Day 13 - final sea day...

Hello from our final day at sea. Sounds good to us. We have realized that we don’t like our sea days to be at the end of the cruise; it is better to have it at the beginning, when we walk around and familiarize ourselves with the ship and enjoy the ‘newness’ of the experience. But we’ll suffer and get through it.

We were treated to a dolphin jumping contest while we had our coffee this morning...quite a beautiful sight to see. There is a brunch offered today beginning at 10a in the dining room, so we’ll go enjoy that, and whatever else strikes our fancy. Tonight is our third and final formal night. I’ve used up my package internet (cheaper) minutes, so it is a good thing this cruise is winding down! Y’all don’t get a photo uploaded today...but I’ll set up a special one for Saturday.......

A little cruise snafu info...a group of about 40 folks paid the big bucks…$655…to bus down from Dunedin to Milford Sound, spend the night in Queenstown, then be picked up in Milford Sound. That was the plan. Well, due to the rough seas, we couldn’t dock in Milford Sound. Oops…all those folks stranded…with no extra clothes, some w/o needed meds. They had to be wined/dined/flown to Melbourne, so darn, they missed a sea day. Apparently they had a blast! Rumor has it this cost the company about $40K. Hmm, wonder if Celebrity will offer this particular tour again? They probably will, as this is simply the price of doing business.

In preparation for our early departure, Dick went to the purser’s desk to inquire about disembarkation for us. We are using our ‘funny money’ for our gratuities, so mathematician Dick has the job of figuring out what goes in each of the envelopes that we’ll give out tonight. We actually have to carry our own bags off the ship (welcome to the real world), and we have to do this between 8a and 10a as that is the only time that customs is available for processing. They say we can leave our bags there (somewhere) and then go back to the public areas of the ship (lunch) if we want to (we do). We need to be at the airport about 12:30 for our 3:30p flight, so this will all be easily accomplished.

So, that is our final day at sea. How is your day? Life is good on the sea!