Continued from above...
After spending some more time at the pool, we went back to the room to get ready for dinner and watch us leave Nassau from the balcony.
Tonight was pirate night and we were dining in Royal Court. I loved our table location, right by the window. Dinner was a real laugh; I had bought some pirate ‘photo booth’ accessories online, which we all had a lot of fun with.
And, after we had all declared we were too full for dessert, Gary and I were surprised beyond belief when we were presented with this magnificent Anniversary cake! It really was so completely unexpected. Of course, we all had to have a piece – and then we shared the rest with our table neighbours.
It didn’t seem like the pirate party was going to happen as there was a lot of bad weather in the area – it had been raining heavily on and off all afternoon – so, after dinner we went to Skyline bar for a drink.
Again, we were pretty tired so, after finishing our drinks and not hearing anything about the pirate party being held after all, we retired to bed.
Tonight's towel animal was a pair of canoodling swans
And a naughty, sunglasses-stealing monkey!
Sunday 2nd September
We had requested room service breakfast the night before, so that we could eat early and get off the ship. However, Daniel had decided the night before that he wanted to do the teen excursion on Castaway Cay today. I was a tad peeved (Mum code for pretty peed off) since we had asked him numerous times the previous day and he’d said he wasn’t interested. This meant that Gary and I had to stay on the ship until the teen club opened, to be able to sign the paperwork to allow him to participate.
Rea came to our room to check out the view of Castaway Cay from our balcony.
We told her and the others to go ahead and get off the ship and made arrangements to meet up with them on Serenity Bay, the adult only beach. I took the opportunity to go up to the future cruises desk and fill in the placeholder card. Once we’d signed Daniel up for his excursion, we disembarked and took the trams down to Serenity Bay. It was a truly beautiful day, not too hot, just gorgeous.
After a very lazy morning on the beach, we made our way over to the BBQ area for lunch. I love the lunch offerings on Serenity Bay and we had a fabulous lunch. As we were finishing up, we noticed black clouds gathering in the distance and made the decision to head back to the boat so we wouldn’t wind up getting caught on the island in the thunderstorm. Wendy and Rich wanted to ride bikes so they decided to stay and so the rest of us caught the tram back to the ship.
Up at the pool area, we got ourselves a drink at the bar.
The threatened rain eventually came just a few minutes later and we took cover. We got in the hot tub for a bit and then reluctantly decided we ought to head back to the room and start packing.
We all met up for a drink before dinner, in the District Lounge, and lamented over how quickly the cruise – and the whole holiday – had gone by.
Dinner tonight was at Animator’s Palate. We were sat very close to the screens where Crush talks to guests.
Sadly, people were making a lot of noise and most people were completely ignoring him. He made several attempts to talk to a little boy at a table near us but the boy seemed far more interested in drawing.
After dinner, Rea and I did some shopping and then it was time for the long-awaited Beauty and the Beast show. I was so excited to see this show, I could barely contain myself. Sadly, it was not to be. I won’t go into too much detail but, suffice to say, the rude behaviour we had witnessed from passengers throughout the entire cruise was prevalent in the theatre and I really couldn’t stand it any longer, so I ended up leaving just a few minutes into the show. I watched it on the TV in the room which just wasn’t the same.
After the show, Wendy messaged to see what we were planning to do, but I was tired and grumpy, so I told her we were probably just going to go to bed. Gary came back to the room, we went up to Deck 10 to get some soft drinks and then we did indeed go to bed.
Tonight's towel animal was a law-abiding (mainly due to the fact that glasses were packed) elephant.
Monday 3rd September
So, the sad day had come. It was time to go home and face reality – boo! We were awoken very early by the vibrations as the ship docked back in Port Canaveral, so we were ready quite early. As we were getting showered and dressed, we heard the “Get off my ship” announcement, the final reminder that the magic is over.
Having put our cases out the night before, we just had to sort our hand luggage, which was quickly done and we were soon heading up to Cabana’s to meet the others for breakfast. The pelican appeared to be mocking us, suggesting the door to leave the ship is that way...
We had the opportunity to say a final goodbye to Rakesh and, before long, we were heading back to the room to collect our hand luggage before making the sad trek off the ship and back to real life.
We collected our luggage and proceeded through customs, then waited outside for our driver. He was a few minutes late arriving but we were soon loaded up and on our way to the airport and being dropped off at Terminal B.
It was too early for Kim and Terry to check in so we went across to Terminal A, where we all checked in for our flight home with Delta. We had a look around the shops and I was able to pick up a gift for a friend of mine, whose baby had been born the previous day.
Kim and Terry could now check in so they went to do that and then we grabbed an early lunch in the food court at Chick Fil A.
Our flight to Atlanta left at 1300 so we decided that we ought to go through security. We all went through together, but then had to go our separate ways after security as Kim and Terry were flying from a different gate. It wasn’t too sad saying goodbye this time as we knew we would see them again in less than a year.
The flight to Atlanta was short and uneventful, then we had a 3 hour layover before our final flight back to Heathrow. We had a final meal at P F Chang’s, which was average at best. My 'fortune' was promising though.
I do think that the duty free shops at Atlanta might want to think about the lasting images they are leaving in the heads of their visitors. Needless to say, I didn't buy any
The flight back to the UK was the usual hellish combination of over-tired adults and children, crap plane food and grumpy cabin crew. I’m sure it’s everything to do with the fact that you are in that mindset where you just want to get home but it seemed to be more unbearable than usual. I couldn’t get comfortable, Daniel was over-tired and irritable and refused to try and sleep, despite the fact that sleep was what he desperately needed. Then, of course, he did the usual of falling asleep about an hour before breakfast was served so he missed breakfast and was impossible to wake up when it was time to get off the plane. There was a minor drama when a gentleman collapsed on his way to the bathroom, banging his head off the seat of the lady sitting next to Gary. When we landed, we had to remain in our seats while the paramedics boarded the plane, to see to the poor chap who, by now, was sitting next to Gary, the lady having taken his seat further forward. Passport control was quick and painless and, after a very quick breakfast at the airport, we caught the train home.
Thank you to everybody who has been reading along. I had forgotten what a complete overhead writing a trip report is, so I really appreciate everybody who comments to let me know it’s not all in vain. I am lucky enough to be heading back over to Disney World in less than 5 weeks so I am not even all that depressed about it being over. I’m actually just relieved that the trip report is complete
Until next time…