Well, here we are on the last day of the cruise, writing the last report of the voyage. It seems that no matter when the time change occurs, we are still up with the chickens. Today we woke up to balmy weather…..mostly blue skies with white fluffy clouds on the horizon and really humid. Sure feels like Florida.
Breakfast saw deck three in the dining room about full of our Breakfast Club. We are going to miss this the most. We will have one more breakfast in here, but at 6:30am. One more day of being spoiled.
Back at our room, we had the last set of itinerary stickers for the Journeys booklet. Adding up the five major segments, we came up with a total of 33,798.1 nautical miles sailed. However, converting that to statute miles, the number rose to 38,867.82 miles. We think that is way more than just circling the globe, since we did a lot of south to north traveling this time as well. What a journey.
The morning highlight was the Grand Crew Farewell. Ian announced that the World Stage would be opened at 9am with showtime to begin at 10am. Once again, the Rolling Stone Lounge was open for live-streaming of the event. We could not locate the show on the room TV, although it was shown later in the afternoon. It was quite similar to the crew farewell we attended for the Tales of the South Pacific last fall, except there were more ports obviously. As each port was flashed on the big screen, there was some applause. However, we did hear some boo's when they showed both The Gambia and Senegal. Also Mozambique gathered some negative vibes. Guess the folks were not thrilled with these stops. Actually, Dakar, Senegal never happened because we were kept on the ship. The show ended with the crew and staff coming on the stage, and the crowd clapped for what seemed like forever. They are the best crew on the high seas in our opinion.
Final activities took place during the day like jackpot bingo, poker tournaments, team trivia, arts and crafts, coloring classes, and most exercise sessions. We have never noticed if there was a yoga class on this cruise, by the way. If you haven't learned to dance with the Zuiderdam dancers, then you had your last chance today. A final movie was shown in the Rolling Stone Lounge called Seriously Red. It looks like these movies will be included in the movies on demand on the room TV from now on.
We finished the last of the packing, which was only one bag. It might have weighed a tad over 50 pounds, but it is what it is. We will lock it up and put it out in the hall after dinner. In anticipation of a lot of luggage movement, three of the elevators were shut down in the aft area. Did us good to go down three flights to the upper dining room.
Dinnertime was bitter-sweet, of course, with the good-byes. But first, the menu was a little strange as it was titled "Chef's Surprise". The surprise was, according to Barb, was there was nothing to eat. We chose the Dutch pea soup and one appetizer that had real potato salad. It came with herring, so that was donated to Greg, who loves herring. For main entrees there were lobster and crab pie, haggis, venison, and a vegetarian stuffed cabbage roll, as well as the usual everyday items. We both had the meatloaf and it was very good. Oscar was sweet enough to bring a plate of piping hot French fries for all of us to snack on. Barb had the lemon shrimp fettucine but ate mostly the shrimp like she always does. No wonder she manages to stay slim, even though she did enjoy the little carrot cupcake. It was frozen chocolate yogurt for us.
Usually when it comes to the end of this final dinner, Barb becomes "rocket dog", as she was aptly named by retired purser and friend Peter. She hates to say good-bye. Anyway, people began to stop by asking if we were on next year, and they would see us then. One by one, more friends came and we all had a group hug and that was that. So long until the next voyage.
There was no entertainment in the World Stage, but the music walk would keep folks happy. We rather doubt that many will stay up late, because tomorrow will be a busy day beginning early. We heard there were only 20 guests staying on for the next voyage which goes to Europe. Everyone else will be newbies.
And for the last time, we had one hour back on the clocks, eventually giving us back the day we lost while crossing the International Dateline months ago.
We will be up early as we usually are but will not be debarking until after 10am we are told. Fine and dandy with us.
Thanking you for tagging along with us on another Grand World Voyage! Stay tuned…we will be back for the final report and a follow-up.
Bill & Mary Ann
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