Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2009. A few weeks before Mattie died. Mattie loved boats, especially his toy remote controlled boats. Though Mattie had no interest in going in a pool with his broviac (the tube connected to his chest in which he received chemo and other medicines), he still was interested in floating his boats. So we set up his pool on our deck and he was outside getting some fresh air and playing with his boats. A friend of ours gave us this captain's hat, and Mattie was proud to wear it. By that point in Mattie's battle, he was very weak, couldn't walk, had limited use of his arms, and breathing was becoming a problem. Despite all of that, he seemed happy with his boats.
Facts of the Day: The Crown Princess' godmother is Martha Stewart (of all people!). Its length is 951 feet, its height is 195 feet, and it can hold 3,080 passengers and 1,201 crew.
Greetings from the Bay of Biscay! We are presently off the coast of France heading towards England and our final destination Southampton. Tomorrow morning we will be up early and disembarking the ship around 8am, and then taking a car to Heathrow Airport where Vicki and I will take an early afternoon flight back to Washington, DC. Vicki’s parents will stay another day in England and then fly home Sunday morning to California.
The day started out with the ship regularly blowing its horn as we were in a fog bank. The ship does this to alert any ships that do not have radar and traffic systems that it is coming, and let me tell you that the horn can be heard for miles. I took a couple of shots of the morning flog, which fortunately cleared late in the morning and burned off. As the captain had promised, the weather in the Bay of Biscay is calm and little wind so the ocean is calm as well making our last day on the ship very smooth in terms of its ride.
We then went to the last zumba class which is always a great workout. We took a few pics of the class with the three of us in action as well as a partial group shot that we took at the end. If you look at the group shot you can see the instructor Rommel on the left-hand side of the picture wearing a yellow zumba hat. Once again the class was a real treat and it is both enjoyable as well as aerobically challenging.
We then attended a tradition that each cruise does near the end of the cruise, which is the Culinary Demonstration and Galley Tour. We skipped the Galley Tour as we have seen the industrial sized galley/kitchen on prior cruises, and it is very impressive to see all the stations, ovens, dishwashers and even soup pots the size of a small car. One can only imagine just how chaotic the galley is as each night the dinning services team is delivering over 3,000 meals within a few hours to all the passengers. It is truly a remarkable feat that the teams can do all this and do it with style and quality. We learned today that there are 533 dinning staff and crew members involved in delivering food and beverages to the passengers! The Culinary Demonstration is put on by the Maitre D’Hotel and the Executive Chef. They traditionally prepare several meals in front of the audience and try to be funny while doing it. We snapped a few pictures of the demonstration.
Also last night, we marked the anniversary of Vicki’s parents during dinner. Our wait staff brought out a mini cake and then sang happy anniversary to Vicki’s parents at the table. I snapped a shot of the wait staff in action serenading them.
So, after lunch today we headed back to the room to begin the packing process. The ship requires all passengers not taking their own luggage off the cruise to have their bags packed and tagged with a pre-determined set of luggage tags provided by the ship, and placed outside their staterooms by 11pm the night before we disembark. The tags are color coded to help the ship’s crew as well as the longshoreman once we arrive in Southampton to place the bags in a logical order based on where each passenger is heading. The packing process is always depressing as it represents the end of the cruise. So, we are getting as much packing done as possible now before dinner, and then after dinner we’ll come back to the room and place our dinner clothes in the suitcases and we’ll place them outside to be picked up by the crew. Tomorrow morning, we’ll get washed and then cart out things off the ship, and then retrieve our bags once on the dock.
So wish us luck and hopefully tomorrow’s blog will be posted from Washington, DC. Once again thank you again for following along!
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