I didn’t sleep very well last night – maybe it was the chocolate dessert with dinner – so when I woke up at 6 I figured I’d turn off the alarm and head up to the gym to get caught up on the blog – I figured I might as well do it there so I could get my stretches done and get caught up without getting caught up in it and missing the beginning of stretching. When I got to the gym Mark was there and I asked if we could reschedule the shoulder massage, and it turns out it was yesterday. But we rescheduled it for 2 today. Also there was the sun, rising nicely off the bow. Mark said it’s the first time in our entire trip back that he’s seen a sunrise, although for the first half of the trip he was looking in the wrong direction. The Spa/Salon folks are really a separate entity on the ship – they didn’t participate in Joel’s show last night, or in the crew farewell today. It’s unclear how much they get out of the gym! Anyway, the classes were their usual excellent selves. I will really miss the morning stretch class – it is just a good way to get your day started. I will miss abs class less, although I will miss exercising with folks my own age. It’s easier to challenge yourself when an older person is making you look bad.
On a side note, the ship has been averaging over 20 knots, to make up some of the time we lost. This is faster than on the way to Hawaii, and the ship vibrates a little, in addition to pitching, rolling, and yawing because of the rough water and swells. During stretch class Mark said not to push the stretch so that your muscles vibrated, and it was a little hard to tell if it was the ship or the muscles. He also kept saying that it wasn’t supposed to hurt, and that if it hurt we should back off. During abs class I was hoping he’d say the same thing, but he didn’t, and at one point gave an evil cackle much like Coach Tim. What is it with these guys?
After abs class they were out of true moo, so I had darigold instead. It’s not as sweet, but I like the true moo better. While I was getting it I saw Merna waiting in line, so I tracked her and mama down to say hi and also eat some of mama’s bacon. Back to the cabin, then back up to lido aft for Zumba. For the whole cruise I’ve been holding back with Zumba, using it as a warmup for boot camp. Today there was no boot camp so I could go completely nuts with the Zumba, which I did and was it fun! Of course the seas were still quite rough, so it was even more challenging than it would have been since all the core muscles that do balance had to be engaged as well. Your lifestylist Louise decided not to stand on the side of the pool deck the way she’s been doing for fear of falling off. Dave and I talked about it last night, and both of us believe that the ship tends to roll slightly more to one side than the other because of anticipation/guide errors on the stabilizers. I had come to believe it because the water tends to go up more on one side of the pool than the other, and during Zumba I noticed we were more likely to take big steps going starboard than to port. This ended up running me into the stack of deck chairs, but I bounced right off.
After Zumba it was time to head forward for the debarkation talk & crew farewell. We got there about 15 minutes early and it was already SRO on the balcony, which is where we wanted to be, because you can see the whole stage from there. But there were just no seats, so we went downstairs and managed to find some of the very last seats, which were in the last row of the floor seating. Dave came out & did the usual warmup, which is telling stupid questions passengers ask. All of the questions make some sense at first, but then are just silly. For example: “Does this stairway go up or down?” (both) or my favorite new one, asked by a passenger as they were pulling out of a port in Italy: “Is this the same moon we can see from Texas?” (No, it’s the European moon – it’s smaller and it stays up later). It got everybody laughing and more receptive to hearing the debarkation talk. Basically, we have to get off the ship tomorrow, and that’s what it’s all about – settle your bills, return things you’ve checked out, have your bags in the hall by 1 am. He did make a point of saying that you could have your bags out earlier… makes you wonder if some passengers have complained about having to stay up until 1 to put their bags out.
Then it was time for the crew farewell, where they come out and sing “love in any language”. I always like the crew farewell – pretty much every department (except those like the shops, spa, and casino that are separate entities) sends representatives, and they all seem to be having a good time. Arya had told us he would be onstage in the back, and I was worried we wouldn’t be able to see him from where we were sitting. But as it turned out his group came in down the aisle next to where we were sitting, so when we saw him after the show we were able to tell him we’d seen him. Also his smile was probably visible all the way in the front even though he was in the back row.
Then it was pool time for the last time. The swells and rough seas had died down considerably, so it wasn’t as exciting as yesterday, but it was still fun. I will miss the pool. Shower and then lunch, which was a brunch so mama got to have Belgian waffles and we all had mimosas. After lunch we went to the lido to watch the ice carving (swan), and then I stayed for the shipbuilding while Dave went back up on top. The weather has been cool but clear today, and Dave has been spending every possible minute outside. The ship building contest was amazing- someone had made a huge (4’ long) replica of a generic HAL ship, complete with lifeboats, verandahs, and blue and white paint job. They’d also made an orange coast guard helicopter out of a carrot, which made your DJ Brett laugh so hard he almost fell in the pool. And when Brett laughs, everybody laughs. There were 5 ships, 4 of which managed to pass the test of carrying 12 cans of soda and staying afloat for 10 seconds in the sloshing midships pool. The big Dam ship’s pool cover was removable to allow access to the “cargo hold”, which I thought was just amazing. Well, the whole thing was amazing.
Rush rush rush, off to my last massage with Mark, who spent an hour completely unknotting my shoulders. I will miss that very much – I have gotten used to having my shoulders loosened every couple of days. Guess I’ll have to figure out how not to tense them up. Then it was down to the vista lounge for the Filipino cruise show. Although they make up only about 30% of the crew, their show was larger and more organized than the Indonesian show. My favorite was the guys wearing coconut shell bras with tape on various parts of their torsos who did a traditional dance about picking coconuts and then segued into the Macarena. There was also good singing and other good dancing.
Fortunately we had nothing scheduled between the crew show and dinner, so I could go back to the room and do a little typing, and Dave could go aft and take some wonderful sunset pictures. It was a very nice mostly clear day all day, but a little chilly, so Dave had to put on his actual coat to go take pictures. When he got back it was time to get ready for dinner. I had really mixed emotions about dinner – I was looking forward to seeing everybody, but kind of dreading saying goodbye. Dinner was just fun – everybody seemed to be feeling kind of the same. We found out that Rita spells her name Reta, and she and Gus aren’t married, but they both have kids. John complained that his wine pour and soup were smaller than Carol’s (who, it turns out, spells her name Caryl), and we all made fun of him. We took pictures with Putu and Dewa and Michael, and Gus and Reta teased me about spending all my time “sloshing”. I admit, when dinner was over and it was time to say goodbye I got a little teary. It has just been a good time at dinner with this group.
During dinner we docked in Ensenada, Mexico. Apparently there’s a law that all cruise ships have to stop at a foreign port, or something like that, so this ship stops in Ensenada for 4 hours. 3 or 4 busloads of people got off to be taken to a bar to hear mariachi music, but we’d decided that was something we didn’t need to do. We also considered getting off the ship and just going into the terminal to say we’d been in Mexico, but again, something we decided not to do.
After dinner we made our usual trip up to the crows nest for a last evening with Chris. He played many of our favorites, and we did the sing-along to Sweet Caroline that’s been a crowd favorite the last two nights (Dave’s and my “wo – wo –wo” always surprises people). He came over and chatted during his break and we found out he’d been a prison guard after college – he likes singing on the ship better. His last song was James Taylor’s Rockabye Sweet Baby James, and it’s been playing in my head all night as we’ve gotten packed and walked around the ship. The other thing that’s been playing in my head is the sound of the 50 or so sea lions that were on the rocks by the dock – an incredible cacophony that we could hear a mile or two from shore after we left port. At one point many people (myself included) were out on their verandahs barking back at them. We missed the actual casting off of the ropes – the Captain left early, and the ship moves so smoothly we didn’t know we were underway – but we did stand on our verandah as the ship spun around and left the harbor. Next time we dock will be San Diego and it will be time to leave the ship. I have had an amazingly good time, and I don’t want to go.
No towel animal tonight. The transition to real life has already begun.
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