Report # 119 Sailing Towards Ft. Lauderdale, Florida April 27, 2014 Sunday Mostly sunny, 79 degrees

Making the final miles to circumnavigating the world

It was a bittersweet day.....the final one of the 2014 Grand World Voyage. Although some folks are happy to be going home, we believe the majority are sad to leave old and new friends as everyone heads home. Lots of passengers were lined up to make sense of their shipboard accounts. We all received the preliminary bill yesterday, and we had one discrepancy. As five star members, we were entitled to two complimentary dinners in the Pinnacle Grill restaurant. However, our second meal in there was charged to our account. It is important to go over each item just for that reason. One nice surprise was that we each got a refund of $71.50 for port charges for missing the ports in Gambia and Senegal. That will be credited towards our credit card, or be ours to spend on the following Panama cruise. Works for us.

Final gifts......2 Delft tile refrigerator magnets

Sri Lankan elephant and Reunion dodo bir

Parrot mobile

During this cruise, a gathering of knitters and crocheters have been busy creating hats, scarves, and more than 100 blankets for the Project Linus in Seattle. These items will be donated to the local Seattle hospitals, which is nice. All of these creations were on display today in the Explorers Lounge. Guess the old saying that busy hands, happy hearts is true in this case.

The passengers that participated in the games on board were able to cash in their Dam Dollars on some exclusive prizes this afternoon. We heard that some of the more useful items, like memory sticks, were gone first, since they do not order enough. Of course, it was printed in the newsletter that it was on a first come, first serve basis. For the first time, we heard it announced that the Dam Dollars could be saved and used on next year's world cruise. Perhaps that diffused the situation, or not.

One speaker gave a talk about rocks and landscapes of the cruise. Jill Eyers explained how every rock tells a story. The morning talk was given by Tom Goltz all about revolutionary Che Guevara from Argentina, who played a pivotal role in the Cuban Revolution in the 20th century.

The weather was so beautiful outside, we had no choice but to spend the afternoon by the pool....our last one with our deck buddies who like the sun as much as we do. By this time tomorrow, there will be 100 lounges set up with little space to walk in between the rows. It will be different, no doubt about it.

At 4:30pm, we had an invite to a special gathering of the ongoing guests who are staying onboard for the Panama cruise. It is considered a "Collector's Voyage", which comes with some perks. One of those perks was a complimentary dinner in the Pinnacle Grill restaurant, but only tomorrow evening, or the first or last day of the next cruise. Since we also get two more free dinners there (5 star Mariner), we went right away to make reservations for three evenings. Once the new guests board, we may have a hard time getting the evenings we want. Anyway, the meeting for the 27 of us, was held in the Piano Bar, which was closed off to everyone else. Gene and Barbara H. gave detailed info on the following cruise, as well as directions for tomorrow's mandatory clearing of the ship. They have made it fairly simple for us intransit guests. Now the good news that came out of this meeting was that our stop in Costa Rica will be at Puntarenas, which is way better than Puerto Caldera, because there is nothing there. We would have not gotten off the ship, because the only way out of that working port is to take a tour. And we have done them all at least once. Now the really nice thing about this meeting were the cocktails of our choice and the appetizers of crispy chicken fingers and breaded jalepeno poppers. Nice surprise.

A bigger surprise was what happened next around 5:30pm, while walking on the promenade deck. A whale breached the water not too far from the ship, making everyone on the lounges jump up and actually clap and cheer. Oh, that could be because they were all drinking wine and beer at the time too. There may have been a pod feeding, because we saw this repeated every minute or so as we sailed in the opposite direction. We all guessed that we saw humpbacks, because that is the species in this part of the world this time of year. They travel to the Caribbean to have their calves in these warmer waters. Anyway, that made our day, as well as everyone that witnessed these massive mammals.

Our final dinner was fun as usual, although a little sad. Nobody likes saying goodbye, but all good things must come to an end. We will miss our old friends and our new buddies, Bill & Marianne. We all knew from day one that we were going to like both of them. There was a parade of waiters and room stewards, but not with the Baked Alaska dessert. That's history. After one sweep through both the lower and upper dining rooms, they stood on the winding staircases and sang an Indonesian song of farewell. By this time tomorrow, we will be having our dinner in the Pinnacle Grill, thinking of all of our tablemates, who will be eating at their favorite local restaurants at home. All of them admitted it will take a while to get into the groove of cooking again after this nice and relaxing vacation.

So, stay tuned, and we hope to keep you all amused for another 15 days.

Sunflower bloom of our window garden

Doing quite well