Thursday, March 19

It's the last full day and there's a bit of a subdued feeling on the ship.  People are obviously thinking about packing and arrangements for getting off the ship in the morning.  We're in the Solarium finishing breakfast and a couple has just stopped to ask our advice on Princess v Royal Caribbean.  Marilyn is unashamedly carrying her Princess bag and a number of people have commented that they are Princess people too.  This has been a great cruise but it lacks the extra little bit of 'class' you get on Princess.

Our last cruise on Dawn was so good it has set a benchmark for any in the future.  We had another Top Tier Event yesterday with a breakfast with the captain and senior officers.  It was a fantastic spread but really only an opportunity to try and sell us future cruises.  Royal Caribbean work hard to impress their frequent cruisers.  Diamond Level passengers even have their own private bar where the elite can drink without having to mix with the riff-raff.  A section of the theatre is roped off so the big boys don't have to find their own seat.  On the last show we saw, it was so busy that some of the hoi  poloi were standing and there were about 30 empty seats in the elite section.  And I thought America claimed to be an egalitarian society.

We finally saw the magician the other night.  He was brought back to fill-in when the new entertainers weren't able to make it.  It was quite a funny show but there's a lot of time spent in getting people to sleep before they start the performance.  Last night was a re-run of the Grooveline.  We saw them on this cruise last year and they aren't our cup of tea.    Motown music has never grabbed me.  So we listened to the music in the Centrum for a while then went back to the cabin for an episode of Sherlock.

This cruise has not been without its ups and downs and full marks to Royal Caribbean for giving us a great holiday while steering us around a cyclone.  Now we start thinking about our next cruise which is just 19 weeks away.