The Caribbean Princess is what happened. We will disembark tomorrow with our fuel gauges on EMPTY, some body damage and our batteries with just enough charge to keep our Check Liver Soon lights emitting solid red. But, boy, did we have fun!!
We once again started our day with breakfast in the International Cafe, sitting right by a window as the ocean rushed by outside. That's not something we'll be able to do again anytime soon. We ended up having a conversation with fellow cruisers that took us right up to lunch, which we enjoyed in the Coral Dining Room. We skipped the Grapevine Wine Tasting (really, I'm not certain if I'll drink again for months) and started the packing process, which, I must say, is considerably easier when we've only been in a cabin for 28 nights and are flying right home. Throw it all in and straighten it out later! Much simpler than packing up 96 days in French Polynesia, spending a night in a hotel and then embarking the Grand Princess.
We also had to remember to do our check in for our flights tomorrow. In a "don't they realize that not everyone has high speed internet all the time?" moment (I could write a book on those after this winter!), Southwest Airlines issued an update to their iPhone app and we couldn't check in without doing the update. But we didn't have internet fast enough to allow us to do the update. Finally, I checked on my iPad to see if we'd have the same issue on it, and we didn't. I did both check ins consecutively and we ended up with boarding positions only 9 spaces apart. Go us!
While we were in our cabin, Captain Foster made an announcement about a plume of smoke coming from a boat that several passengers were reporting on our port side. He said that the bridge had been in contact with the US Coast Guard who had a helicopter watching it and was sending rescue boats and didn't need the Caribbean Princess to respond. Apparently the boat was purposely set on fire and the people on it were trying to get away on jet skis. Quite interesting; as Captain Foster said, we could only imagine why the boat was set ablaze as the Coast Guard approached it. Yes, we could imagine all sorts of things...and did.
By dinner time, we were nearly packed up. I kept dinner simple again (I've had salmon on 4 of the past 5 nights) but did splurge on only my second escargot of the entire winter. The first had been on our first cruise in October, so I guess you can say our winter was bookmarked by escargot. We made it to comedian Troy Thirdgill's 7:15pm performance and his show was a great high note on which to end this cruise. We attended trivia with new friend Joyce (Princess 50th anniversary trivia...just get to the Love Boat Disco Deck Party an hour early and see the questions and answers shown over and over on the MUTS screen) and won. We negotiated our winning bottle of schlock...er, sparkling wine into flashlight key rings and promptly gave ours to two little kids who were getting whiny as mom and dad were finalizing their photo purchases.
We've just shoved our evening clothes into our suitcases and set them outside our door, so our day is officially over. G is in bed bemoaning the fact we're going home tomorrow one minute, then the next minute saying he can't wait for cable TV to have something decent to watch. Given 150 TV channels and DVR, he'd happily cruise forever. I, on the other hand, don't give a fig about TV but miss people and high speed internet (in an order I won't admit to). I am so ready to go home, which doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed every single day of our winter, right down to this evening. It simply means we have a home and a life there I adore.
I am so blessed. :-)
