We woke up around 07:00 for our last sea day. For me, it does not matter how long the cruise is, on the last day of the cruise, I am always miserable. I think even if I was going on a world cruise, I still would not be ready to get off at the end of the cruise. Still, there is no use in spoiling a perfectly good sea day by being sad. We got up and ready. Then we headed to the Windjammer for some breakfast.
Graham had fried egg on toast followed by oatmeal and fruit. I decided to brave the sausages that morning. The sausages on this cruise had not looked very tempting. They tasted OK, but no more than that. I love the US link sausages, but as this cruise started in Europe, there was no sign of them. I was hoping that I would get some in New York, but sadly I was out of luck there, too. I had sausage, hash browns, baked beans and an omelette with bacon, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, and cheese. I also had some tinned pears. We both had some coffee.
After breakfast, we decided to get some fresh air. It was a lot brighter that morning, but it was quite blustery. We did not stay outside for very long. Graham fancied a proper Starbucks coffee. He had an Americano, and I had a nitro cold brew with vanilla sweet cream. We watched the world go by while we enjoyed our coffees. Then we headed to the Music Hall for the final morning trivia of the cruise. We scored 15 out of 20, which I was pretty pleased with. The winning score was 18.
We then went up to the Two70 for the final progressive trivia. I wondered what was waiting for us. The announcement the previous day that the theme for the final progressive trivia was useless trivia did not fill either of us with joy. It soon became clear though. Throughout the week, Stefan had always shared some useless trivia during progressive trivia. He had picked 20 of those little nuggets and asked questions about them. We did surprisingly well with this getting 18 out of 20 right. This time round, they had to tally up the results straight afterwards. We were happy that we finished in the top quarter.
It is never a good idea to leave me at a loose end. Inevitably I will get up to mischief. While we were waiting for the answer sheets to be checked and the final results to be tallied, I had a look on my phone what cruises there were available in early spring. We had a cruise booked on a different cruise line in June and November to June just seemed to be too long a gap. One of the Oasis class ships is having major remodel in Cadiz before then doing the summer season in Europe. I was keen to cruise on this ship anyway, but I could not figure out how we could fit this in. I spotted a four-night cruise at the beginning of April. This seemed perfect as it broke up the year as well. The price was fair, and flights were not too expensive either. I decided to see if I could get an appointment for Next Cruise. Graham headed to the bathroom while I waited to see somebody. All the appointments for the day had gone, but the person who spoke to me advised that they had a waitlist. I was just about to put my details down when the Next Cruise person I was speaking to noticed that is next appointment was running late. He advised that if I was happy to wait for 5 more minutes and if the customer had not turned up in the meantime, he would help me instead. Nobody turned up. I had just had enough time to explain what I wanted before Graham came to join us. It did not take long for us to complete the booking. As I could not check if I could get the leave, I made sure that I could change the cruise if I needed to. I was advised that I could change this without any penalties up to the final payment date. I was very relieved that I did not have to get off the ship without having another Royal Caribbean cruise booked.
When we had booked our cruise, we headed to the photo gallery to make the final selections for the photo package. After I had picked all the photos I wanted, I still had a few photos left to choose. I went back to pick some photos that I had discarded on the previous go around. The photographer that was checking in on us advised that I could add the photos to my device by pressing on it from the weblink and then click save. This was a lot quicker than how I normally add them to my device. Unfortunately, as I soon found out, this produced low resolution images. Fortunately, I got a download link by email a few days later and I ended up downloading the high-resolution images to my laptop once we were back home.
When we had sorted the photos out, we decided to get some lunch. The Windjammer was absolutely packed and there were no seats to be found. We decided to check out El Loco Fresh. We did find a table. I asked Graham if he thought it would be OK to leave the telescope at the table as he was not going to be far. I wanted to check what was on offer in the Windjammer as I was not really in the mood for Mexican. He decided to take the telescope back to the cabin. I waited for a bit to see if he was going to come back, but after a while, I gave up. I did have a quick look on the food offerings in the Windjammer, but this was very seafood heavy that day and there was nothing I fancied. I headed back to the cabin.
I found Graham busily packing. I decided I may as well get my packing done as well. When he was done, he headed out. I finished my packing and then I headed out, too. I went upstairs to see if I could find Graham, but he was in none of his usual haunts. It turned out that he had gone to Sorrento’s to get some pizza. He had some margarita pizza and some pepperoni pizza.
I had seen something intriguing on the Daily Compass. It was called build your own trivia. This was due to take place in the Music Hall. I went down there. Essentially the way this works is that everybody could submit one question. If the number of questions submitted did not provide 20 questions, the host would add some additional questions. Once we had enough questions, it then turned into a normal trivia. There were some really weird and wonderful questions. I scored 4 out of 20. The winning score was 16. This was the first time they tried this format on this ship and found that it does not really work. It just took too long to collate the questions and by the time we had 20 questions, the scheduled time was nearly over. I think the idea going forward is that they have a drop box at trivia from the beginning of the cruise where people can submit questions. This will then give the trivia host the time to compile the questions beforehand.
After trivia, I headed up to the solarium to see if I could find a spare round lounger. The same round lounger that I had before was available. I settled down to read my book for a while. The only issue was that I was on the sunny side of the ship and the sun was shining straight into my eyes. I tried to move around a bit, but in the end, I had a nap for a while.
Once I started to feel uncomfortable on my round lounger, I headed out to the main pool deck. I spotted Graham straightaway. He was just on the move from the starboard side of the ship to the port side. I went to join him. I am not sure what originally had prompted this move, but sometimes I think he has an inbuilt wildlife radar. Not long after he had made the move, we saw some waterspouts. Initially we thought they may be humpback whales. They do sometimes travel in small groups. However, soon we were joined by a huge pod of whales. They came quite close, but not close enough to get a clear photo. However, a little research about what could be out there based on our approximate location suggested that they may be long finned pilot whales. Whatever they were, it was amazing to see, and they stayed with us for quite a while.
Once we had lost our company, I sent Graham to the Music Hall to get some seats while I went to the Cafe Two70 to pick up a very late lunch. I got half an Italian sandwich and half a Cuban sandwich. The person at the sandwich counter was one of my buddies from the dining room. She had a whole row of mini ducks on the counter. I still had a couple of my ducks in my bag that I needed to hide before the day was out. I gave her one and told her that her baby ducks needed a mummy duck. I got the biggest smile ever. Once I had my food, I took it down to the Music Hall.
It had been a wise decision to send Graham ahead as the Music Hall was packed. I ate my sandwiches. We had a drink each. Graham had a glass of Chardonnay, and I had a Tribute. We did OK with Trivia @ 5. We scored 12 out of 20, but the winning score was 18.
After trivia @ 5, we headed for the Roy bar one last time. Graham had the drink of the day, which was a Limoncello lemonade. I had my final Watermelon Rita of the cruise. Both Roys were at there that evening. We chatted with them for a while and then we gave both of them a tip. We had a beautiful view of the moon that evening. I took some photos and then we briefly headed back to the cabin before dinner.
The menu that night was Bon Voyage. Graham passed on a starter, but I figured I needed to have the baked French onion soup. I love this soup, but it is such hard work eating it because of the bread and serious amount of cheese on top. For his main course, Graham had the autumn turkey dinner roasted turkey over mashed sweet potatoes, apple stuffing with toasted walnuts, sautéed corn, and rich cider gravy. I kept it simple and had the Spaghetti Bolognaise. Graham had the apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream. I was not in the mood for dessert that day. We both had our final glass of Chateau St. Michelle Riesling of the cruise.
Dinner on the final night always involves a lot of napkin waving and a “show” of some description. I used to quite enjoy this when they did the flag parade, but I find the present incarnation excruciating. Graham has never been a fan. Sometimes if you have my time dining, you get lucky and manage to avoid this particular pleasure. This time round, we were not so lucky. We did get some entertainment though. Apparently, our server felt about this much as we do. He joined the parade, but when they came past the serving station for our section, he disappeared there and started tidying up. I don’t think the serving station had been as tidy all cruise. Once things had gone back to normal, we spoke to him for a bit. As I figured we had a kindred spirit here, I let on that I had celebrated a big birthday on the cruise. Initially he was mortified that he had not realised, but when I shared that I purposely kept it quiet as a dining room celebration is the stuff of my nightmares, he absolutely understood, After a while, we gave them both some extra tips and then we said our final goodbyes.
When we came back to the cabin, I took our suitcases out into the hall for collection. Then we got ready for bed. I read for a while, but soon we were both asleep.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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