Monday, January 27, 2014

Friday (01/24): Last Cruising Day at Sea

** I forgot to mention an important update on our ship. Last night during our formal dinner, the salt and pepper shakers appeared on the table along with the bread baskets. The Noro-virus alert has been lifted. Yeah! That means some of the crew can go back to their normal duties on the ship. Now, back to our normal post. **

OMG! We woke up to a lot of motion. As in ship motion. I tried to walk a few feet in our cabin, but kept bumping into things. This is our last sea day. Our last day of cruising. After an early morning breakfast, I left Hubby in the cabin while I went exploring around the ship one last time.

The temperature today was 60 degrees with 21 knot winds blowing across the deck. The wind was blowing from the starboard side. I tried to get out onto the Promenade deck to take some pictures of the waves. Pushing the door into the wind was difficult. My pro camera almost got smashed into the door. The doors would just slam back into the ship.

The swells were around 4 ft to 7.5 ft:

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Looking at the starboard side as the ship is cutting into the water:

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We're sailing in the Gulf and passing the oils rigs every now and then:

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I stopped by Club Fusion where they had a Zumba class:

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I ended up taking a galley tour:

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I went up to Lido deck 15 to see what kind of pool activities were going on. Not much, just a lot of pool water sloshing around at the Calypso pool:

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I took this picture in the early morning before they put the net over the pool:

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Here's what one of pools normally looks like in calm seas:

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I took a break from wandering around and headed back to the cabin to start packing. Good thing as it started to rain. My intent was to pack one suit case at a time. Each of the three suit cases had an owner: Hubby, Me, and Extras. Hubby knows to stay out of my way when I get into the packing zone. Our cabin looks like a tornado came through:

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After an hour of packing, I was tired and needed some food to get energized again. We headed up to Horizons for our last lunch on the ship. We were in for a treat. One of the crew members mentioned to me that they were having a sweet surprise over at Cafe Caribe. Here's what we saw:

Strawberry shortcake:

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A chocolate delight!

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Delicious pineapple cake:

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A tower of chocolate cream puffs!

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One of the chefs and a crew member decided to ham it up for me:

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Can you tell the Chef really enjoys his creations? Another crew member told me to submit this picture to corporate Princess and see what I get. I just might take them up on that offer.

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After lunch, we walked around a bit and noticed it was chilly throughout the ship and still rocking from the waves. By now, I'm used to the rocking motion. I heard a fellow cruiser mention "it's like walking around the ship like a drunk, but without the alcohol". I had a good laugh!

Back in the cabin, I finished packing around 6pm. That was after we showered and put our toiletries and the rest of our clothes in the suitcases. We left out our warm weather clothes to wear tomorrow and a few essentials for the evening (e.g. toothbrush, toothpaste, etc). After I put the colored tags on our luggage, Hubby puts them out in the hallway for the crew to pick up and take to the belly of the ship. Sometime tomorrow morning, we'll see them in the terminal.

For our last evening meal, we decided to go to Vines. We select our wines and are offered free tapas and sushi for our meal. ** Note: I will be back to post pictures of this venue and the wine offerings. **

We decided to stay in the cabin for the rest of the night. Normally, we would to up to MUTS to watch a movie. I went up to the Lido deck to get some bags of popcorn. While up there, it was a ghost town. I headed over to MUTS where a movie was playing, but no one was watching it. It was cold! I noticed the bored deck attendants wore their heavy jackets. I spoke to a passing crew member who was from the Ukraine. He said this was warm in comparison to what he's used to back in his home country. I believe him!

Life is good back in our cabin and munching on popcorn, but we're a bit sad. The last evening of our cruise. Now, I tell Hubby that 14 days on a ship is not long enough....

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