2025-08-15: Sea and Relaxation

We had a nice sleep in today. It was our last full day on the ship and we were at sea all day. Once we were up, we headed to the buffet for some breakfast. After breakfast we wandered through the shops on board.

At 11:15, they had a show in the piazza. They had the singers and dancers perform and then had a parade with some of the crew. The Captain came out and said a few words. He listed a few numbers off for the cruise. We went through 6,000 bottles of wine, 15,000 bottles of beer, and 37,000 eggs.

After the performance, we relaxed for the afternoon and started the dreaded packing of the suitcases. At 3:00pm, we went to the Vista Lounge for “The Voice of the Ocean”. It was an onboard version of The Voice TV show. They had done auditions over the course of a couple of nights earlier in the cruise. They selected the top 6 contestants to compete today. They had the spinning chairs and everything. The ships orchestra and a couple of the ship’s singers provided the music and backup vocals for the contestants. The judges were one of the singers from O’Malley’s Pub, the signers/dancers manager, and one of the guest musicians who performed last night.

The contestants each sung a song and the judges turned their chairs if they liked what they heard. The contestant then got to pick which of the judges they wanted of the ones that turned their chairs. Once all 6 had performed and chosen their judges, the judges had to pick one member of their team to move on. Amanda and I didn’t agree with the contestants that were chosen, but we weren’t the judges. Once we were down to the final three, the audience got to vote for their favorite. The contestant with the most votes won. It was fun to watch.

Darrell and Amanda grabbed a snack and then headed back to the room. On the way, someone spotted some dolphins swimming beside the ship. We watched them for a few minutes until they swam away. We relaxed for another couple of hours before three of us headed to dinner. Patrick abandoned us again. We were sat at a table with another couple and their friend. The couple was from Rochester, NY. Their friend was from Tampa Bay Florida. This was their first Princess cruise as well. They usually sail with Norwegian. The friend was an interesting character. He got talking about global warming and how it isn’t carbon that’s creating the problem. He believes its the radio waves from all the communication devices acting like a giant microwave and heating up the Earth. We just smiled and nodded. Dinner service was slow again tonight.

After dinner, we returned to the room and finished packing our suitcases. They wanted them outside our room by 8:00pm, which seemed a littler early to us. Once the suitcases were packed, Darrell went for a walk around the ship to take a few photos. While he was on deck, he happened to catch the sun setting. Patrick showed up briefly to watch it as well.

He returned to the room and we chilled out until it was time for bed.