Just as we were running out of time the pace on the ship picked up.  We had six sea days between Nuka Hiva and San Diego.  We needed those six days to sort what we wanted to throw and what we wanted to keep.  Then we had to pack the keepers along with all our other stuff, pulling suitcases nested into each other and collapsed duffels from under the bed.  It made it difficult to move in our cabin.  While organizing and packing we arranged last minute meals or just “table time,” because we’ve run out of meals, to talk with friends who we will not see until another cruise.

At about two thirds of the way through our first world cruise, I had a conversation with Henk, the Hotel Manager.  I asked him if they would slacken the pace as we wound down.  He said no, they would pick it up.  He said that as the cruise wound down, he wanted to keep people’s attention on the cruise and not on going home.  He wanted us to enjoy it to the end.  He said it was a balance.  My third to the last post for that cruise was titled “A Whirlwind Finish.”   I thought Henk had overdone it.  I kind of think the same about this ending.  I almost added Frantic and Frenetic to my title but alliteration goes only so far. 

Some of the special things these last six days included:

• A King Neptune Ceremony for new “polliwogs” crossing the equator by sea for the first time. Pollywogs had to “Kiss the Fish” be slathered with goo and either left to bake in the sun or thrown into the pool.  One pollywog kissed the fish on the head and was called back to kiss it on the mouth after she was gooed up.

• A Crew Talent show and a goodbye show “City at Sea” (I call it the closing campfire) where as many of the crew as they could fit into the room received our recognition.  Both were scheduled to run 45 minutes but, appropriately, both lasted longer.
• A special “county fair” game night.

• The parade of waiters, chefs, and kitchen staff through the main dining room.

• The displays of blankets, watercolors and sketches cruisers made during the cruise.
• A Q&A with our new Captain, Thomas van Benthem.  I had the chance to chat with Captain Thomas, who was staff captain under Jonathan Mercer on two of our world cruises.  In 2018 he had his wife (who he met when he was a younger officer and she a “location guide” on a HAL ship) and daughter with him.  Lily was learning to walk on the moving ship and had eight hundred surrogate grandparents.  She is now nine and a budding gymnast. I wonder if learning to walk on a moving ship helped her balance. 

• The final formal night with the Zaandam Ball.

• “Cake me away” a display of different cakes that we then needed to eat! (I attended but passed on the eating.)

• A life raft demonstration on deck.
• A model ship building competition.
• Stargazing on the back deck.

• “On Deck for a Cause” a 5K walk to support Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization.
• And, of course, Easter Celebrations plus an Easter Egg Hunt.  (Quote of the day from one of the Lido Waitresses “I’m from Thailand, I don’t understand Easter but I think it is a holiday about eggs and rabbits.”  She was wearing bunny ears.

All of this on top of the normal evening shows, lectures, movies, trivia, happy hours, karaoke, and deck games.   

Whew, no wonder I left for home exhausted.  There was no way I could attend it all and still do what I love best on those final sea days, sit, read, and watch the sea’s different moods as we pass through the equatorial doldrums and the cycle of sunrise and sunset.