Eerie Morning
We start off this last sea day a little eerie. We wake up and go up to 10 aft….and the engines are not running. You can definitely tell we are further north already as the temperature is much cooler now and there were plenty of waves to keep us bobbing back and forth. So it was a very strange feeling to be out in the open water like that, bobbing around, with no engines running.
I listened to a few people speculate off the back of the ship. “Did the engines break down” or “Is that smoke off the back?” Listening to a few others talk to crew workers one worker said, “We are moving…just very slowly” and others said we are “Just ahead of schedule”. I come to believe that last one. As I watched other crew members, no one looked very concerned so I figured we must just be running ahead which made me question, why did we have to leave Grand Turk early?
About the time I realized I had not taken a picture or video of us just sitting there in the water, we started moving.
Because it was definitely cooler out this morning we decided to find a place warmer and out of the wind. As you can tell from the above picture, most people were also thinking the same thing or were at least over hoarding chairs. So we chose some comfortable chairs up on 11 aft.
Much of the morning was then spent reading or just dozing off in the chairs.
I won’t say who this person is but say she, “liked forks”
Chris and I decided to go to the Debarkation Talk at the Liquid Lounge. Because they were dry docking the next day we found out we have to be out of our stateroom by 6AM already! We had a rental van the next day as our departure flight did not leave until nighttime so we elected to check our bags. We were to pick a tag number up on the Lido deck and later found out they were by the stairs on the Lido. We picked a higher number tag because that meant we could stay on a little longer. If we didn’t do express, which was dismissed by your Muster Station Number, then you would wait for your tag to be called. So we picked 22, not the last but almost. If I remember right, we all had to be off by 9am.
Chris and I get back and continue to just relax and not really do anything. So we are sitting there for a while and at times looking out over the railing on 11.
As you can maybe tell in the hot tub to the left, it is kid soup over there. Well, at one point some older guy gets up from his lounger and goes and is chewing out one of the kids. Then I believe went back again. Then went and said something to a guy sitting in the other hot tub and he came over and yelled. After a bit, security came. He told a kid to get out of the tub.
Now I had seen this kid early on in the cruise. He was about 12 or 13 and as Heather put it, he reminded her of this meme:
Very unfortunate that he sort of fit the meme. After Chris and Heather did some sleuthing, we heard two variations of the story. One was that he was dunking and holding other kids under water in the hot tub and one of the kids belonged to the guy in the other hot tub. Another version was that he was groping other kids in the hot tub. This kid had apparently been known to people and security during the cruise as he would ask random people if he could use their bathroom or would ask the crew if they would buy him a drink. We did hear two people being called a number of times to come to the service desk and we speculated whether they were trying to find his parents.
Later in the afternoon we decided to go watch the volleyball tournament. It was…interesting. Wind definitely played a factor and those that could figure out the wind while serving early, had the advantage. The big steroid “Make a Hole” guy from the night before was playing with his wife and daughter. We were pleased when his team was knocked out the first round. Of all teams to win Ella or Sophie put it best, “They got a bunch of nerds and un-athletic people together and made the Avengers of Volleyball”.
The day got a little cooler and cloudier as the day went along.
By the time volleyball was done we were all ready to go inside and warm up. We get back to the stateroom later in the afternoon to find our final towel “animal”.
And also to find this….
Both Sophie and Kate got this from their Club O2 director. It was so awesome. Sophie really came shining through in this cruise and it was so fun to see her just open up, be herself, and not care what others think! Sophie would say Kate would often start conversations with people but she would end them meaning, all it would take was for Kate to break the ice for her and she ran with it!
The kids went to some kind of music trivia at Ocean Plaza. I think it was 2000s music.
Went to change for the evening and our last meal on the ship. At this point in the day, I took a picture of where we were at and our route we traveled. We traveled over 2000 miles.
Last Dinner
For Christmas, Jonathan got us all “Hawaiian” type shirts to wear so we decided to surprise the Augers on the last day with our shirts.
Notice, they have Ollie’s picture all over them Jonathan took a picture of Ollie when he did a bit of dog sitting for us when we went to Montana the past summer.
We thought perhaps because we kept getting food thrown at us last night and that after today, the ship was going into dry dock for repairs, that they would be throwing food at us again just to get rid of stuff. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. We got the normal food and service along with the traditional song they sing, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” mainly the bridge and the chorus.
We also noticed because they were dry docking the next day there were already things being taken down. Chairs and such in the library were being stacked up. Some said that things were being stacked in the casino as well. Umbrellas in the back of the ship were taken down completely. You could tell they were getting ready. While it sounded like much of the entertainment staff was getting off the ship…and they let us know that quite a bit the last few days and you could tell they sort of were starting to mail it in….other staff stay on and start taking stuff apart the moment everyone is off the ship. They tear thing apart as they take the 10 day trip across the Atlantic and dock in Spain. So by this point, were noticing changes beginning to happen already.
But, before we are done completely, we have one last send off in the Atrium.
And is by some fortuitous force, some of the main characters on our cruise SNL skit all line up in a row with our kids featuring….Jim! Carry! Captain Ron! and Captain Ron’s wife! Yep, as you can see, Jim had another interesting suit on the last night. Our kids are laughing because of who joined in with them!
Had to pose with them by their side.
We also got a picture of the “Gustapo” and actually the dad was smiling at this point!
One last thing we did was go see a magician at Liquid Lounge. He wasn’t the greatest and was a little boring but wouldn’t you know it, Ella got up on stage one last time.
Yep! The name she is holding in her hand is “Brad”
But it represented Brad Pitt
Sophie would later say “Ella is our group’s Jim/Carry”
And that was about it. The olders tried going to the club along with Ella. We went to get one last pizza before turning in and finish packing. Ella came back early though again as she said there was no one there. I suppose everyone was tired and had to get to bed early because we had to be off early the next day.
Tomorrow…..Debarkation 😦 —->
Vacationing Dad 