Today I did a sleep-in. I had the alarm at 9 and woke up just before it, and slept through the whole night. It was well needed. I took it slow and left for breakfast at 9:45 with a small backpack, and 45 minutes later I was lying in a sunbed at the pool in Solarium. Kept reading Commander in Chief by Mark Greaney (franchise of Tom Clancy) and just taking it easy. The whole day was just cruising back to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
I jumped in the pool a couple of times, got a pizza slice when the cafeteria opened, and watched the F1 Sprint qualifier on my phone. In the afternoon, the two Canadians I met earlier, Anita and Jackie, sat down beside me and we had a lovely chat.
At half past four, I went back to the cabin to shower and change clothes. Looked through the instructions for disembarkation, but didn’t really get the hang of it, so I went to Guest Services, and since I’m in The Key programme, I can leave my bag outside my door no later than 22, and it will be sorted in the terminal. And I can leave the ship when I want, but the cabin is latest at 8:00 and the ship at 8:45. So, it’s a fairly early morning.
At 17:30, I had a reservation at Chops Grille. It’s one of the specialty restaurants that isn’t included, but I thought I would treat myself this last night of the cruise. Roxanne took care of me with grace and a smile.
I started with some Grilled Black Pepper Bacon.
Followed by a New York Strip and mashed potatoes.
And ended with a piece of Apple pie and ice cream.
During the dinner, Bob and his wife sat down at the table next to me, the ones I met the first day. We got to chat about American football since he was following the Bears game, and about what we had done during the week. Nice to meet them one last time.
I left the restaurant at 19 to go pack up my stuff. I tried to put as much stuff as possible in the suitcase so my backpack wouldn’t weigh so much, but the suitcase got quite heavy. Hopefully, nothing happens when they transport it. I’ll have to repack it all before my flight out on December 2nd. I went up to the Schooner bar for one last mocktail and wrote this post to some piano music by Maria Colores. She asked me what to sing, so I suggested a song from Coldplay which performed great!
All in all, a very slow day, as shown by my mere 3,500 steps compared to 15k yesterday. This cruise has been a great experience. Took a while to get used to the service (sitting on a sunbed and they just come up and ask if you want another Coke), but it has been comfortable. If anything, I should have done a bit more research on where to go on the islands we visited. And bring more cash so cab-rides were an option, which would have increased the range quite much. However, I met some nice people and saw some great things. Tomorrow we will dock in San Juan, and after a few days there, I’ll fly back to the continental USA and Dallas.
I took a last stroll around the ship on the upper deck and manage to take a pretty nice photo in the moonlight.
