Today was much warmer than any of the previous days at sea. The temperature was about 77 degrees, and not too windy on deck. We spent time today sunning in the deck loungers by the main pool. The Captain went over the weather report today and talked a lot about the hurricane. We were supposed to cross its path at 3:00 am tonight (tomorrow morning) and then later in the day, be as close as we were expected to get, 500 nautical miles, based on the forecast track. It started to get a little windy during the evening, and was rougher during the night than we had gotten all cruise, still not too bad.

We had our “Honeymoon” celebration at dinner tonight, and we specifically waited for our favorite wait staff Angel and Sampson, both men are from the Philippines, and we have had fun being served by them for several nights.  Of course, Stephanie insisted we wear our wedding clothes for the special dinner!

They gave us a special honeymoon cake, and sang songs. It was really nice, we both wore our clothes from the wedding especially for this dinner. We went to a comedy show later after dinner.

It was fairly rough last night, the ship was moving a lot, and the seas were rough. Still not terrible. At least it was sunny when we woke up. We got another weather report from the Captain at noon, and it was different than yesterday with regard to the hurricane. It is now only a tropical storm, but we will be closer than was predicted yesterday. The report was for us to be within 300 nautical miles, but now it will be tomorrow (Saturday) at 11:00. It continued to be rough all day, the winds were reported at 25-30 knots, and seas 9-12 feet. At least it was sunny until about 3:00. Glad we had been on the ship for as long, and for as many days at sea. Neither of us are being affected by any nausea from the seas. We expect it to get a little worse over night. Apparently, the winds today were not due to the tropical system, only due to a pressure gradient between a high and a low in the Atlantic. Tomorrow, we may see wind and waves from the storm. No Pictures to post today.

It was pretty rough all night, not enough to be an issue while sleeping, but if you were awake, you could really feel the ship moving. When we did get up at sunrise, it was clear outside, less windy, but still fairly rough.  We learned later from the Captain, during his noon ship’s position update, that we had been about 250 nautical miles from the storm at 5:00 am this morning. That did seem to be about the roughest time.  By noon, the wind had subsided, and by 2:00 pm, it was back to normal smooth seas, and almost calm winds.

We spent most of the day out by the pool deck, it was the warmest and most sunny day we had had since we started out from Lisbon, no haze or high clouds. We had a spectacular sunset since the air was so clear, and the seas were calm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finally started to receive some USA channels on the TV; we are now on US satellites instead of European satellites. This means we get ESPN2, so we were able to see football games, and (unfortunately) game scores. Not a good day in S.C. for football. Oh, and yes, we had also already heard about the Clemson coaching change. We spent the evening after dinner watching football…..

Today was another wonderful sunrise, late at about 8:00 am. We still have 2 hours to get back before we are on Eastern Time, one comes tonight, and I guess the other will come tomorrow (Monday) night. That was the reason for the late sunrise today. It was another calm, sunny day, had a couple of showers far off this morning, which formed a couple of rainbows. We spent most of the day by the pool again, then back to the room to fill out Immigration and Custom’s paperwork.

Later on, we played some cards on the balcony before getting ready for the last formal night.

There was a Captain’s Cocktail Party we attended, then off to Lobster Night in the Dining Room, then picture taking. Overall, it was another relaxing day.

Woke up to another nice sunrise, we gained another hour last night on the clock, and now we are only one hour ahead. Tonight we will change to the normal Eastern Time, and be in Port in Ft. Lauderdale in the morning, the end of a wonderful cruise. We will spend the day packing and getting ready to depart at a little after 7:00 tomorrow morning. This will be the last entry for the blog before we get home. We hope everyone that has read it has enjoyed the pictures and updates. The weather is supposed to be nice again today, although it is a little windy from the NE. Part of the day we will spend at the pool, then on to the awful task of packing.

We made it home safely from Ft. Lauderdale on Tuesday afternoon at about 1:30. We were off the ship by 7:30, and got our car at the Hertz Car Rental Desk at the Ft. Lauderdale airport by 8:00. Reality really hit when we got home and had to unpack, wash clothes, sort through mail, and mow the grass.