At Sea

April 19^th, 2024

Our last sea day. There was as always a lot going on around the ship, but my focus has to be on getting the packing done. I can never really relax and enjoy my final day at sea until everything has been stuffed into the suitcases, and then unpacked and rearranged so that no suitcase weighs more than 50 pounds, and then unpacked again because I can’t find something I need, only to find that it hadn’t been packed at all and there it is still sitting innocently on the bed under a pile of packing cubes.

Still packing at the end of a cruise is so much easier than packing before a cruise, and so there still was plenty of time to enjoy our last day on the Emerald Princess.

Princess has this really good deal with several of the airlines flying out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

They will contact your airline and get boarding passes and luggage labels printed up for you. All you have to do is place the luggage outside your door by the appointed time, and your suitcases will be whisked away and hopefully the next time you see them is on the carousel at your final destination. We couldn’t miss taking advantage of this program.

When we leave the ship, not having to maneuver our 4 large suitcases, 2 carry on bags, my back pack, and Brian’s briefcase through customs and immigration, into a taxi, and then from the taxi to the airport terminal where we have to wait with nowhere to sit until the Alaska Airlines check in counter opens 6 hours later was worth paying anything for – so $25 each sounded like an excellent deal.

I did still have time to go to the steel pan class an hour early and spend the time practicing, and then when Stephan arrived we played our music to our iPhones which were faithfully recording every note so we can play the music back on cold winters nights sitting around the fire, and wondering why on earth we hadn’t booked a Caribbean cruise.

Stephan brought his steelpans along to the class and played for us.

Our rinky dinky steel pans

simply couldn’t match the melodic sounds that he was able to make.

Although he plays the very upbeat music that one is expected to hear around the ship on a cruise, his interpretation of beautiful jazz compositions was such a joy to hear. He is not allowed to play them on the ship, but all I could think about was how much I would have enjoyed his melodic music as I sipped my milky way martini at the end of a busy port day. It would be the perfect way to end the day. I made a mental note to include this suggestion in the inevitable survey I would receive at the end of the cruise.

To celebrate the end of the cruise they had a cake extravaganza in the buffet at lunch.

Personally I would have preferred a chocolate fountain, but you can’t be too picky. Besides, I didn’t want to eat too much at lunch as we had reservations at the Crown Grill.

The ship has 2 scenic lifts that go from deck 5 in the atrium, the Piazza, up to deck 15, the Lido deck. For decks 5, 6, and 7 you can watch the world go by from the lift. But then you are plunged into darkness until you reach the blinding sunshine on deck 15, Lido deck.

Now I am very partial to scenic lifts, and will always take one if there is an alternative to the regular unexciting, dark, lift.

Needless to say the exterior scenic lifts on Queen Mary 2 are totally my favorite scenic lifts in the whole wide world. I told Steven Payne, the ship’s designer, this a few years ago, He said he designed them specifically for enthusiasts just like me, and he was quite miffed when they took the interior scenic lifts out of the Grand Lobby when they did the Queen Mary 2 re-mastering. At least they didn’t get rid of the exterior scenic lifts.

On stormy days on Queen Mary 2, I would ride the scenic lifts up and down, having the best time watching the angry sea below, safe and warm in my glass bubble. I suppose it’s the sort of thing that happens to one after 10 consecutive sea days.

Anyway, it was only after being on the Emerald Princess for several days that I noticed that when the interior scenic lifts were plunged into darkness, there was a porthole with all manner of sea creatures outside, accompanying you on your journey from deck 7 to deck 15.

How had I failed to see this before? Brian said it was probably because the screens weren’t working previously. That is a logical explanation, and made me feel better about being so unobservant. Now I take the scenic lifts at any opportunity. It’s like a visit to an aquarium.

And when you don’t see the underwater scenes, you get a distorted view of the reality outside the lift when you are on decks 5, 6, and7.

We went for pre dinner canapes in Skywalkers, and watched as the sun slowly set for the last time on this cruise. There is something so magical about sunsets at sea.

Our final dinner was at the Crown Grill specialty restaurant. I am not convinced it was worth the $39 + 18% service charge each, but it had a lovely atmosphere, and our waitstaff were great, so it was the perfect venue for our last night on board.

There was only one show this evening, and we had missed it, so we decided to go to Crooners Bar for a night cap. The bar was packed, not an empty seat in site, so we began out search of the ship for a bar that offered a table for two.

We found a table at Good Spirits on the Piazza.

This actually worked out well as the International Café is right next door, so Brian could have a coffee.

I had my final milky way martini. Unfortunately we had packed my remaining Cadbury Flakes, so I had to have it without one. I could tolerate that, but it didn’t even have a chocolate swirl.

Still, we listened to the band and watched the dancing in the Piazza. I think we got quite close to dancing ourselves, but them Brian remembered that we needed to put our last suitcase out.

The suitcases needed to be out in the corridor by 9:00 PM which I thought was a bit early, but we had placed 3 of them there before going to dinner.

We planned to pack the clothes we were wearing this evening in the 4 suitcase, so we hoped that putting it out after dinner wouldn’t be too much of a problem for them.

It was way past 9:00, but we were hopeful that this would not be a problem, so we bid a fond farewell to the bar and retreated upstairs to our cabin to make final preparations for disembarking tomorrow.