Today is our last day at sea before we arrive in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday. We were happy to see some sunshine this morning after having had two cloudy and rainy days in a row. We gained another hour of time, so we were able to sleep in and not lose the entire morning. We did a little more organizing of our luggage and of all the paperwork we have accumulated during the cruise. We do not have the weight available to take much paperwork home, and have decided that we don’t really need to keep copies of each daily publication of events called the Princess Patter. The only valuable item for future cruise information are the port guides.
Of course, we once again had the breakfast sandwiches in the room, along with some diet Cokes. After our breakfast, we went out to find somewhere quiet to sit to read and complete the write-up for yesterday on the blog. We found a nice table by the pool. Although the skies were a little clearer today, it is really windy, so we needed to find a protected area out of the gusty wind. We are still seeing some of the impacts of the tropical low pressure system that has now moved north of us, it is still causing windy conditions.
After we completed that task, we headed over to the Seaview Bar to visit. We had just one late morning refreshment before we felt that we had waited long enough for our cabin to be cleaned. We wanted to spend some time in the sun today since it is our last day on the ship, so we put on our sunscreen and bathing suits. By the time we finished getting ready, we noticed that there were some rain showers developing, and it was not nearly as sunny as it had been an hour ago. We headed back to the pool deck area anyway and by the time we got there, it was raining. We waited out the rain shower at the Seaview Bar, talking with Franz and Rommel.
The Captain gave the noon position and weather report and informed everyone that the winds were blowing about 35 knots, and since we were heading into it at about 18 knots, the winds out on deck were near 50 mph. The wind and seas were scheduled to decrease over the afternoon as we moved farther away from the low pressure system. We decided to go to the buffet and eat lunch while we were waiting for the weather to get better.
The heavy rain showers passed but there was still a light drizzle, so we found an area that was under a platform and out of the wind and rain and just enjoyed being outside Eventually, it cleared up enough for the sun to shine, so we relocated to lounge chairs on the open deck. We still had to dodge a few rain showers for about an hour, but eventually, the weather turned really nice, and the winds and seas decreased some, but it was far from calm and smooth out on the open decks.
We spent most of the afternoon outside. It had turned into a really nice day, and we were sad that it was our last day at sea and on the ship. We enjoyed a few refreshments out by the pool until about 6:00 PM. We headed back to the cabin to get ready for dinner and pack away all of our remaining clothes, except for tonight’s outfits and tomorrow’s travel clothes.
We had not even looked at the dining room menu, but it was already 7:30 PM, and we did not want to waste our last night eating there. We did finally get one sunset that was worth taking pictures of. We had either missed them on the other days where it was sunny, or they had been obscured by clouds, or both. It also depended on the ship’s heading and if the sunset was on our side of the ship, and viewable from our balcony. Gone is my motivation to run out every morning and evening for sunrise and sunset pictures while at sea. That ended several cruises ago!! It all worked out tonight, but even so, there were some clouds right on the horizon.
We headed to the Bellini’s Bar and met up with our usual group. The bar was really crowded because there was some entertainment scheduled for the Atrium, some type of farewell celebration with the Cruise Director and the ships band.
We only had one glass of wine before heading to the buffet for dinner. We said goodby to Scott and Deborah since they were getting ready to head back to their cabin to finish packing. The rest of the gang was going to stay so we headed to the buffet, knowing we would see them when we finished eating. The buffet was fairly empty and nice an quiet since it was about 8:00 PM, and most everyone was either in the dining room or had already eaten.
After dinner we headed back to Bellini’s and met up with the others in our “bar group”. The Atrium was empty now, all of the entertainment was over and the crowd had dispersed. We had a couple of drinks and then told everyone goodbye. We had an early morning wake up call set for 5:30 AM, so we did not want to stay out late.
Before heading back to the cabin, we went to the Seaview Bar to say goodbye to Rommel, he had been on break earlier when we had told Franz goodbye. They are not usually there at the same time later in the evening, so we knew we would need to return tonight to see Rommel.
We then stopped by Crooner’s to see Jorge, who is leaving Princess in a few months to pursue another job in Thailand, so we might not see him again on a future cruise unless he comes back to bartend with Princess if the Thailand job does not work out.
It was getting late, so we went back to the cabin and packed away tonight’s clothes and did some preliminary weighing of the luggage to see if we were close to the 50 pound limit. We did some rearranging and got both bags right at the limit. We did not want to have to struggle with this early tomorrow morning when we would be in a little bit of a hurry to leave the ship to get to the airport. It was about 11:00 PM by the time we turned in for the night.