25 Apr

Day 1 (Part 2) – So Much Whoa

 

While I was hanging out in the atrium waiting for the muster drill, I had a great time watching everyone!  I realized that some guests were engaging with the characters onboard, some were off on missions, some were just sitting and watching.  I decided that you could be fully engaged or just moderately active and still have a great time.  And that’s a good thing!

Ouannii was there! She was spectacular. Ouannii was a musician who accompanied the headliner musician (Gaya) onboard. She did not speak English, so interactions with her were always entertaining!

Captain Keevan and cruise director Lenka Mok welcomed us onboard!

And then things went horribly wrong!

First Order Lieutenant Harman Croy boarded our ship with some stormtroopers! Wuh oh!

The First Order was very concerned about rebel activities, and assured us they would be keeping a close eye on us. The Captain then assured them there was nothing to worry about!

We got into our muster stations. The Saja were onboard!

The Saja are a group who took refuge on the Halcyon. They are not Jedis, but can sense the Force in others and help them. One of them led our muster station. 

I can’t find the file for my picture, so here’s a small one!

Gaya’s manager Raithe was nearby!

Everyone was given mocktails for a toast to our voyage.

After our toast, it was time for our scheduled bridge training!  Ack!!  So exciting!

Mukta and I found a station.

The training was super, super cool.

We were given instructions and exercises that we all did together.

Then we rotated through the different stations.

We were definitely better at some than others!

After we finished our last station, we realized our training was about to be put to use!

The cruise director came to see if we could help!

Of course, we could. We were going to pick up Gaya in a nearby star system!

But first – lightspeed!

I’ll say it again. Whoa.

Whoops! Asteroid field!

Here’s Gaya’s ship:

We put our skills to use and got out of there safely!

And here’s Gaya!

Gaya was delightful! And then it was time for dinner! We ran to our room and changed quickly and were off to dinner. There were two dinner seatings, (like an ocean cruise!), and we were on early dining.

They took us to our table and we met our dinner server. Here we are!

He brought out the first course!

Everything was family style.

There was also a kid’s menu with fries, pizza, etc! But there was steak. So I didn’t need it!

Gaya sang at dinner while Ouannii played backup.

The first order and the cruise director also came by!

Gaya had us all stand up for a little bit of dancing after dinner.

We had help from Sandro and Raithe as well!

Dessert was delicious!

After dinner, it was time for some missions! I ran into Chewbacca!

I had accidentally changed a setting on my camera and was trying to fix it while following Chewbacca. In the process, I missed the fashion show! Mukta walked, and looked stunning!

Luckily she has picture proof!

Then it was time for a little shopping. I also found snacks!

Purple cake pops!

Much like an ocean cruise, food onboard the Halcyon is abundant! There were three meals in the dining room, there were snacks in between and late into the night, and the Sublight Lounge always had snacks to order at night, and grab and go meals in the morning and at lunch. We were never hungry!

I popped into the store.

There was a great selection!

I can’t tell you how much this lightsaber, that could only be purchased onboard, tempted me.

 Love this MagicBand!

And tiny SK-620s!

I sat down for a few minutes and took some pictures of my datapad so you could see what it looked like. Here’s my personal schedule for the rest of the evening.

As we completed missions, and showed our allegiances, more things were added to the schedule on day two. Here’s a sample of one of the conversations that took place:

I went off on a short mission!

Mukta was on a mission involving Chewbacca!

Kevin had tried to hide him.

Chewbacca? What? He’s not here. He totally blends, right?

Afterwards, we met up in the Sublight Lounge! I ordered a Coke Zero, which was free, and the others got cocktails. We also discovered the free food and realized we had to try some even though we weren’t even remotely hungry!

Hello, little guy!

Mukta had an injection in her drink!

Look how pretty!

Wuh oh. Visitors.

And Ouaunnii!

And Sandro. This bar was hopping!

Then I realized my phone AND camera were basically dead. I ran back up to the room and left everything to charge. I ran back up to get it about 20 minutes later, because it was time for lightsaber training! Ack!!

This was a very cool experience. Very cool.

It was super dark, and I was much too busy to take pictures, but here’s a general idea!

Here are some videos!

Mukta:

Me:

And how we all worked together:

Here we all are, supporting each other!

At the end, we had a special voice come and encourage us.

Mukta cried.

Twice.

Here’s the room after we finished!

Then we went back to the atrium to see what all was going on. Lots was going on! Chewy was caught and arrested, SK was captured and bolted, so much!

They’re taking SK!

Lieutenant Croy. He’s so bad.

At 9:45 the cruise director tried to lighten things up with a toast! Things were looking dire indeed.

Back to Sublight!

Here we are!

We had chips!

At 10:00 there was an announcement that all scheduled activities have ended for today. We kept getting missions though! And lots of prep info for Batuu.

We sat in the lounge until about 11:45 and finally called it a night! The atrium was pretty empty, so I took a ton of pictures.  Of course.

After a bazillion pictures, we went up to our deck.

There was a sign reminding people it was late!

We also had a letter on the bed!

We got ready for bed quickly, and plugged in all our devices all over the room.

Ack! Our room went to lightspeed while we were getting in bed! So cool.

What happened next was an example of how immersed we were.

We’d been given instructions on how to lower a shade over our spaceport, because space is bright sometimes!

So we did that, but the giant datapad on the wall that showed where we were was still on. Here’s a reminder of what it looks like:

Well, we could not figure out how to turn it off!

We flipped off light switches, we touched the screen, we ran our hands around the outside, nothing! We spent 10 minutes trying to figure this out. We knew we were missing something.

And we were! The remote control on the side of the bed…

Because this was no datapad. It was a TV!!!

A TV.

Like you find in every hotel room everywhere.

Somehow it never occurred to us that we would have a TV in our room on the Halcyon. I mean, we were in space! Do they watch TV in space? Can they get a signal out there?

My word we laughed so hard when we realized how clueless we were. The full immersion was definitely working. 😊

More to come!

 

A Whole New Kind of (Space) Cruise – March 7-9, 2022
Day 1 (Part One) – Whoa 
Day 1 (Part Two) – So Much Whoa 
Day 2 (Part One) – Excursion to Batuu 
Day 2 (Part Two) – There May Have Been Tears 
Day 3 – Back From Space!