August 28^th, 2026

At Sea

Our last day.

I was so hoping that we would be awoken in the middle of the night with Luciano urging us to all get up and see the northern lights. Would I go out on deck in my robe, or should I throw some clothes on? Such a dilemma. I should not have obsessed about it, there were no northern lights, and we woke up in the morning to another cloudy day. Our last day…..

I went up to the Constellation Lounge to spend the morning there, and delay packing. I looked at the TV screen outside the Lounge which shows the map of our progress, and the ship was looking perilously close to Anchorage. Not good at all.

Still when I went into the Lounge there was a table there that wasn’t usually there. What could this mean?

I checked the schedule on the daily program, the Herald. Caviar and champagne in the Constellation Lounge at 11:00? Well that softens the blow a bit, and will definitely delay having to pack.

Both the caviar and champagne went down well, and it was nice to see captain Simon enjoying time with the guests.

We had to go from caviar and champagne to trivia. Our last trivia of the cruise. Trivia tends to be a bit of a blood sport on Seabourn, with some teams being quite aggressive. However, on this cruise it has been so friendly and relaxed. No one getting too worked up and all of the teams being very supportive of each other. Every team, except the Bar Team has won at least once, and although the questions have often been somewhat obscure and there were way too many questions on Shakespeare and only one on Jane Austen (If you find out that Olivia will be the cruise director on your next cruise, you had better brush up on your Shakespeare), it has been tremendous fun. Oh, and who are the Bar Team you may ask? While all of the other teams had 10 people, they were a couple who sat at the bar. They didn’t always have the correct answer, but always gave a very funny and clever answer to the question if they didn’t have a clue. They should have got a prize for sheer entertainment value.

I will really miss our team!

After trivia we had to put the final touches to our boat. We have put a lot of work into building it over the past few weeks, and I know I am biased, but I thought it really was a thing of beauty.

We had decided to construct the next generation of Zodiacs.

The boats are meant to be constructed from recycled materials you can find around the ship and so toilet rolls, shopping bags, wine bottle corks, metal water bottles, champagne cork cages, beer bottle caps, water bottle tops, string, and fans we won at trivia all played their part in the construction.

The passengers were constructed from champagne corks, straws, cocktail sticks and orange newspaper plastic wrapping.

One of our team members sacrificed his red bandana so our driver, Puffy the puffin, could have a red parka like our expedition team have, and I made a life ring out of the rest of the bandana. Oh, and I was wrong when I said Brian hadn’t brought any duct tape with him. He did indeed sneak some by me when I was packing, but I have to admit it came in handy when I needed reflectors for the life ring.

We called the boat the Romina after our favorite person on Guest Services.

We celebrated the completion of our boat and went to deck 5 where the competition was held in the pool. I thought it looked spectacular. But will it float?

There were only 2 other boats in the competition.

One was also a Zodiac, but they had used pool noodles. That was a great idea, for sure it will float. It had a Zimbabwean and a South African flag.

The other was a sort of cross between a catamaran and the Kon Tiki. It also looked seaworthy.

Our fearless leader gave a description of our masterpiece to the judges.

While her husband showed it off to the judges.

The other 2 boats went first, and both were shown to be very seaworthy.

Then the moment of truth arrived. Our Zodiac was placed in the pool and one of the expedition team made waves to help it in its transit across the waters.

But will it float?

It floated like it was made to be in the water.

There were great cheers from the spectators, and I could see the judges smiling and making notes on their clipboards.

Then the winner was announced. It was the Romina! Yay, all of our hard work had paid off. I was so chuffed, especially as our prize was Seabourn packing cubes, and we still needed to pack.

At our final expedition recap I learned that I had helped consume 50kg of caviar and 400 bottles of champagne. That is impressive for a small ship.

I had always thought of the arctic being devoid of wildlife, just a cold barren wasteland where nothing could thrive.

I was thrilled to find out that we had seen 78 species of birds and 21 species of mammals. The Arctic isn’t a barren frozen wasteland; it is bursting with life. I was so happy to see that.

Since the 1900s only 317 ships have successfully transited the Northwest Passage, and we are the 100^th passenger ship to do so. Yay for our captain and the bridge team!

There was no getting away from it, we had to go back to our cabin and begin packing. We would have to leave the frozen north behind and return to everyday life back home.

The entertainment team and Mike Mintz gave one final performance.

All that was left to do was go to the Constellation Lounge for one last drink or two. There has only been one thing missing on this cruise – Veuve Clicquot. I arrived in the Lounge, and there was Jennifer drinking VC. Wow, how cool is that. She had been given a bottle, but being the nice person she is, she had brought it to share. And share I did.

What a perfect way to end this cruise and say goodbye to all of the wonderful people we had met along the way. Hopefully we will sail with them again one day.

We eventually went back to our cabin. Put our suitcases (as it turned out, one contained my cruise key card) outside the door, and turned out the lights in our cabin for the last time. It has been quite the journey.