Day 16: A rude awakening before Pearl Harbor

What a surprise that was - and I can honestly say that has never happened to us before. Details from me are sketchy but @Mac was actually awake and is still shaking his head.

Hands on at Pearl Harbor

At 7.25 am there was a call of "good morning" at the cabin door, a wrap of the knuckles and then the door was opened and all the ight were turned on from the master switch inside the door.

What? The steward was the wakeup call! They were obviously serious about getting us off the ship! We had planned to disembark at 9.15 after breakfast. Maybe we should have clarified our plans because there was definitely no breakfast on offer anywhere and the loudspeakers shrilled the tag announcement for luggage collection at 5 minute intervals. 

Was a very rude awakening and was an unexpected abrupt ending to our week. But disembark we did and when we glanced up at the clock on the outside of deck 6 for our final security check it was 8.10!

Booted very early

Luggage collection and taxi access was a breeze and we rocked up to our airport accommodation at the Plaza Inn. Had to leave our luggage in storage with them because checkin wasn't until 3 but did luckily score a hot coffee in the breakfast dining room as they were closing up.

Back to our trusty MovIt app and the Holo Bus card and we picked up the bus for Pearl Harbor right across the road from the hotel.

Bus experts - door to door

Very tight security here in this active military base and absolutley no bags were permitted on the grounds - not even a handbag. Equally surprising though was that the entry to the grounds themselves was "free".

There were four main exhibit areas - and once you were "in" you could avail yourself of the free exhibits or you could pay an entrance fee for others.

We had one major job yesterday- and that was to login to the Pearl Harbor site and for the mighty cost of $1 per person, secure ourselves a ride on the ferry for a specified timeslot to go out to the memorial for crew of the USS Arizona. We had set times and countdowns on our phoned and were online at 2.58 for the 60 seat ticket release for each half hour. Shipboard internet connection off the Na Pali Coastline doesn't exactly fly. By the time we had refreshed at 3 o'clock, selected our 2 tickets and timeslot and pressed "redeem tickets now" it was 3.04 and every ticket was gone. I figure those tour operators must have some way of swooping on all the prepaid timeslots.

Audio tour and movie kept us entertained for the hour wait

Better news was to come on the day, thank goodness.  Spoke to one of the staff about our "plan of attack" for the day and he shared with us that there was a "standby" line for those who didn't have a reservation. Joined the line and did have to wait for an hour to get on board - but board we did.

Appreciated the veteran who was positioned at the memorial who shared the story of Pearl Harbor from the perspective of the crew of the Arizona - of the lost souls and the survivors and then details of the symbolism of the memorial itself. It was worth the wait and set us up for the day.

Museums, theatres, hands on displays, artefacts, recreations, documents, testimonies, eye witness accounts and touching tributes to Military personnel. They were all endless and diverse and accessible and young and old could find a corner or a level of engagement that was intriguing .

There was pride and honour and commitment to service and sacrifice and the protection of freedom but it was definitely sombre and confronting. 

And although this was the American  side of the story - the absolute ingenuity of the Japanese strategy was highlighted - the weaponry they had developed, the brazenness of the attack,  the risks for their soldiers - this all formed part of the stories that were told.

Admitting that after the early start and just a coffee, come 1 o'clock we were looking for a break of the fast with some lunch. What a difference a day makes - egg sanga and a ham sanga washed down with some bubbly Coke (ship was Pepsi only so this was actually a highlight) consumed on a bench surrounded by some equally hungry birds (nope, we didn't share human food with them) was our "lowly" offering. 

A humble lunch

Paid the entry fee then to take a closer look at the contribution of the submariners to the second world war. And again, this was outstanding. Gosh, the walk through the sub, the USS Bowfin  highlighted the cramped conditions, the dials and controls, the bunks wrapped around the torpedoes - all really beyond comprehension. And the museum was again totally hands on - lots of movies to select from, missions to try your hands at, historical development of the subs and their weaponry - I know, it was  all about war, and I am no "fan", but WOW the combination of history and science really sucks you in.

Climbing up, over and in the USS Bowfin

That was it - we had run out of time. Scooted outside and jump on the shuttle bus to take us over to Ford Island for the Missouri and the Aircraft display but because it was just on  4 pm we could only do a quick walk by and then a drive by. 

A quick run around Ford Island

Definitely need more than a single day to explore this place. 

Back on the bus, right to our front door for check-in, showers and a wrestle with the suitcases to get out gear for trip home tomorrow. Off to dinner at a local family BBQ restaurant (can't even begin to say the names of what we ordered) - very few choices left open at 7 pm on a Friday night outside the airport. 

No idea. Just picked something.

Concrete table, under the freeway, out of cardboard containers. Coming back to the real world of dining.

Finally back to tonight's home to do something we haven't done for 17 days. I am surprised @Mac remembered how!

But he must have called on muscle memory because he did find the remote control and turned on the TV and watched the news. Still laughing, because he hadn't quite picked up that it was in Chinese! He blamed the noise I was making with hair-dryer. Sure. No doubt he will be much better at home when he has retuned to Foxtel.

Step Count: 12 548

Weather: 31 - 26