Alaskan Cruise Day 7 – At Sea

Today is the final day of the cruise. Luckily, it is a day at sea. As I have mentioned before, it is our favorite part of cruising. We enjoy the ports, but we really enjoy just being at sea, relaxing on the ship.

We once again were cruising the Inside Passage back to Vancouver. I spent a large amount of the day at various places on the ship just enjoying the tremendous beauty of the country side. Cruising this portion of the Inside Passage is more like taking a river boat cruise. You are literally that close to shore. A lot of this shoreline has been mostly untouched by man too. It’s beauty cannot be expressed in words. Hopefully, when we upload some pictures, it will be somewhat evident though I doubt they will really do it justice either.

Fourteen years ago, when we cruised to Alaska, I don’t remember spending this much time just enjoying the landscape as we sailed by it. It probably had something to do with being younger and also being on our honeymoon doing anything and everything we could on the ship. This time, I really made a point to just sit back, relax and enjoy the views. It was easily my favorite thing we did on this cruise.

In the afternoon, the kids had their talent show. Savannah did her song and dance routine to “These Boots Were Made For Walking” that she will be performing at the Showstopper National Dance Finals next month. Sean performed his brand new clogging routine to a George Strait song. This was the first time he had done the number in public. Both performances went over very well.

Suzanne and I also got a wonderful tour of the galley as part of a special event for Celebrity Captain’s Club Select members. It lasted about 45 minutes and was very informative. It was very interesting to see where and how the food was prepared. The galley was absolutely spotless and you could have eaten off anything down there. The food and beverage manager gave us the tour and provided some nice insight into it’s operation.

We enjoyed one final meal with our family reunion group. Everyone was said to see the cruise drawing to an end, but we had a nice time reminiscing about the cruise. It’s been fourteen years since we have gone on an 8 day / 7 night cruise. We usually try to do at least 11 nights and this was just a reminder why. These week long cruises are just too short. It almost seems like you just unpacked and you are once again packing. When possible, we will continue to opt for the longer cruises. They don’t really cost any more money. Our 16 day Hawaii cruise a year and a half ago cost the same as this 8 day Alaska cruise.

The evening meant one final performance by the Celebrity Singers and Dancers. This show was a tribute to Broadway and was very nicely performed. The kids have really gotten where they like these productions shows and insist on coming to them. They like to go meet the performers after the show and get some pictures with them.

After the show, there was supposed to be an adult talent show. However, Suzanne was the only person on the ship that signed up for it, so it was canceled. This seemed very odd as every other cruise that we have been on, the passenger talent show was heavily attended and might have as many as two dozen performers. I think this talent show may also have been a casualty of the short cruise duration. It was schedule for 10:30 pm at night. That seems way too late. All the cruises have had them in the afternoon. With a short cruise, they seemed to be trying to squeeze a lot of stuff into a short period of time. Another example was the Captain’s Club Officer’s Cocktail party for Select and Elite members. That cocktail party was held at 10:15 in the morning. Seems like a strange time for cocktails. The other cruises have had them in the evening or late afternoon.

Since the talent show was canceled, the ship’s party band, Headlines, asked Suzanne to sing a few songs with them. This was a Filipino band and they had heard Suzanne sing at the Catholic Mass on board and also at Karaoke. She sang two songs with them that went over very well with the crowd.

We let the kids attend the final night slumber party with the kids club. The event went until 1:00 am, but we just told them we would pick them up when we were ready for bed. We expected to turn in somewhat early since we would be leaving the ship around 8:30 in the morning. Turns out we didn’t pick them up until around 12:30 am. We enjoyed some time with the band and then spent a bit of time out on our balcony enjoying the nice night and the Inside Passage sights.

As I mentioned, we will leave the ship around 8:30 tomorrow and will be spending the day in Vancouver. We don’t fly out until the next day. So, tomorrow, I will post about our day in Vancouver and the trip home. I will follow that the next day with a final cruise vacation roundup.

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