The ferry back was much smoother than the ride out. After the initial motion leaving Kahului harbour, the ship was very smooth and there was no weirdness from the following sea. About half-an-hour out of Honolulu, the helmsman changed hte throttle position or something, and a fairly pronounced vibration and noise began – not sure if the engines weren’t running in their “sweet spot”, or maybe one was set slightly different from the other and the difference set up a harmonic vibration.
I must sat that the operation is well done, especially the ground crew that checks in passengers and vehicles, directs them to the appropriate waiting area, and guides them aboard into the the parking dock. Everyone we met up to the stairways leading to the passenger deck were courteous and professional, and most importantly, nice.
The passenger deck crews on the other hand were less so. On the trip out, there was one pleasant older man who would stroll the cabin and police up empty beverage or food containers. On the way back, I saw him again doing the same. He was the only one wearing the blue uniform doing his job. All the other blue-shirts were standing about loitering and talking amongst themselves. As we were getting underway, they were changing out the full liners in the trash receptacles. Shouldn’t that have been done between unloading the Maui-bound passengers and loading the Honolulu-bound passengers? The head had no paper towels and the trash hadn’t been emptied. The seat tray tables were filthy. I saw the “brown-shirts” also somewhat hanging about in groups and not appearing to be doing anything work-related at times. When we docked, the blue-shirt that directed passengers down to the parking deck did so in an incoherent and uncourteous monotone fashion. My best pidgin-English translation engine couldn’t exactly figure out what he was mumbling.
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