The weather turned a little worse last night, there were no more clear and sunny skies this morning. The seas are also rougher than we have had for the past several days. This had been forecast by the Captain, we knew the weather was changing, but it was disappointing none the less since this is our last day at sea before we reach Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow morning.
Even the internet was slow, either due to everyone trying to use up their minutes, or possibly from the deteriorating weather and sea conditions, making for a poor signal strength to the satellite.
This was not the only issue this morning, we did not receive the ships newsletter, the Princess Patter, in our mailbox last night, no one near us did. Luckily, there were a few available at the purser’s desk when I stopped by to get some change for tips before heading to get coffee at the International Cafe.
Sunrise
Everything was running low, they were out of coffee lids for the “to go” cups and they were almost out of large “to go” coffee cups. They have been giving everyone two cups each time you got coffee because about 10 days ago, they had run out of the small cardboard sleeve protectors that go on the outside of the paper cups to protect your hands from the heat of the coffee. In lieu of the protectors, everyone got double cups to insulate your hands from the hot beverage. “Too many sea days” was the reason the server gave for the cup situation, so even though Princess collects lots of data during their cruises, they can apparently still have supply issues. Certainly they have served coffee on longer cruises with many sea days, our Tahiti cruise being an example. We are not sure what happened to the Patter, maybe they have run out of printing supplies too.
Stephanie was still under the weather this morning, although we both did get a good nights sleep. Hopefully, by tomorrow, she will feel better since we have to travel home. Of course, today will be a packing day, and the poor weather will certainly make that an easier task to tackle. We won’t be missing any sunshine while we are stuck in the cabin performing that chore.
Sunrise – Last Day At Sea
We are nearing the Bahamas, so we have already seen another ship, the first one since several days ago when we saw a small freighter. This ship was behind us this morning when we awoke, heading in the opposite direction. It was still dark outside, so the well lighted ship was easy to see. Surprisingly, there actually was a bit of a sunrise this morning, even though it was mostly cloudy. The sun peaked through the clouds for a brief time, actually making for some good photos. Once it was daylight, the weather did not look as bad as it had when it was dark, there were small patches of blue sky here and there, but overall, still mostly cloudy.
Today’s post will be the last I will publish during the trip, although we will do a travel home post and some updates once we are home, along with adding some pictures to the photo albums when we have faster internet. We will also do a little proof reading, it just did not happen on this trip as we were publishing posts, so we apologize for all of the typos and poor grammar. Hopefully, someone enjoyed reading about the trip, even though we did not get any comments during this trip, also a first.
By mid morning, the weather ended up being much better than we expected, or had seen earlier in the morning. Although it was partly cloudy, it was really warm, around 80 degrees. We went to breakfast at, wait….guess….. the buffet. Stephanie was feeling a little better, but was still congested. After we ate, we walked around on the Promenade Deck, enjoying the sight of our ship crashing through the waves. It seemed like the ship was going faster today, much faster then we had in the last several days. This was confirmed when the Captain made his daily weather and position announcement, where we found out why we were going faster. More on that later. We sat in some of the deck chairs on the Promenade Deck, we had never done this before. It was nice, we were protected from the wind, and the occasional sunshine was nice and warm.
We went back to the room, and while Stephanie stayed there and rested, I went to the gym to ride the elliptical. One I was done and showered, we went to get some lunch. Today, Stephanie had pizza and I had a cheeseburger, and we ate sitting outside enjoying the warm weather. After lunch, we headed back to the room to apply sunscreen before heading up to the pool deck for lounging in the sun. While we were getting ready, the Captain made his daily noon announcement on our position, speed, and weather. He indicated we were at maximum speed, about 21 knots, heading to Ft. Lauderdale, and that we were now scheduled to arrive at 11:00 PM tonight instead of 6:00 AM tomorrow morning. Apparently we had a passenger with a medical emergency and the ship’s Doctor had requested that we head at full speed to Ft. Lauderdale so that the passenger could be medically evacuated. Even though we would arrive earlier than scheduled, all passengers would be required to remain aboard, and disembark in the morning, per the original schedule.
We headed out to the pool deck to sit in the sun and enjoy the rest of the day. We met up with Mike and Barb after about 30 minutes, and we all enjoyed the day out on the sun deck, cruising past several islands in the Bahamas.
The four of us decided to head back to our room to enjoy the last of the stock of our adult beverages, some sparkling Moscato wine. Mike and Barb also brought over some sparkling wine they had from Spain. We all headed out to see some type of entertainment going on in the Atrium, it was a passenger talent show, which was not that interesting, at least not to the “guys”. The gals headed up to another deck and ran into some other passengers we had spent time with Jane, and Marlene, also from Canada, the gals on the “girls only cruise”. Mike and I headed up one flight of stairs to join everyone, and thankfully, whatever show was going on, was now over. We enjoyed the last of our beverages, and then headed back to our respective cabins to get ready for one last show, and then dinner afterward.
The plan was for the four of us to reunite back on our cabin to finish off the sparkling wines before heading to the show. It was the typical last night cruise entertainment featuring the “If I were Not Upon The Sea” show, along with some amateur talent by several of the crew. The show was pretty entertaining. Afterward, we stopped back by the room for a refill and then headed to dinner.
The dinner was good, the featured main course was New York Strip steak, which was not bad. We did get another special appetizer from the head waiter, Francesco, which consisted of a nice cheese, bread and nut platter.
After dinner, we headed back up to the room to complete our packing, saying goodby to our new friends, Mike and Barb. We had really enjoyed spending time with them on the cruise, and certainly hope to meet up with them again. We shared contact information with them earlier in the day, and will look forward to keeping in touch.
Stephanie and I put the last items in our checked baggage, and placed them outside of the cabin to be collected by the cruise staff. Then we watched as the ship neared the coastline of Florida, the city of Ft. Lauderdale, and Port Everglades. We both called our moms while we were still a few miles out at sea to say hello and to update them on our travel plans for tomorrow. It was nice to see the arrival in Ft. Lauderdale at night, normally our arrival there is so early in the morning that we have never had the chance to see the well lit coastline at night as we approached. As one would expect, we were the only ship in port when we arrived early this evening since normal cruise ship arrival is always in the early morning. It will be interesting to see how many ships are in port when we wake up.
It is late, and we will be getting up early tomorrow to disembark the ship. There is rain forecast in Atlanta and at home, so we hope to make it without too many delays, at least we will not have to worry about our luggage on the return flights going home like we did going to Spain.
As I indicated previously, we will add some after trip thoughts to the blog, as well as updating some of the pictures, but for now, so long…..Chuck & Stephanie