Day 119 Saturday July 4th (1 day to go) — 4th of July at sea was a busy day which was actually good in a way as it kept our minds off the thought that it was coming to an end. We started with a mimosa morning in the cabin and ended with a 4th of July party on the pool deck.
We have breakfast in the Grand Dining Room and realize it might be our last chance to see Sang, who has become one of our favorite waiters on the ship. He has been super the entire cruise (as had all the staff), but we connected with him early on as he works in Jacques in the evenings and has a certain section in the Grand Dining Room for breakfast that we would ask to be placed.
Mimosa Mornings turned out to a highlight for the eight of us as we would get together in the cabin and bring bottles of champagne to share with the group. Ketan and then Rince, the cabin butlers would set up breakfast for us. Our cabin stewards Ivana and Banti would quickly come in and get the cabin in order. It was always a good laugh because I would have the bed made before they came in and Ivana in her Serbian accent would come in and say “Huh!! Look at this” because she did not approve of me making the bed. Of course, you know I would make it on purpose just to get her started early in the morning. We certainly miss the six people we had attending to our cabin during the 120 days. They were super and made sure everything was perfect for us in the cabin.
The group would not overdo it in these mornings. Maybe only 3-4 bottles of champagne to start the day. 🙂
This is a scary but truthful photo if you wanted to describe the four of us for the 120 days we were on the cruise. There was always something funny going on.
After lunch we met in Martini’s for a singing concert that Marta and Alan Gee put on for a few of us. The two of them have some great vocal cords. Now, for the words……I will surprise you but the lyrics in German, the Bach piece was “all is well with your soul”. I impress you right? laughing….I sent a WhatsApp text to Marta and she gave me that information.
I had to put this photo as we all had a good laugh about it. The photo was taken at 1:30pm and these are passengers waiting in line to redeem their Big “O” points which started at 2:30pm. I liked Kevin’s idea on Big O points. Raise the cruise price by $100 a passenger and when passengers get on board give everyone a keychain, t-shirt, ink pen, squeezy ball, ball of wax, etc. and get rid of the Big O program. All the Big O program did for me was put passengers in my way when I was trying to get to The Grand Dining Room for breakfast. 🙂
These photos were taken the day before I missed adding them to the July 3rd blog. These are all the passengers who did The World Cruise, whether it was 197, 180 or 120 days. Six of us are straight ahead on the second level right in the middle. Dave and Marta are on the ground all the way to the right, in front of the jacuzzi.
The day ended with a red, white and blue party on the pool. Whether it was a white party or this party, the parties on the pool deck were an awesome time. As the evening went on, crew members would become involved when passengers would drag them to the dance floor. It was a great end of the day.
This is Lucas, he was one of the dancers in the entertainment staff. This guy can dance!!!! Just nonstop energy cutting flips and twirls and just amazing. The reason he is laughing is this story. One of the singers in the entertainment staff wore cologne that the ladies in our group really liked. So, they told John to go and get him so they could ask him the cologne. Anyway, John comes back with Lucas and while he is standing there talking to the group John is standing behind Lucas sniffing in the air like a dog. We were cracked up and then told Lucas, no the women wanted Nathan. Lucas is laughing because he is NOTHING like Lucas who is a big muscular black guy from South Africa and Lucas is telling the group the three differences between the two of them: Tall, muscular and then points at his arm to show he is not black like Nathan. Anyway, they finally got Nathan and he told them his cologne.
A photo of us with Peter the cruise director in the USA suit. Taking the selfie picture is his spouse, Jason who is the assistant cruise director.
So, we got to bed around midnight after a really fun day and night. The realization that tomorrow is the last day is sobering as the 120 days for us have passed very quickly. My last blog post in a few days will give a summary of the world cruise and our thoughts on what were the great, good, bad and ugly of the cruise.
