October 11

 Well, today is the last sea day as we head toward Southhampton to disembark and fly home tomorrow morning. It’s time to unpack and repack and get organized for tomorrow’s early start. I didn’t buy a lot, and what I bought was all small things, but man, did my suitcase shrink? 

We had a leisurely breakfast, wandered around the ship, and just had a relaxing day which involved a lot of eating. 

This ship seemed so familiar to me, and I don’t know why since the NCL Prima that we were on last year was entirely different, being almost brand new, whereas this one is about 20 years old. Not familiar in a paranormal way or anything, just plain old familiar.

I took a photo of the hair dryer in the bathroom because it just seemed so old and, shall we say…vintage? As a matter of fact, I asked Steven on about Day 8 or 9 how the hair dryer was (he always uses them to unfog the bathroom mirror) and he said “There isn’t one” I showed him this, which is directly above the toilet:

And he laughed and said he had thought it was a weird vent or toilet accessory, or possible even a vacuum.  We chuckled and went on our day.

I’m telling this story because during the cruise I got a call from an NCL representative telling me that since this was our 3rd cruise with NCL that I was entitled to discounts on our next cruise. I was pretty sure we had only done 2 cruises with them, but whatever, I wasn’t planning on booking another one right now anyhow. But when home, I dug out my pictures from our Alaska cruise in 2009, and not only was it with NCL, it was on this very same ship! The Norwegian Sun. And, I had taken a picture of the bathroom way back then, and LOOK:

Identical! Nothing updated since 2009! No wonder everything seemed so familiar. 

The entertainment tonight was called Wild Cards and it was an 18+ song and dance sort of in a burlesque style, taking place in the Old West. Again, really good. 

There were a lot of other shows, things like The Price is Right, Deal or No Deal and Name that Tune, they were not really very good, although the venues were always crowded, so I guess that other folks enjoyed them. There were also plenty of smaller pubs and lounges that always had live entertainment, as well as a sports bar so one could catch up on their sports.

Also a plethora of classes, from Line Dancing to origami lessons, wine and whisky tasting, chinese herbal medicine and even a pickleball court, and so much more.

You could only be bored if you chose to be.

Anyhow, here’s a few of my pictures that I might have missed posting. 

I loved that these coffee vending machines were scattered all over the place, I saw a lot of them in residential areas near bus stops. Can you imagine that around here? They’d be vandalized in a New York Minute.

An $18 USD Mudslide. (The alcoholic kind)

In case you needed to know that French fries were served here.

The public toilets were always spotless, but these square-ish seats were not appealing (of course I do the “lined with TP and still hover” maneuver, but still…square seats? Most bathrooms were unisex, so maybe it was so that men didn’t scroll and linger?

An interesting building.

We went to the casino to spend the last of our US money, and spend it we did! 

Came home with .14….far cry from last year when I came home with $28,000….which essentially made this trip free. (Not that this trip cost anywhere near that)

This ship still delivers the Freestyle Daily to your room every night, which I love. Most of the cruise lines, including NCL are going to digital newspapers and notices, which I understand, eco and all that, but I love having the paper ones. It’s just fun to check your mail every day and have all the little notes right there. We had a lot of invites to various parties, and notes about the time changes and whatnot. I just like getting mail.

Anhow. Early to bed. Tomorrow will be a looooooon day.