Alaska Summer Solstice Cruise - Sea Day

Cruise Day 28

Saturday, July 6, 2024

Today is the day we look forward to the least on a cruise – the last day.  On one hand we are looking forward to getting home, but on the other hand, this has been a wonderful cruise and we hate to see end, but the worst thing about the last day is having to pack everything up and make it all fit in our bags.

We were tired so we slept in until almost nine and then after getting something to eat, we started to do our packing.  After tiring of that we decided to go down to the shops.  We had a lot of onboard credit on this cruise, but the “have it all” promotion that was included with this cruise covered about everything, so we used very little of it.  Consequently, we had over $1000 left and we either had to use it or lose it.

After that, it was back to our room for more packing.  Our room stewards came by to clean our room, so we said goodbye to them and thanked them for all their hard work.  There is an automatic charge every day for gratuities for the crew that is spread to all the crew members throughout the ship, but we wanted to give them more so we gave them a separate tip, they really deserved it.

It was time for lunch so made our way to the Lido for our last lunch onboard.  To be honest, we are getting a little tired of the lunch fare and will be glad to get home to our usual lunches.

After lunch, we decided to head to the casino and kill a little time and put off our final packing.  Little did we know at the time that this would be our last visit to the casino, but more on that later.

Back in our room we did our final packing except for the odds and ends that would have to wait until the last thing tonight.  We have been busy the last couple of days, so I spent much of the rest of the afternoon catching up on the blog and then relaxed a little before dinner.

We have had some of the best food we have eaten on a cruise and enjoyed almost every meal.  Our last meal was no exception, and we finished our cruise with a great dinner.  Just before our desert the dining room and kitchen staff paraded around the dining room singing an Indonesian farewell song.  They were met with a lot of applause and gratitude as they all work so hard with no days off and very little time off during the day.  After dinner we said goodbye to Aris and Hendric, our dining room stewards, and gave them a little added gratuity and after a picture with them, we said our final goodbyes and made our way to the casino.

Aris and Hendric were great dining room stewards and they made our dinner more enjoyable.

We got to the casino and were very surprised to see that it had closed.  Usually on the last night they are open until at least midnight, but not on this one.  We have sailed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca with Canada on one side and the US on the other close enough to have to close the casino.  We had missed the announcement and just assumed the casino would be open late and now we had a problem.

On the ship, you don’t use cash, you load cash onto your key card and then put your card into the slot machines and get money that way.  When you cash out, anything you may have won is put back onto the card and to get that money, you have to go to the casino cashier and get paid the cash that was on your card.

The problem for us was we still had cash on our cards and the cashier was closed.  We were afraid we had lost that money, but it turned out that we would just have to wait for them to send us a check that would take six to eight weeks.  I was disappointed as I had been winning the last week or so and built up a nice little amount on my card, but now I will have to wait to get it.  Oh well, at least we won’t lose it and we have learned a lesson not to assume anything.

We returned to our room and did our very final packing as we had to put our larger bags outside our room by midnight when they would be picked up and the next time we would see them would be in the terminal tomorrow morning.  Finally, everything was ready, the bags were put in the hallway, and it was time to relax until bedtime.  Tomorrow morning we’ll be in Seattle and leaving the ship.

The sun sets on our last night of the cruise.