Chapter 104: Afloat and Underway

Monday, June 10, 1985

We left the hotel around ten in the morning. My pager went off only half an hour later. The callback number matched that of the travel agency.

When we stopped for lunch, I returned the call. They transferred me to a friendly-sounding woman named Sue Ann Hollister. Ms. Hollister went over several options, ranging from a pair of pretty cheap coach-class flights to doing the whole thing first-class at a price that would have paid for the cruise! Including side trips! For all four of us!

Needless to say, first-class was out. That could change in the future. There was a reason people paid that much, and it wasn’t simply because they were ‘spoiled.’ At a certain level of wealth, paying extra was meaningless compared to arriving relatively fresh and avoiding stress.

In my case, though, I was a nineteen-year-old. I was in good shape, easily fit in an aircraft seat, and could handle long flights without a problem. Coach would be just fine.

Within the coach flights, Ms. Hollister had aisle and window options. I chose window. If anyone on my row really wanted the window I would trade — I didn’t care one way or the other — but I was relatively unlikely to need to get up during the flight. Window gave me the best chance of being undisturbed. That, my Walkman, and a good book would make the time pass easily.

In the end, I wound up on an early afternoon flight from Houston to LA on the 28th and a morning flight from LA to Chicago on the 30th. As of now, neither flight was full. It was anyone’s guess as to whether they would fill up.

The fare was surprisingly reasonable, and I gave her my American Express number. The tickets would be mailed to my parents’ address, but they could also be reprinted at the airport if necessary.

This was all a dress rehearsal for a later trip. England would be a long flight. For England, though, I’d have people to sit with. That might make a lot of difference.

She’d also booked me at the Hollywood Roosevelt, just up the block from Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where the premiere would be held. Jess and I could figure out how to manage getting her to the premiere. Of course, it was a king-sized bed...

Out of curiosity, I asked Sue Ann (she’d insisted I use her name) if she would be allowed to book flights that had nothing to do with Universal. She said she would be happy to, and she had a few options to get discounts. In fact, some of the ‘Universal-related’ discounts she had access to were actually unrestricted, and it would be fine for her to use them for us since I had at least the tiniest connection to them now. Given the relative complexity of booking air travel in 1985, this sounded like a potentially great option for booking the England trip.

That is, assuming we were going there. Live Aid had yet to be announced. We were watching the papers daily. It didn’t feel ‘late’ yet, but it was a bit nerve-racking.

We did a bit of sightseeing on the way down to Miami. Not only that, but Jas, Angie, and Paige started belatedly worrying about seasickness. We stopped at both a drug store and a grocery store, investing in both motion sickness medication and ginger. Many people find ginger helps, and all of us enjoyed crystallized ginger as a snack. The problem might be us going through it fast enough and not leaving any for medicinal uses, so we bought one extra package and stored that separately.

Better safe than sorry!

For my part, I’d been on a number of cruises and never had a significant problem. One of them had been a bit ‘iffy,’ but that was weather-based, and we weren’t expecting any significant inclement weather on this trip. June was too early in the season for any major tropical storms or hurricanes, at least based on the current forecasts.

Then again, I’d never been on a ship this small.

Mind you, the others were pretty amused by my finding a 1500-person (including passengers and crew), 35,000-ton, 600-foot-long, 10-deck (plus crew-only decks) ship ‘small.’ They’d never seen the behemoths I’d seen, though.

One day, they would.

While we were at the drugstore, we picked up Father’s Day cards for our parents. We could put them in the mail just before departure. They would undoubtedly arrive early, but that was fine. Early was much better than late.

With the various delays, we arrived at our hotel — a short walk from the cruise terminal — late in the afternoon. Dinner was Cuban food at a nearby restaurant. We put the car in long-term cruise parking. It seemed pretty secure, and my car wasn’t a theft magnet, so we expected it to be fine.

Tuesday, June 11, 1985

Boarding didn’t start until noon, and the ship wouldn’t sail until five, so we had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. As usual, we browsed the local paper this morning while we ate.

I was very glad we had. Buried in the entertainment section was a small article that had huge implications. Live Aid was indeed happening in this universe! From what I could tell, it was identical to the one I was familiar with, too.

With that, we also had a date: July 13th. We would need to be in London no later than the 12th. The 10th or 11th would be better. Traveling through that many time zones is no joke, especially when heading east, at least in my experience. It would be much better to be settled in and shifted to London time before the concert.

I made three calls in quick succession. One was to Mom, letting her know the European trip we’d been considering was probably on. She’d fully expected us to go, so it was hardly a surprise to her.

The second was to Jess. I think I woke her up, but she was happy to hear from me. She was unsure, but wanted to know what the trip would cost and what the travel arrangements would be. I told her I’d already sounded out the travel agent she’d pointed me to and would be calling them next. Once I knew something, she’d be the first to know. I gave her Sue Ann’s name, too, and told her I’d tell Sue Ann that she might call.

The third was to Sue Ann. She was surprised, but pleased, to hear from me again so soon. I explained our group: four, or possibly five, flying from Houston to London. Possibly one flying back alone (and maybe flying to London alone, too). Two couples, flexible about seating, but almost certainly coach class unless she found a major bargain.

One stumbling block was the return flight. Having gone all the way to London, spending time in England (and, perhaps, on the Continent) seemed like a no-brainer. How much time, though?

Sue Ann told me she could book us an ‘open ticket’ for the return. I’d heard of those, but they were largely gone by the time I started booking my own flights. In fact, I was pretty sure opening up air bookings to anyone with a computer had a lot to do with why open tickets had vanished.

With that, we could fly back at nearly any time. If we gave them a few days’ notice, it would be in guaranteed seats on a specific flight. Without that, we’d be more-or-less the first-choice standby passengers.

It cost a bit more, but far less than booking last-minute might cost. Last-minute flights were always a toss-up. Sometimes you could get a spectacular bargain, but often you’d pay through the nose.

I asked her to work through the alternatives, told her I would probably not be able to call back until Thursday afternoon (and, therefore, it would make no sense to make the twenty-four-hour clock start running until late Wednesday), that Jess might call in between, and that we’d happily consider any other ideas she came up with along the way.

She seemed eager to help, which was hardly a surprise. She was almost certainly at least partially on commission, and this was an extra booking. Extra bookings are always good!

I went through the same exercise with American Express’s travel department. The guy who helped me there wasn’t as friendly as Sue Ann, but results were what mattered. I’d go with whoever got me the best fares (or, possibly, the best airlines).

We would be in Puerto Rico on Thursday. The ship docked late in the morning, which meant we’d likely be able to call sometime in the afternoon. Calling the continental US from Puerto Rico was, almost certainly, by far our cheapest option. It was, after all, part of the United States, as opposed to some of the other islands we were stopping at. Ship-to-shore phone calls were quite expensive in the 1980s and would be an option only in an emergency.

Boarding (or ‘embarkation,’ Carnival’s preferred term) in 1985 was surprisingly similar to boarding in later years. The biggest differences were technological. In later years they took pictures of every guest, for instance, for their security system. Another example was luggage tags. Carnival had sent us tags this time. In the future, you would print your own at home.

Aside from that, it wasn’t dissimilar to airline boarding, but much slower. Guests dropped off their bags, which were whisked off to their rooms, then waited in a succession of long lines to check in, get room keys, set up a billing account, and finally board the ship. The room keys we received were the plastic ‘punch card’ sort, something I hadn’t seen in decades. The others had never seen them at all.

Another similarity to my ‘previous’ cruises was the number and variety of opportunities to have your photo taken. Not security photos, but photos they would sell you in the photo gallery. The boarding photo was practically mandatory. There were other photographers along the path and once you got on board. There would continue to be many during the cruise.

We would likely buy some of them. I couldn’t imagine we wouldn’t buy at least one of the ‘formal night’ photos. The parents would love those! In the future, we’d bought one and then had copies made. That was much harder with 1985 technology. We would likely buy some extras from Carnival to frame and distribute. Not too many, but a professional photo of us in our formal wear would be a great Christmas gift.