The way the cruise lines count it – the day that you board the ship is Day 1. The day t leave the ship is simply the day you leave the ship – doesn’t count as a ship day. At first all of that confused me, then I decided that their planning derives the same as the hotel industry: if you are not sleeping in their bed that night – you don’t count. Day you check out is simply the day they can move on to the next paying customer.

I suppose I should be realistic and just count the disembarking day as a lost day since most travel days are exactly that. But anyway – where I was going was simply that today is the last day making it a day to say goodbye to new friends, take a lot of pictures and try to make everything fit back in the suitcase. You know the suitcase – the one that you brought everything in so that it all obviously fitted once.

My job was relatively easy -I am moving to a new cabin so I just have to make sure that everything is out of the drawers and cabinets. The Eldest had to manage to get all of her clothes back into her suitcase plus the fronts and back of her sweater that I am knitting. It is not finished but hello? The reality of me knitting on mohair in the next two weeks is essentially nil so sending it back to Germany makes sense. Using the extra yarn as packing around her shoes made even more to me at the time.

Then there is the knitting group. We met every sea day from about 0930-1130 with people dropping in and out as their schedules permitted. All told we had over 30 who joined us at least once with about 18 as pretty permanent participants. Ship staff were really amazed that we had that many interested (knitters, crocheters, cross-stitch, embroidery, needlepoint – we didn’t discriminate).

I’ll be sticking up the sign for the next couple of weeks in the morning….. (as well as adding in the pictures as soon as I get them uploaded.

Meanwhile – ate more food, jogged another four miles in the fitness center and had the hot tub all to myself this evening!