Day 12: At Sea

Friday, June 26th, 2009

At Sea

Our last day….sigh…. I am already beginning to slip into PCD – Post Cruise Depression.

After getting up and having a wonderfully delicious breakfast (sarcasm) at the Windjammer, I come back to the cabin to find our gratuity envelopes laying on our bed. Oh, joy! Time to pony up! I enclose tips in each envelope, and sit down to write a personal note of thanks to each of the recipients – Alston, Dejan, and Phumza. They were all amazing, and I wished them luck in whatever future endeavors they find themselves involved in.

Dear Hubby is up on the deck, getting his morning laps in. This is where I should be – but I’ve decided to be a bit lazy today and take it easy. Besides, the weather is a little hazy and cool – although the seas are very, very calm. The high temperature ends up being in the low 80's - beautiful.

We spend the bulk of time between breakfast and lunch doing the unenvious job of packing – ugh. Is there any worse thing to do? It really reminds you that the vacation is almost over.

At 1:00 pm, we decided to have some fun and went up topside to play a round of Putt Putt golf. It was quite tense – we were neck-to-neck the entire game, but in the end, Dear Hubby beat me by one stroke. He made me type this – he wanted everyone to know that he was, indeed, the winner – and I was, indeed, the loser (choke). For lunch, we slipped into the Seaview Café and had some delicious, made-to-order, pizza. Yummo.

At 2:00 pm it was the Tango lesson in the Colony Club – the stars from the tango show, Sabrina and Dario, were the teachers. They were very good and taught us the 8-step tango. I somehow think, that no matter how much we practice, we’ll be as good as they are.

At 3:00 pm it was time to get ready for our Bridge Tour with the Captain. We strolled to the forward elevators on Deck 10, where we were greeted by a Security officer who took our names from our Seapass cards. We then got the “wand” over us – which made for some interesting looks as other passengers strolled by– and were then escorted in to the Bridge. The Captain was very gracious – he patiently showed us all of the computers and controls.


They have a good view up there – and they even have windshield wipers on the giant windows in front. The “bridge” looks like out of Star Trek – pretty cool. The Captain answers all questions – he shows us the AIS system where they can identify ships out there – who they are, where they are going, how fast they’re going, etc....


He shows us the depthfinder - a little more fancy than the one on our boat back home.

He also said he still keeps a captain’s log but it is all by hand – is not computerized. The ship is pretty much on automatic pilot until it comes time to port. The pilot boats we’ve been seeing bring a local authorized guide who comes into the bridge and doesn’t actually steer the boat in but is there to “guide” and assist – sometimes just knowing the language us a big help. We took pictures and asked a zillion questions – the captain was very gracious and accommodating. He did mention that although the Mediterranean is normally calm in the summer, our cruise had exceptionally calm waters – even more calm than normal.


The captain is very gracious about posing for pictures, as you can see.

After the tour we changed back to our sweats and went up to the Sports Deck and played a few games of "informal" volleyball. Informal teams were set up and we began to play. It was tough because of the wind – if you hit the ball high, the wind would catch it and it would go out of bounds. I still have my killer serve. I did get smashed in the face once – can’t believe my sunglasses didn’t cause a bruise when the ball smashed into my eye. Ouch – but I didn’t cry – there are no tears in volleyball.

We played for about an hour – then headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. After changing and cleaning up, we headed to the Concierge Lounge for our usual drinks and canapés. Before dinner, we went back to our room briefly and ran into Alston – so we gave him his tip envelope and said our goodbyes. He wrote out his phone numbers and address for us – said his family will be in New Jersey (but not him – he is still working) and he would love for them to meet us. I told him we would be in NJ at the end of July – and that will be around the same time. He is a special young man – said he enjoyed being our room attendant – and agreed that my animals playing poker was a highlight – no other guests have done that, and he thought it was fun.

It was now time for dinner – so we headed to the dining room for our last meal together. It was Princess Phumza’s birthday, so we had to sing for her.

For dinner, I had the calamari as an appetizer – it was okay – a little bland – and the portion was very small. For dinner, I had the Bream – tasted a lot like tilapia. Good – but not great. For dessert, I had a hard time making a decision – so Dejan brought me three of them – the flan (pretty good), the chocolate cake with passion fruit cream filling (ugh – the cream had too much gelatin in it – the texture was gross – we all agreed!) and the baklava - it was good, but after having baklava in Greece, it just couldn’t compare.

After dinner – we headed to the Centrum where they were playing tango music – and then our tango teachers, Sabrina and Dario, came out at 8:30 to do a special presentation. They rocked it. We brought them back for 2 encores. Damn they’re good.

After that it was time to head to Pacifica Theater to watch the Farewell show. Keiron sang “Mustang Sally” – he’s a pretty good singer – who knew? We then watched the highlights of the Cruise in Review DVD – I made it dancing at the 50’s Party as well as flashing my tattoo at the Quest – nice. Then we watched a juggler, Daniel Hochsteiner, perform – who was outstanding. Well worth it. Don’t miss his show. He is billed as a "worldclass tennis speed juggler."

We then said goodbye to our group and then came back to the room to finish the dreaded packing and get our luggage out by midnight.


PS – Alston made sea serpents (in the shape of a heart) on our bed. Although some other people have said it’s an octopus. What do you think?