Our last day at sea on the Caribbean Princess. A lovely hot sunny day and the sea very flat. We were passing through the Bahamas most of the day although I didn’t see any sign of an island from the ship. We did have seabirds around us though, a sure sign land was nearby.
We spent our time around the pool, reading, swimming and watching Beauty and the Beast on the big screen – the Emma Watson version. There was a shop sale down in the restaurant and I went to have a look at that. Mostly it was all a load of rubbish but I got us a t shirt each from the collection from the Round Britain cruise that preceded our own trip. Got an Orkney Islands one for Bob, and a British Isles one for me. We will use them – amongst other things – for wearing when we go diving next week. The water will be too warm for wetsuits and its nice to wear something over your swimwear. I just wore a swimsuit last year when we were diving in Aruba and had an embarrassing incident when the divemaster was helping me with a jammed buckle on my equipment!!! Yes, he was tugging at the buckle so hard, he managed to tug my swimsuit too and errr….. well… So, will be wearing my British Isles t shirt next week!!!
Went back to the cabin at about 330 and packed the cases. Have tried to be scientific about it so that we don’t have to open at least one case that we won’t need until New York in November. We put them outside the cabin and they’ll be picked up this evening for us to collect dockside tomorrow morning. Our last one has to be put outside by 10 tonight.
So, tonight we went to the early show, which was the resident stage company doing a Broadway based musical medley. Absolutely brilliant. Fantastic high tec set, great performances, pyrotechnics!!! Hugely enjoyable. After that we went up to the martini bar and had a couple of straight up martinis (Tanqueray) with amazing olives… just the best stuffed olives ever. A variety of stuffings, from classic pimento, garlic sliver, cream cheese, chilli…. Stayed to listen to the tremendous violin entertainer, Chris Watkins, perform in the Atrium. He is just amazing. Makes the violin super cool and somehow gives a high energy musical performance while managing to dance at the same time. If you ever get the chance to see him, grab it. Nice dinner.. table for two tonight…. Then, after dinner I went back to the martini bar for another classic… while Bob headed off to the casino. He’d been given a $5 credit for roulette play and it was use it or use it tonight. So, he used it and came out 5 minutes later with $35 and a very happy smile on his face!
We’ve really enjoyed our cruise. It’s not been the best one we’ve ever been on, but it has been very enjoyable and a good rest. The food has been fantastic, the cabin super comfortable, the evening entertainment, first class. Our criticisms would be that the daytime programme has been lightweight, too much so for a cruise that has so many sea days. Luckily, we are happy to enjoy the sun, swim, read and watch films. Otherwise we’d be finding it a bit hard….. I suppose the key question would be: would we travel to the USA this way again, and the answer to that would be a resounding YES. We are arriving, rested, without any jetlag and ready to go!!!