Day 63, Sunday, April 27, At Sea, MS Amsterdam

The Crystal Symphony is in Kobe, Japan. The Crystal Serenity is at sea from Monaco to LaSpezia, Italy.

My final full length walk was uneventful under pleasant conditions and partly cloudy skies. While the major activity of the day was packing (some bags were even in the hallway Saturday), there was a busy program.

Protestant worship at 8 in the Queens Room was well attended. It was my turn to read the scripture (Beatitudes). At 9:30 Hotel Director Henk Mensink was Gene’s guest on Good Morning Amsterdam, followed by a Paul Goltz lecture on Che Guevera. At his midday update Captain Mercer indicated we would pick up the pilot at 4:45 AM, and would berth at Pier 26, where the World Cruise had begun many months ago.

The final redemption of Grand Dollars came after lunch (my 10 were just enough for a lanyard), and Jill Eyers closed out the enrichment series with a talk on fossils. Despite it’s weaknesses, I still haven’t gone through all my internet time (about 2 hours left), but also am still unable to log into Cruise Critic, either from my laptop or the ship’s computers. That gets frustrating after a while.

All 10 of us were present at table 311 for the closing dinner; I and several others enjoyed the Chateaubriand. At the end we had a crew parade and they sang us a farewell song. There was a single show of the orchestra in “Take 5″, mostly jazz and mostly solos by band members but also including a number where they demonstrated playing a number on portable devices from a keyboard on a laptop screen to a phone sized device. As I left the Queens Room the last glow of dusk was hanging over the bow.

Today’s parting shot covers the world of unintended consequences, usually presumed to be a bad thing. I really never intended to take this last voyage, but backed into it when I found myself looking for a way home from Cape Town. This is actually the longest time I’ve yet spent on a single ship at once (a brief record to be broken at least twice in the near future), and I think the longest I’ve yet been away at once. As long as it’s been, I can’t believe how quickly the end is coming. I would have to call this a very good unintended consequence.

I do plan to report on the trip home but will not have internet access on the train, so the conclusion should come after the fact.

Roy

dawn04271

take5a

take5b

take5c

daysend63