So after all the excitement of the Gatsby Party, my poor friend turning green, a huge, but very beautiful lightning storm that was extremely camera shy and enough feathers floating about the vessel to stuff at least a pillow, we moved into our final day at sea. No I don't want to go home!
My friend, had made best friends, with the sea sick pills and was up and out the door at sunrise and hitting the Pantry for breakfast. She had a whole day’s eating to catch up on.
Tip 1: Just take the sea sick pills, what’s the worst that can happen? You don’t get sea sick! Actually a green apple helps too!
I on the other hand was a little less enthusiastic and straggled out about 9:00 am, picked up a huge double shot latte on my way to the Pantry and headed directly for the bacon and eggs. Now where talking!
Having struck up conversations with half the passengers on the ship, and consumed an alarming quantity of caffine and pastries, my friend and I were discussing where we should go and what we should do next to make the most of our last day.
As I mentioned earlier the Pantry does lack a little ambiance and can be busy and noisy, so you have to speak reasonably loudly to make yourself heard. For some reason on this particular morning, I seem to have contracted a brief but very inopportune bout of touretts syndrome.
When I tried to say to my friend “We can’t do that can we?”, querying the availability of a particular activity, what actually came out of my mouth, quite loudly, during an abnormally quite moment, so everyone in the Pantry heard was “We c#nt do that can we?”
Realising from the prolonged silence what had just inadvertently popped out of my mouth, I let out an even louder “OMG”, and turned a lovely shade of red.
Now normally this word probably wouldn’t attract all that much attention, but we were surrounded by a lot of elderly couples and families with young children, my timing really, really bad.
My friend and I were laughing so hard we couldn’t leave the Pantry for a good 15 minutes, for fear of peeing our pants and we weren’t the only ones. So at least I provided a little light breakfast entertainment!
So once I got my potty mouth under control, I skulked away from the scene of my crime still sniggering, not nearly as remorseful as I probably should have been and swore I would never return to that corner of the Pantry again…
Tip 2: If you are not a skilled swearer, at least try to look cool when you do swear by accident and not giggle like a schoolgirl! It destroys your cred...
What better way to assuage ones conscience than to go shopping! Goodness knows I don’t need much encouragement and because it was a short cruise the Sales Manager didn’t mess around there was 50% of this 45% of that.
Even though it wasn’t an international cruise, once you are approximately 20 kilometres off shore you are in international waters and therefore the joys of ‘duty free’ apply. You gotta love a loop hole! So alcohol, jewellery, designer brands etc all reduced by the amount that would normally be picked up by our Federal Government in sales tax.
Pandora is one now one of my favourite ship board stores, mostly because they have some items that can’t be purchased in Australia. Because P&O are a UK based shipping line the bulk of their stock is from England. This means you pick up bracelets and charms that aren’t available on the Australian market and at a good price too!
The on board jeweller held a free class on recognising good diamonds and how to identify the various cuts. Most of the vendors on board run information sessions like this (prefume, handbags, watches) and usually they come with a lovely free glass of champagne too!
So jewellery is definitely my weakness and morganite is the stone for which I lust the most. Everyone has diamonds! Hell no, I want a gorgeous pink, champagne coloured morganite. And there they were at a good percentage off, but I managed to contain myself until the next big jump in the value of Steem!
Tip 3: There are some really good bargains to be found but do your homework. I found some good pieces at Pandora but fragrance prices were not great this trip.
By the time we perused, watches, handbags, perfumes, cosmetics and yes more jewellery at the Pacific Market, it was time for lunch, so it was back to the Pantry (yes a different area), to see what was on the menu and get some duct tape for my mouth, just to be safe…
After lunch Elemis At Sea were conducting a health seminar ‘Relieving Back Pain and Improving Posture’, couldn’t pass that up so we were off to hear all about that. It seemed to involve a lot of orthodics and aqua therapy, which I signed up for just before I left on the cruise. But good to know we’re on the right track!
Now our day was starting to get away on us as we had to have our luggage packed and labelled outside our cabin no later than 5:00 pm, so we decided to dash back to the cabin throw everything in our suitcases we could do without for the rest of that night and the next morning and get dressed in our gorgeous evening wear and make our way to the pool deck for 5:00 pm mock tails and live music by the pool!
This gave us just enough time to relax watch the sun start to set over the Coral Sea and then stroll to the Marquee to watch the final show of the cruise ‘Seven’. I have to say they did leave the best until last. The choreography, sets and costuming were excellent as where the lighting, vocal performances and dancers.
Again, having booked our meals on the first afternoon of the cruise, we were able to take our time strolling back to the Waterfront for a lovely last night dinner which was again, probably the best meal of the cruise.
Notwithstanding having to abandon our cabin at 6:30 am the next morning, we were determined to hit at least one or two lounges and have a coffee and a nightcap. I do have a small Kahlua on the rocks occassionally. So with Kahlua’s in hand we wondered back to the cabin and called it a night.
The early start was a little traumatic, but once you were adjusted to the idea of returning to reality it wasn’t too bad. One final delightful breakfast in the Pantry while watching the Brisbane River banks flow by and sailing under the dual Gateway Bridges and then dock at the terminal for departure.
It was a short cruise, but we had a great time and I couldn’t fault the staff they were amazing.
Now I’m saving up to do a glacier cruise in Canada next summer to see me some grisly bears, some killer whales and anything else that might be lurking about.
Tip 4: Get travelling, life's short!
Thanks for reading…