Caribbean Cruise - Day 7 - At Sea

Our last full day on the cruise was spent at sea. We had breakfast on our balcony around 9am, and then went to work out at the fitness center. We had lunch at the AquaSpa cafe.

In the afternoon we took a long walk around the ship, visiting every public room on every deck. We did soduku in the game room, printing boarding passes in the iLounge (full of Apple computers), and, of course, had some chocolate icecream with M&M's.

When we finished our walk, we brought a pot of coffee back to our room and sat out on the balcony reading.

Room service brought a bucket of ice so we could chill the bottle of champagne that Jeff had won earlier in the trip, and around 6pm we popped the cork and had champagne on the balcony. It was really nice. I loved the symmetry of starting and ending the trip sipping champagne enjoying our balcony together, and just sitting and chatting and appreciating the view was a great way to savor the last evening of the cruise. And of course it made us marvel at how almost exactly a week ago we had been in the same spot, just boyfriend and girlfriend, and were now engaged to be married.

Just before 7pm, we headed to the Solstice Theater. After my complaints about the previous show, it might seem surprising that we went to another one. However, this evening the performer was Lindsay Hamilton, who had plaed Eva Peron in 'Evita' and Fantine in 'Les Miserable' in London's West End. I really enjoyed the show - I thought she was funny and entertaining, and her voice was incredible. Plus I love 'Les Miserable,' so just hearing 'I Dreamed a Dream' was enough to make the show worth it for me. (Another fun fact - just a few weeks after we'd started dating (in November 2003!), Jeff and I went on a long-weekend trip to London and saw "Les Miserable" in the West End.)

After the show, we had a fair amount of time until dinner, so we stopped by the Martini Bar, which looked really cool and had a bar that was completely covered in frost. We ordered the martini flight to share - it had six mini-martinis. It was worth ordering the flight just to watch the bar-tender pour it. He mixed all six martinis, stacked the mixers, and then poured them all at once. Pretty cool.

We enjoyed our final dinner on the ship, and though we were full and tired, decided that we weren't quite ready for the night to be over. We went up to the top deck of the ship for a little stroll in the sea air. It wasn't raining, but you could see a thunderstorm off in the distance with dramatic lightening. Jeff and I stood at the railing for a long time just enjoying the view and trying to catch some of it with my camera.

Dead tired, we eventually headed back to our room. We weren't quite ready to concede that the last night of our cruise was over, though, so we put on "The Fantastic Four," as if we'd stay up and watch a movie, and then promptly fell asleep.