Day 45: At Sea

Before I type another word, I must mention something I keep forgetting to tell you, that the Golden Princess has begun to look a lot like Christmas. Three days ago in Auckland, professional decorators came on board for the day and, by the time we returned to the ship after our day in port, it was transformed into a holiday wonderland, with countless trees and swags and lights and wreaths. I’ve gotten fairly used to spending Christmases at sea, but I never fail to appreciate the decorations that appear without needing to find storage tubs in the basement, carry them upstairs, untangle lights and cords and set everything up, and then dig the outdoor decorations out of the snow in January. 

However, the decorating this year did catch us totally off guard. Without the usual Thanksgiving celebration, it was akin to seeing the first Christmas tree appear in a store in mid-September. 

Back to today...

The fantastic weather we enjoyed most of this cruise is continuing right to the end. We are currently cruising directly west into Sydney, and it is now warm enough at this latitude that we can comfortably sit outside and use pools and hot tubs. Moreover, there has been little wind and minimal swells, and we can scarcely tell we are at sea, let alone the Tasman Sea. 

For all our cruising, we have never yet mastered the art of the ‘final sea day as the last day of a cruise’. Oh, we’re fine when we’re not getting off at the end of the cruise; it’s when we are that it seems like the day revolves around packing. Part of it, of course, is that we arrive with so much stuff (though, truly, I don’t think three pairs of slacks, three pairs of shorts and four pairs of shoes for four months is too awfully much).  But most of problem is the stuff we my husband accumulates along the way, like brochures and maps (because we’ll be returning to most of these ports next month, doncha know?), and Patters (I’ve resolved these won’t make the final cut when we fly to Hawaii) and Logs of the Cruise and Captains Circle pot pourri like photos and menus, which, God help us, we do still take home with us. 

So why, you might ask, are we inflicting this pain on ourselves?  While that very question was open to much debate over the summer, we know it’s the right thing to do and, in fact, a semi-purge of the contents of our cabin after 6 weeks is actually a helpful thing in the long run. 

The next cruise is a three-day repositioning from Sydney to Melbourne. Two days at sea and a lot of partying. The fact that there are no ports was alone enough to disincline us from taking that cruise. Couple that with the fact that we really wanted to spend some additional time in Melbourne (let’s face it, the two turnaround days we’ll have there, because of the Australian rule only allowing us to get off and on the ship one time, won’t give us much opportunity for sightseeing) and the fact that the short cruise was never included in any promotional pricing, so those three days would have been the most expensive three days of our entire winter...well, choosing to disembark the Golden Princess tomorrow, fly to Melbourne and then rejoin the ship there on December 1 was actually quite easy. Packing up today, not so much. 

It helped a great deal that we were able to watch Sunday NFL games on TV while we were in the cabin, especially that exciting Steelers-Packers game. We’ve seen precious little football this fall, which, considering how our Broncos are doing, is probably for the best, and I can’t say I’ve missed it too awfully but it was a nice distraction today. 

We went to British Pub Lunch in the Crown Grill, and debated where to go for dinner (we had already packed all our dinner clothes), but we get pulled in by the last night’s  dinner festivities every time. We have now mastered nearly all the words to Waltzing Matilda and can Aussie-Aussie-Aussie Oy-Oy-Oy with the best of them. And the photos of G Chicken Dancing with our waiters are always priceless. 

The entertainment tonight consisted of the finals of The Voice in the Princess Theater and comedian George Casey in the Vista Lounge. G is out listening to George rip on wives while I am going to happily use up our remaining internet minutes. We move clocks back another hour tonight, and I want to be up on the open decks for our very last sail into Sydney Harbour.