The first thing on everyone's to-do list on the last sea day was to pack for their trip home or their next voyage after the cruise. At 9 a.m., at least one person from every family unit was asked to attend the Debarkation Talk by our cruise director J.J. King. Everyone had received their baggage tags for debarkation the night before. We were White 1, the first passengers off the ship at 6:30 a.m. for our flight from Rome to JFK International Airport in New York and then to Fort Lauderdale. J.J. also asked all family units to complete the last paper evaluation of the cruises of the Pacific Princess. Bowing to technology, all future evaluations will be done on line on the computer.
J.J. suggested that we mark Excellent in all categories for the staff. If we had a minor complaint, we should not penalize an entire department but rather write a specific comment on the back of the evaluation form. Sara would like to determine how she can use the pep talk with her college students who seem to like to zero in on a minor incident and rate the professor accordingly. She can hear herself saying, "Don't dwell on that F you got on the first test that you blamed on your instructor for not providing a detailed study guide rather than your failure to study, or that C- you received on a presentation because you had no introduction, structure, conclusion and message and did not meet the time requirement but still thought that the instructor had not given you the specific criteria to receive the A you so justly deserved. Instead think of the overall wonderful learning experience that you had in this class." She is not sure that college students will buy that line of reasoning. The meeting ended with the playing of "Time to Say Good-Bye" and representatives from all the ship's departments walking to the stage to wave good-bye to a tearful audience, who rewarded them with a standing ovation.
At 10 a.m., the members of Cruise Critic held their farewell meeting in the Pacific Lounge. Joining us were passengers who plan to join Cruise Critic. We passed out names, email addresses and current home cities of members who signed up at our meeting in April and Lists of Valuable/Not-So-Valuable Items for Long Trips compiled from suggestions from our members. We added a category, How We Can Make Our Home Feel More Like a Cruise Ship, for everyone to work on when they arrived back home. Our fearless leader MaryAnn read a fantastic essay she wrote to summarize our 107 days of adventures. As soon as she emails us a copy, which everyone at the meeting requested, we will include it on the blog. As the song said, "It's so hard to say good-bye to yesterday." These 107 days have comprised the trip of a lifetime.
Tonight was our last formal night. The men griped that the staff should not have planned a formal night this late in the cruise while we were packing to go home but everyone showed up at dinner in their finest formal wear. One suggestion that Sara would give future female passengers on long cruises is to concentrate on their formal clothes. Forget the little black dress. Bring the brightly colored, beautiful gowns and/or jackets or tops that will garner compliments from the other passengers, making you the person to be remembered.
The Pacific Princess Singers and Dancers presented their last production for the cruise, which received a standing ovation from all. The two leads and eight members of the troupe have worked so hard during the trip and have meshed beautiful into an outstanding ensemble. We loved all of them and hope to hear fantastic news about their entertainment careers in the future!
At the end of the program, the cruise director introduced the grand winner of the photography competition on board, selected from the first-place finishers in all four segments. To our delight, the winner was Janie Gilkey from Kansas City. We learned that her winning entry was the one that bested Ken's memorable photograph of the three bathing beauties showering after the ceremony for crossing the equator. Janie had borrowed a camera from a friend and told us that she just kept snapping pictures. Now she owned a camera of her own. No one deserved it more than Janie who had traveled to many countries even before the rest of the world became aware of them.
While 107 days seemed like a long time when we started this voyage on January 27, we were not ready for all of this fun to come to an end.
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