration in order for the ship to be cleared.
Once the last crewmember was back on board, they closed the doors again for about 5 minutes and then they opened them and announced that people carrying off their own luggage could now leave. This was also a new experience. The line for that was probably longer than for the Princess Gathering and it took a fair while before this cleared. Finally they announced that people with Ariel tags could disembark. We were in his group. This line was also pretty impressive, but it moved reasonably quickly. Soon we had our Key to the World cards swiped one last time and we were off the ship. We were then directed to the immigration line for none US citizens. I was really surprised that this was longer than the line for US citizens. This moved pretty quickly and soon it was our turn. I was surprised that we got a new stamp. At other ports they just had checked for the stamp when we entered the USA for that trip and sometimes signed this. I have to admit that I rather like the fact that I have a stamp from San Diego in my passport.
Next up was baggage claim. It looked all rather nice and organized when we came down from immigration. The luggage was lined up in neat rows according to the luggage tags - or so we thought. The area for the Ariel tags was straight ahead when we came down the escalator. I found Graham's suitcase straightaway, but there was no sign of my two pieces of luggage. I overheard somebody saying that there was another area with Ariel luggage tags. I headed over there and found my suitcase. My Kipling backpack was not in either of those areas. I approached one of the members of staff in this area and she helped me trying to find my backpack. In the end Graham found it in yet another area. With all our luggage reunited with us, we made our way to the exit and towards the taxi queue. There were quite a few people waiting for a taxi, but they directed everybody to a numbered bay to wait. We did not have to wait very long before a taxi arrived. There is a lot of building work going on around the port, which restricts the number of taxis that can enter. I heard once we were back home that some of the people who got off the ship later waited over an hour for a taxi. So we made the right decision to get off the ship as early as possible.
Despite all the hold ups, we were at the hotel by 9:30. We were staying at the Handlery Hotel. We had stayed there in 2006 when we were on a road trip through the southwest of the United States and liked it. One of the advantages that the hotel has is that it has a free shuttle to all the major tourist attractions. It also located relatively close to SeaWorld, which was a major draw for me. As we pulled up to the hotel, we were welcomed and our luggage was taken inside. As we were so early, our room was not ready, but they offered to store the luggage for us. They also booked us onto the respective shuttles we needed. Originally we had planned to do a hop on hop off tour on the Old Town Trolley that day and then do our separate things on the Sunday, but the previous day we have decided that it would be nicer to spend the last day of our holiday together. So Graham was planning to go to San Diego Zoo that day and I was headed to SeaWorld. Graham's shuttle was due to leave at 10:30 and mine at 11:00. We were advised that breakfast was still being served, but neither of us was really hungry. We took a seat in the lounge. I was hoping that I could check my emails, but even though I had been given a password, it kept telling me that too many people were logged in. Instead I decided to head to the concierge desk to see if we could buy our tickets there to save time when we got to our respective parks. They could not sell us tickets, but had some money off vouchers. I was however able to book the Old Town Trolley for the next day. I had to pay $5 deposit per person. The rest we would pay at their ticket office in Old Town, but our deposit would get us booked on the shuttle to Old Town that picks up from outside the hotel. With this taken care of, I went back to join Graham.
We went outside about 10 minutes or so before Graham's shuttle was due. I was going to head back inside once he had left. However, the driver told me that he was only going to come back to pick me up anyway so I may as well come along for the ride and he would drop me off once we dropped off everybody else at Balboa Park. I was up for this and did not mind a little drive around San Diego at all. Unfortunately it did not quite work out as planned. We dropped off everybody else at Balboa Park and then the driver radioed the hotel to make sure that there was not anybody else for SeaWorld. There was not, but somebody wanted to go to Old Town. So we headed back to the hotel, picked him up and dropped him at Old Town before finally heading over to SeaWorld. The shuttle drop off is now a good distance away from the entrance, but I did not mind this. I just made sure to look for landmarks so that I would find my way back and then I headed off towards the entrance.
As I approached the entrance I hit a snag. In order to receive my $5 discount, I had to get my ticket from one of the ticket windows. The line for those was huge, but there was no one at all waiting for the self-service machines. In the end I decided that it as not worth the $5 to queue for anything between 30 minutes to an hour. I got my ticket from the self-service machine and headed towards the park. I had read that they had added a new attraction to the entrance plaza earlier this year: Explorer's Reef. Explorer's Reef consists of various retail outlets plus 4 touch pools containing stingrays, sharks, crabs and cleaner fish. Although the theming was a little too in your face for my liking and there is rather a lot of focus on the retail outlets, I liked the concept of the touch pools. I was not he only one as the area was busy throughout the day.
My next stop was Dolphin Point. This is where I got the first glimpse that SeaWorld San Diego has changed a lot and not necessarily for the better. Dolphin Point used to be called Rocky Point Preserve and used to be very similar to Dolphin Cove at SeaWorld Orlando. It was a great place to watch the dolphins playing and at certain times of the day, you could feed the dolphins. There was also a separate area in a different area of the park where you could do dolphin interactions. Well, they had rebuilt Rocky Point Preserve to allow for dolphin interactions to take place there. This meant that they added a lot of ledges that people participating in the dolphin interactions could kneel on. This meant that there are hardly any areas anymore where the dolphins can come close to the wall. They have stopped the feeding times. I am not sure if this was as a result of the changes or if they had stopped this first. I was a little disappointed about this. They did however have a free programme called Dolphin Connections at regular intervals during the day and this sounded interesting so I decided to come back for this later.
The main reason for coming here that day was Blue Horizons. I absolutely love this show and have seen it at SeaWorld Orlando many times. Actually, if I would do nothing but watch this show repeatedly when I am at SeaWorld, I would be happy. So when I heard that they were going to add this show at SeaWorld San Diego, I knew at some stage I had to go and see it, especially as they include their pilot whales in the show. So when I found out that our cruise would end in San Diego rather than Los Angeles, this was a done deal. I still had a little time before the show started so I got myself a Coke. Once I had finished this, I headed over to the stadium. I got there relatively late, but despite the lines at the entrance, I got a perfect spot right in the centre of the stage and high enough up that I was outside the soak zone. I was rather glad that I had not got there any earlier. Unlike the stadium in Orlando that has some roof over it, this is completely in the open and the sun started to beat down on us. Not long after I had sat down, the show started. It did not take long for me to realize that everything was not like expected. The first time I realized that something was amiss was when Aurora the Bird Spirit of the Sky did not fly. They also did not have the bungee jumpers in the storm sequence. I have watched a video from the show in San Diego from February 2013 where they did have those elements and really wonder why they changed it. It just feels like a shadow of its sister show in Orlando. They do have two things so that they do not in Orlando. The storm sequence features two of the pilot whales. I am hoping that the show in Orlando will include their pilot whales at some point in the future. They also use a sand hill crane instead of an Andean condor in that sequence and watching this bird fly past was truly breathtaking. There was also another added bonus. I got to see Bullet. Bullet is a rather special dolphin as she is half common dolphin and half bottlenose dolphin. When I did my Trainer for a Day at SeaWorld San Diego in 2006, I got to swim with her right at the stadium. So I was definitely glad to see her.
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For me, panic strikes and I want to remember every inch of the ship. 
