Update – The Bahamas & Miami

Hello again, and thank you for visiting. Today is the story of the final days of our trip. Hope you enjoy these final tales. 

For those that are interested, Royal Caribbean shared a 15 minute video highlighting the Ultimate World Cruise destinations. It is a pretty good video summary. I do not know how long their link will remain active, but you can view the video here. (It’s big, so give it a minute after clicking the link, the video will get displayed after a minute or so.)

For the last several days, the ship has gone all out to show us a good time. We had two days at sea, which they packed full of busywork. On the morning of the first sea day, they held the long awaited presentation by the (seldom seen) RCCL CEO Michael Bailey. There had been much speculation regarding a future World Cruise opportunity, and promises for months that the announcement would be made at this champaign-ladened event. 

So the big announcement was that they were hosting a one week reunion cruise, next September in Alaska, and that that cruise would be when they will make their big World Cruise  2.0 announcement. 

And of course, the folks on that cruise will (allegedly) have a several day priority booking opportunity for the next world cruise.  So, basically, a pretty big cop out. An auditorium full of disappointed people. And no, Karen and I did not make any more reservations. 

Don’t get me wrong. We had a fantastic time, and saw many, many things that we never thought that we would get to see. 

But we learned a lot too. And one of the most important things I learned was that I never want to eat at the same place for 274 days in a row again!

😉

Anyway, they had a really fancy brunch afterwards, and it pretty much ate up the remainder of the day. 

After a great brunch with several other couple that we have become friends with, we planned our own little cocktail party for the following day. It gave us a chance to finish off our exotic wines, cheeses, and sausages that we all had picked up along the way. So the next day would be fun. 

The following day, we had a group picture, which was pretty nice. 600 or so people at the pool. A good time was had by all. 

Shortly afterwards, our cocktail party was superb. We held it in the little tables and couches just outside of the ship’s Irish pub. The corner  table had kind of become Karen and l’s evening spot. You can see the band and hear the music from here, but we’re not in the thick of it. (If you’ve spent any time in an Irish pub, then you know what I am talking about. A little bit of distance equals a lot of lower decibels.)

The table is along a walkway leading between the auditorium and the casino, so several dozens folks stopped by to say their farewells, and it turned into quite the event. 

That evening we had the guest talent show, and that is always entertaining. One of the young ladies that has been playing guitar with us performed a long-ish addition of “I’ve Been Everywhere Man” and changed up the words, naming all of our cruise destinations. Cool! Lots of other entertaining stuff too. We especially like what some of the photographers showed. 

So speaking of destinations, our travels took us just under 80,000 nautical miles (or 92,000 miles). That is equal to three-and-three-quarters around the globe. (We probable topped 80,000 miles if you include the flying to and from Miami, and add walking to the gate at the Miami airport…)

Also of interest, we visited nearly 160 ports of call in 65 countries, crossed the equator 8 times, and experienced 32 time zone changes. It was quite the run, and boy is my rudder tired…

That evening, they brought back MO5AIC to perform again. These guys are amazing. (You might remember them from Americas Got Talent.) They are basically a capella group, but one of them is the world’s champion beat box guy. While that is not really my thing, I have to say that he is amazing. World class show. That was really neat that they brought them back a second time. 

So on Monday, we arrived at CocoCay, a private island in the Bahamas. It turns out that building up these private islands for the cruise lines has turned into big business. 

We have been to this island several times. There is quite a bit to do here. Everything from ballon rides to jet skiing. You can scuba dive, zip line, or mambo. Not to mention the over-the-top waterparks. (Yup, this is plural.)

We “resorted” to our favorite pastime, and found a quiet, shady spot under a beach umbrella, where cold drinks can be delivered. 

This particular beach has swimming, but also has fellas who do a jet ski and waterboard (flying jetpack) stunts. They put on quite the show. One fella on a jet ski did backflips, one after another, like you would not believe. And the waterboard was cool. Flying like a jetpack. Amazing! The board connects to a jet ski, and he gets about 25 feet in the air. He also did backflips and other stunts. Good show!

After a few hours, we had a golf cart take us back to the ship, and we watched a matinee movie in the empty air conditioning theater. Perfect!

Later that night, they had a fireworks show as we sailed away from the island. They blocked off the front of the ship and served us all champagne while we watched. Very nice. 

They also served up a crableg and lobster-fest dinner BBQ style. What a lovely way to say our final farewells. 

Tuesday, September 10 was the final day of the cruise adventure. It is actually day 275, better known as the dreaded, “travel back home day”. 

The departures were organized  in such a way that we pretty much did not see many folks on our way out. 

They flew us home first class, and we had the day on the plane to reflect. 

One of my buddies from home told me recently “Man, I bet that you have all kinds of story to tell us when you get home.” It was so funny, because as he said this, my mind went completely blank. I’m sure that they are in there somewhere, but I have to wait for the swelling to go down before I can think straight. 

I’m not saying I’m a fat head. I’m saying that my brain is so full, that i need to clear my thought a bit, just to make room in order to get the rest of my thoughts in order. (i.e. We’re  feeling a bit overwhelmed…)

Also, and perhaps most importantly, we are feeling grateful for having this fabulous opportunity. We met many of our life’s dreams, and built memories to last a lifetime.

We have attained enlightenment in some surprising areas. Beyond geography and culture, we’ve learned about ourselves. In the book Cloud Atlas  by David Mitchell. He said “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” 

This feels true, but I also got a kick out of a conversation recently between several shipmates. The conversation started out as a discussion about people on their phones during movies and shows in the theater. Who does this in a dark theater? Anyway, it turned into a discussion about how some of the others on the ship had become so entitled, and how normal folks could rarely find a place to sit where five people weren’t talking on their speakerphones or playing music on their phones. 

They were saying that they had found that they were at the end of their ropes, and had begun confronting these folks. This lead to many of them saying how they discovered this aggressive side of themselves that they did not like. I guess some folks found themselves, and it turned out they were strangers. Hmmm…

So there you go. “Travel far enough, you meet yourself…” 

For myself, I have improved my ability to live in the moment. 

Anyway, the trip is over. And it’s come to the time, when we will have to reach deep within, and ask ourselves the really big questions. Where do clean towels come from? Where the heck are all of the RedBoxes? They make coffee without Baileys?

It is ironic that we are finding that our thoughts of returning home are producing a sense of euphoria, the same sense that we experienced when embarking on this journey. I guess that we have come around full circle. And there you have it…

It will take a bit of time to assimilate  ourselves. So as we continue to traverse the voyage that is life, perhaps our first step will be, an extended quest for the unremarkable. 

Much thanks to all of you for sharing our journey with us along the way. Please feel free to leave (public) comments at the bottom of this page if you like. We look forward to seeing you soon.

– Mike 

“You’ve always had the power, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself”. – Glinda the Good Witch (character), L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

PS – It might be of interest to folks that, while I did use my iPad on occasion to fix a formatting issue here and there, nearly all of the World Cruise blog was produced using my iPhone.