Day-17 (Nov 5) Final full day Cruising

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It appears the final 4 blog sessions got "stuck" somehow in their system, so theyall 4 are being published again - please forgive if this is a duplicate notice for you.



The weather this morning deteriorated into a series of rain storms. Throughout the night the winds had been whistling at about 40 knots. Certainly no one was out on the outside decks this morning. By noon it had stopped raining and the wind was down to 8 knots, but the morning had been a washout. However that confined everyone inside and suddenly the public areas were pretty crowded. The afternoon was reasonably calm but overcast all day. Either the weather (or the need to have your swimming suits dry) kept most people away from the pool this last day. Later in the afternoon the winds picked back up to 25 knots but sunny skies are predicted for our arrival in Port Everglades on Saturday.

Janet & David packed two of the suitcases this morning for tomorrow’s departure. The luggage is not supposed to be tagged and placed in the hall until this evening, so for the rest of the day we have suit cases in the way. The hard part is making sure we can pack everything else in the last suitcases versus things that will still be used this evening. And of course wanting to be sure to keep each under 50 pounds (no scale to check them though).

The tagged luggage will be collected and moved to the dock, rather than us having to manhandle all the suitcases through the halls and down the elevators - very much appreciated. There was confusion within our group whether we are supposed to use the red tags or the pink tags, but that was finalized at dinner this evening (so everyone will be leaving together).

There were activities underway again today, but it seems like most people spent their time with last minute shipboard shopping and preparing for departure. For example, David & Janet attended a session on folding towels to make the various creatures. They illustrated several (swan, elephant, dog, and crocodile) but did not hand out any instructions to take home with us. That is probably something we can Google though. But the next time someone comes to visit, don’t be expecting anything fancy though - we still mostly fold them in quarters.

Of course we will continue to eat until the very last minute. That being said, we had a “last lunch” in the Windjammer Buffet (how sad). Afterwards, Jim went to do his walk (only did 3 miles since the wind had picked up again and was really a struggle heading into the wind), Kathy started her packing, Janet settled down to read, and David took a nap (a habit that is going to be difficult to break). We also filled out a questionnaire regarding our views of the service during the cruise - we rated most things very highly.

On the TV it appears that our course was going to take us directly through the Bahamas. Of course the scale of the diagram may be misleading, but we hoped we could see some of them before it got dark. Not so - maybe someday we will come back and see them up close. We did see lights on the horizon at night, but we couldn’t really claim to have seen the Bahamas.

The Last Supper was in our regular dining room. Beforehand they had something called a Mardi Gras parade up and down the Promenade, but we did not get a good place to be able to see much of it. So before dinner we walked through the last dining room (deck 5) we had never visited during the cruise (just to see it). The meal was excellent again (NY Strip Steak, Tempura Shrimp, and Atlantic Salmon). We had appetizers and desserts of course, and finished off Rich’s bottle of wine.

Our “cabin pet” this evening was a sting ray.

The last show in the Metropolis Theater was a comedian. It was good to finish with some good laughs. They also had some dancers and a little singing, so there it was a well-rounded farewell performance. The clincher for the show was that someone contributed the difference to bring the Make-a-Wish contribution up to an even $20,000. Besides the generosity, the Cruise Director had promised to dress in drag if they reached that level, so it was very funny on the main stage.

Then it was back to the room and setting the luggage out in the hall (sure hope we see it again in the morning). Good night.

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Photos

Stingray
in our cabin

Swan
at towel folding demo

Elephant
at towel folding demo