Sorry we took so
long to do the blog. On the last night, we finally went to bed after a
very busy day at 2:45am!
As we were up
late the night before, Ed finally made it to the pool deck at 9:30am and it was
a beautiful day – in the 80’s with some wind.
Barb joined him
soon and we were out in the sun until it was time to eat at 1:00pm with our friends.
We left them
early as there was qualifying for a slot tournament at 2:30pm, which Ed entered
and didn’t not qualify.
At 3:00pm, David
joined Ed for the 8th session of blackjack we played on the cruise.
After that we
sadly packed and then it was time for our last dinner for this cruise with our
friends. We all did pick an early
January cruise for 2026 for us to all schedules and meet again.
The production
number on the theater was the best of the cruise with some great music and
dancing by the ships entertainment cast.
Then dinner as
always. The first dinner and the last
dinner on a cruise is always the most elaborate and this dinner was no
exception as you will see in the pictures.
After that we all
went to the casino where we all had a good night and we had a good casino cruise
– not the biggest winnings but a nice win.
The casino has a
points system based on your average bet and hours played and we did qualify for
a “free” cruise of up to 10 days. Unlike
other cruises, they publish the points need for each type and length of cruse
and you know your points each day.
Overall, this
cruise, was one of and maybe the best we have every had out of almost 60
cruises and having our friends all together, except for the Freemans (darn) from
Virginia made it a very special, fun cruise.
We disembarked at
8:00am with our Butler leading us past literally almost thousands of the
5,800 passengers ready to leave as you
only had from 7:30am to 10:00am to vacate the ship. Their line was very, very long, snaking
throughout floor 4, leading to the gangway.
We found our
luggage quickly and boarded a van to pick up our rental car.
Since we were
flying Allegiant, the closest flight on that day in the afternoon was at the
Fort Lauderdale Airport.
We drove the
three hours down the expressway and checked into our flight with about ½ hour
to spare, enough time to get a sandwich.
The flight was a
2hr 35 minute non-stop flight and after a gate change and a short delay we flew
to Peoria, picked up a rental car and drove to the Bloomington airport. There we dropped off our rental and took our
car home, getting home at 7:30am after stopping at the grocery store and also
picking up a pizza.
It was cold and
windy so we only took in our two big suitcases and left the rest in the car for
Monday morning.
Thanks for
reading our blog and we are now home
