And so the last day was upon us. Why do these last days sneak up on you so much, dont they know its rude?!
Id had an awful nights sleep what with the combination of feeling full of cold symptoms and the ship rocking all night. I wasnt seasick though so my cheap London Drugs tablets obviously worked! Last night the clocks also moved forward to get us back to Canada time.
This morning I just didnt care about how I looked, I threw on my sweats and we went up to BBB for breakfast, the first and only time we ate in BBB other than on embarkation day. It was busy and the ship was still moving all over the place. I think I had the standard scrambled eggs, melon, bacon (I LOVE how you do bacon in America, all crispy and in thin strips), a doughnut, probably some chocolate milk and fruit loops. Oh and then we found the Mickey waffle station
the crew member there insisted on serving them up for us so he put a couple on a plate and then slathered them in whipped cream! I had never seen such a thing, they were literally covered, you couldnt tell what was hiding under there. The plus side? The tested GREAT! Only on a
Disney cruise can you eat a plate of whipped cream for breakfast and not feel guilty!
After breakfast, we again watched the princess gathering before heading to Shutters to buy the 10 picture package. I was adamant that I would not but a photo package this cruise because they are so extortionate and it annoys me that they print them all off anyway so they could just give them to you!
Earlier in the cruise I spoke to a girl working in Shutters and I think she thought I was having a moan at her, I wasnt, I just wanted to suggest to them that instead of selling photos only as prints, they should offer them as digital copies. I was talking about the individual prints, not the packages, which I am aware you can have as prints or digital. In this day and age most people want to have the digital copies on their computers so they can upload them to social networking sites or add them to a photo book design (like me!). Once you have a digital copy, you have endless options, you can still print them but you can also use them in other formats.
When I went to WDW in April, I was so pleased to see that you can now buy single ride photos as a digital copy on a photo pass card. I dont understand why they cant do this on the ships, and allow you to change the borders on the photos. I think its because all the on-board photography is done by a third party?
The rest of the day was spent being very lazy, sitting in Cove Café, drinking hot chocolate, eating ice-cream from the soft serve station. They had changed the flavours out to be strawberry and banana yummy. Much better than the standard chocolate and vanilla and good to see that even in Alaska the machine was regularly being used.
Around 1.00pm we picked up some food from deck 9 and took it back to the room. Our intention was to go on the Art of the Theme Show tour which we had missed on the first sea day. Well, we mistakenly became engrossed in the Tigger movie (not even a favourite) and completely missed it! You see, we really do need to go on the transatlantic we have a deposit on in May so that we have lots more time to do all of these little extras. We saw Elmer in the hallway to give him his tip and tell him we would be carrying our own bags off the ship in the morning. He gave us a handful of luggage tags anyway as we really liked them!
At one point I went to see what the bingo was like and to see what all the fuss is for. Ive never played bingo other than at school when all you won was a sticker, but with a jackpot of over $6000 I was intrigued. I got there and the place was packed, the cards and machines were also quite expensive so I decided to give it a miss. I browsed the shops for the last time just in case there were any bargains to be had!
By this time, I was feeling really run down so I bought some cold & flu medicines to take back to the room. On the way back, the beautiful scenery, weather and deck four were calling my name, so I grabbed a couple of blankets and curled up on a deck chair. I may or may not have had a little nap here
I thought it was fun that we could see the Norwegian Sun right alongside of us, following us back to Vancouver.
After a while I decided to get up and go back to the room, just as I walked into the lobby I heard part of an announcement outside. It sounded like something had been spotted up ahead on the right hand side so I ran straight through to the other side to see what it was. I asked another woman what the announcement said and unfortunately she hadnt heard it properly either. I thought it might have been orca! I stuck around for a minute to see if there was anything obvious and then flew up the stairs to our room to tell Elle. We grabbed our cameras and went tout to look. There they were, tiny little black dots swimming along close to shore. Orca at least six of them!
I think they are the best looking whales but after having seen so many humpbacks (which are HUGE) they looked tiny. Im sure they were still several feet long and would snap me in half quite easily. None of our pictures were brilliant as they moved much quicker than humpbacks but it was lovely watching them with their lovely pointy fins, arching their backs as they bobbed in and out of the water. It made me sad to think of poor Shamu at Sea World with her fin curled over and the tiny swimming pool of a tank she lives in.
We stayed out until just after 5.00pm when we decided to get ready for the show followed by dinner at Palo. Tonight was my favourite; Dreams. I love this show; it is so well done and flows really well. The cast member playing Peter Pan was wonderful, he stayed in character all the time even when the focus was not on him, I couldnt stop watching him. I actually feel he would have been a much better Peter Pan than the one who was out for pictures and character greetings the rest of the cruise. I dont have any pictures of the shows this time as they are really sticking to their no photos in the theatre rule now. My last cruise in 2009 was more of a no flash photography request, now its no photos at all.
Once the show was over and the cast had received a standing ovation (finally, the audience had warmed up!), we went off to Palo for our reservation at 7.30pm. We were seated in Mladens section action and were thrilled to have had him as our server again. He was really slammed tonight and seemed annoyed that he couldnt give each of his tables the attention he normally would but we had nowhere else to be so didnt mind waiting between courses. The food in Palo is wonderful, but I have to admit that if I was given the choice of brunch or dinner, I would now choose brunch.
We started with the antipasti and bread selection as well as a lovely glass of moscato each. To start, I had the calamari and requested a small portion of the lobster ravioli. Both were excellent. Im sorry I cannot recall what Elle ordered, I didnt write hers down. For our mains, we both ordered the tenderloin served with the gorgonzola and red wine sauce. Mladen brought us a palette cleanser; I think it was lemon sorbet, before going on to dessert.
We both ordered the soufflé and had both sauces. We were also given the panna cotta, whether Mladen wanted us to try it or they had lots spare were not sure. But it was really lovely, I would definitely order it next time. Our tablemates were also eating in Palo tonight and left part way through our meal. It was their first Palo dinner experience so it was lovely to chat with them on their way out about how much they had enjoyed it.
I did have one disappointment tonight. I really wanted to have the baked Alaska dessert which was served in the MDR. I make it at home so it wasnt that it was a new dessert to try, more a novelty to have as we were in Alaska! I had heard that in Palo they usually go out of their way to make you happy so I asked whether it was possible to have some brought up for dessert. I got an outright no from Mladen. Not even a hint at giving it a try.
I know its a bit different asking for a Palo item in the MDR as you have to pay for Palo, but I didnt think it would be such an issue to bring something up from the MDR. I decided I would try to grab some from the MDR on the way down if it wasnt too late but when we got there, our servers had cleared our usual table and I didnt want to bother them.
Anyway, once again we had the whole tipping dilemma at Palo. As with brunch, $8 just didnt seem enough of a tip for dinner service. We both agreed that if we were eating in a restaurant on land, we would happily pay $100 each for everything we ate. I think we ended up leaving him an extortionate amount of nearly $50 tip. I stand by the fact that I think it was worth it! Id be interested to know what anyone else thinks an appropriate tip is for Palo?
This unfortunately is where my note making came to an end. I think I had last night blues and couldnt be bothered to waste time making notes! If I recall, we mooched around deck 4, we definitely purchased the 10 photo package with digital images (despite my previous moan about the cost!) and each bought a souvenir Alaska photo frame which came with an aerial print of the ship at Tracy Arm and a print of the Disney gang in their Alaska gear.
Oh, I remember what we did! It was the last night, farewell show in the lobby, we went to watch that! We managed to snag some good spots right in front.
We then went back to start packing. It must have been about 10.30pm when we got back to the room. As we were taking our bags off ourselves, we didnt need to leave them out in the hall. If we were taking them, we would have had to put them out between 8-10pm. There was most probably a Disney movie on in the background and Im sure we made a few trips out to the veranda. We made it to bed pretty late, definitely after 12pm.
Next up Its all over
almost!