DETROIT, MI -- Christina Hayes was at the final game of World Series last year.

She watched the 2012 Tigers take their last breathe before falling to the San Francisco Giants in a depressing sweep.

“It was painful. Sad. Like 'Ugh, we made it this far,' ” said Hayes before hopping onto a shuttle bus from Grosse Pointe to Comerica Park on Friday morning for the Tigers home opener.

Opening Day for her marks the end of that agony and a new spring of hope.

Hayes also attended the final 1984 game when the Tigers last won the World Series.

“I want to do that again,” she said. “I think we need to finish what we started last year.”

She joined about a dozen fans on the Detroit Bus Company shuttle, morning libations in hand, kicking off the unofficial holiday with a bumpy, boisterous ride through the city.

The group shared a bottle opener and clinked thermoses filled with Bloody Marys, bottles of Heineken and hard cider and cans of Yuenling.

They talked, cheered and laughed about the pickles soaking in their Bloody Marys and Mike Ilitch’s alleged toupee.

“It’s tradition,” Hayes said. “It’s the beginning of spring. Spring doesn’t begin until Opening Day.”

Hayes and her husband Kevin recently moved back home to the Detroit area after living for 17 years in Chicago, a block from Wrigley Field, where they never quite became full-fledged Cubs fans.

The Grosse Pointe couple said the Opening Day party in Chicago is even more intense than it is in Detroit, but here, they said, people actually watch the game.

Well, maybe not everyone.

Amanda Marsack of Harrison Township and Jackie Guajardon of Wayne don’t have tickets to the game.

They wore Tigers gear and swooned over Justin Verlander and Alex Avila, but they rode the shuttle Downtown with the sole intention of partying.

A block-wide Greektown Opening Day celebration is their destination.

“I think it’s like a holiday,” said Guajardon. “We took the day off. We didn’t go to work today.”

They aren’t sure whether they’ll actually catch any of the game.

“Hopefully I can see a TV somewhere,” Guajardon said.

The group got off the bus outside the park and blended into the massive crowd of fans, ticket scalpers, T-shirt salesmen and dancing sandwich mascots with a band playing Sweet Home Alabama somewhere in the background.

The Hayes weren’t sure where they’d head before or after the 1 p.m. game.

“Sometimes, the best times are had when you don’t know what’s coming,” said Kevin Hayes, 41.

Follow Khalil AlHajal on Twitter @DetroitKhalil or on Facebook at Detroit Khalil. He can be reached at kalhajal@mlive.com or 313-643-0527.