At Sea - The Last Day of the Voyage

Thankfully, we slept like babies; the seas were calm, and we had a late, lazy breakfast. It seems, on the last day of the cruise, they smother you with paperwork. There’s the customs form to declare what you are/are not bringing into the country. Next, there’s the preliminary statement of all the shipboard charges……I’m sure this is a big surprise for some people, especially the heavy drinkers. Ours was about what we thought it would be.

Then, the Cruise Director does a disembarkation talk. Prior to this, they had a little game called “SeaQuest”. The MC divides the room into two teams (A & B) and each team has a runner (Lisa & Rebecca), then the MC asks if the audience has a particular item and whichever runner reaches the stage first with the item, that team wins some points……the requested items were things like…..a checkbook, red lipstick, a 1975 coin, a casino chip worth $100, teeth (yeah, no kidding, someone actually produced a set of false teeth) etc. The most humorous was when the MC decided on a shoe contest….whichever team could throw the most pairs of shoes on the stage got a whopping 15 points……let me tell you…shoes were flying. At the end of the contest, team A (our team) won….we got a free beverage for our efforts……now, you know non-alcoholic beverages are free anyway…so, we didn’t really win anything, but it was fun.

So, Johnny gave the disembarkation talk, with a few typical cruise-ship jokes thrown in. We are opting for expedited processing. It really helps expedite the process if you’re able to carry all your bags off yourself. Being seasoned travelers, this is no problem for us; we pack light. Then, the crew did a little farewell performance with a song routine, which was really cute.

We had lunch and browsed the last-day sales….not much of interest to us, however. I finished one of the two books I brought and left it at the book exchange in the library. The winds picked up a bit in the afternoon and we had a few more whitecaps; but, we had sailed far enough north that we were getting some protection from the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba as we headed for the Florida Keys, which we’ll pass during the night.

Our last night’s dinner was really good but I have to honestly say I’m ready for smaller, simpler meals. I know no one is forcing us to eat; but, it seems if the food is there, we eat it. The after-dinner show was billed as a Variety show but, it featured a combination of two of the previous shows….Frank King, the Comedian, and the excellent steel band, Island Magic.

At the end of this relaxing voyage, there was nothing left to do but pack. We set our wake-up call for 6 o’clock; that would give us enough time to take showers, have breakfast and be ready to walk off at our designated time at 7:15 a.m.

At Sea - The Last Day of the Voyage

Dec 28, 2008