While there is minimal wind and slight seas, this is not a day to linger outdoors. Most passengers are packing up today, preparing to continue their vacation with a land trip in Alaska, or flying home tomorrow. There are about 190 of us staying on for the next cruise, and we've met a few couple spending weeks on board, until the end of the summer season. They're like us, in the winter on the Emerald, only they do it in the summer on the Island.
We are not alone. While friends at home might doubt our sanity, here, aside "our people" we feel right at home.
There was no sunrise to wake us today, but we were still awake early. Of course, we were asleep before 11pm last night. Our schedule just doesn't change!
G left the cabin early in search of coffee; I stayed cozy in bed and watched the end of a movie on TV. TV on a cruise ship...we seldom see a show of movie from start to finish, but generally, if we're that interested, we can catch the entire thing over the course of a couple of weeks.
I made it to the dining room about 8:30am for breakfast; G finally caught up with me there about 15 minutes later, and joined me for his second breakfast of the day. He had already eaten in the buffet, where he was joined by naturalist Joel who told him his wife was at home following my blog. What a small world!
Out next stop was the Passengers Services Desk to take care of some bookkeeping things. The $172.50 bottle (of what turned out to be champagne) was removed from our statement about 24 hours after we first noticed it, and many thanks to Joel at the PSD for following that through to its resolution. The PSD is a busy place this morning, with lots of people getting their accounts straightened out and picking up disembarkation luggage tags.
There are several fun activities scheduled throughout the day...a cooking demonstration, tour of the galley, backstage tour in the Princess Theater and a navigation lecture, all indicating that this cruise is coming to an end. However, we do have something special to look forward to this evening: the Island Princess will be cruising College Fjord for three hours beginning at 5:30pm. We're going to have dinner in the buffet so as to be able to easily view the glaciers that we'll be passing, one after another at close range. Can't wait!
This is a good time to mention a book that we used to do some pre-cruise research and also as a reference guide along our cruise. We got it from the library but a newer edition is available from Amazon.com: The Alaska Cruise Handbook: A Mile by Mile Guide by Joe Upton. We've found that it has really added to our enjoyment of our cruise, and during the updates from the bridge at 10am (Captain Binetti) and noon (the Officer of the Watch), we can track our progress on the enclosed map.