- A flight from Fort Lauderdale to home
- A flight from Fort Lauderdale to Detroit
- Another 10-night cruise on the Emerald Princess
And just this morning, we chose option #3. We know that this season on the Emerald Princess is the end of an era, and suspect that we may never enjoy a winter as we've enjoyed this one, which has been perfect in so many ways. Though we'd made final payment on this cruise 75 days ago, I never seriously thought we'd be staying on for it (and could have cancelled it even this morning using Princess Vacation Protection). But, in the end, we just wanted to, as the song says, "Stay...just a little bit longer".
Most of it was that I didn't need to rush to Mom. She's doing better every day and has lots of home care in place. Part of it was that Darko is staying until March 29th and has been goading us for a week, telling us it would be perfect if we all left at the same time, since we had arrived on board on the same date. Other crew members, who have known about the 19th v. 29th debate for awhile, have had great fun weighing in too. "One European contract" we are repeatedly told. In the end, it simply felt right to finish at 150 days. And so we will (knock on wood).
I spent much of today making phone calls and attending to administrative duties. G got off the ship just long enough to go to Walgreens to pick up two more bottles of Barefoot Bubbly and some turnaround day snacks for Raymond. We had lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room, Barefoot Bubbly on the Terrace Deck at sailaway, Dinner with Darko (my final flourless chocolate cake of the winter. Sigh), and a beautiful sunset over the wake at the back of the ship. It was a good day.
I hope the next nine are just as uneventful.
Life is good. :-)