Our last day aboard Quest, destined to be sad. Not on the scale that some of our fellow travellers are feeling, having been here for 79 days now, friendships cemented, incredible shared experiences attained, traumatic problems overcome. Ours is much more basic, but palpable nonetheless.
We start, of course with alfresco breakfast at Patio Grill, todays bacon tomato and pea egg tagine is just perfect, then we set off on our laps - only 100 or 10km to do which takes 100 minutes barring a couple of seconds (3.75 mph since you ask) after which a Coke Zero seems like a good idea. We see numerous ships nearby as we traverse this popular shipping lane alongside the Cuban coast.
Chats with friendly Canadian walkers, and an English couple who often frequent my office space, fill the time between pool, Chardonnay and lunch. After lunch more chat with the Englanders, between poolside and cocktails (sangria) until we’re needed to vacate the deck eight / nine area whilst they dress it for later.
We go down to five and flit between little pool and jacuzzi until we need to go home early to shower and dress for the evening. Regular readers will know about Seabourn’s Epicurean event, where deck eight is turned into a series of stalls with officers pushing even more food and drink our way! Today we have arancini and mini pizza, desserts, cocktails, sangria blanco, crudités and tartare, and finally cheese and hams.
We catch up with many people we have met over the last two weeks, or on previous journeys with Seabourn (some folks are even more prolific than us) until the first tear-jerker when a significant number of staff line up to receive the thanks of us guests. It’s about 180 staff, more than half, who get to join the lineup on these occasions - emotional and yet so important that we are able to clap and cheer them, lee by Cruise Director Jan.
Next we are treated to the ship’s company of singers who give a sterling performance of songs from Le Mis, West Side story (the balcony scene ‘Tonight’) some fabulous opera (seriously talented singers) and finally Bohemian Rhapsody followed by (not quite Bocelli’s) ‘Time to say Goodbye’ which is such a fabulous end to our cruise, and the second tear-jerker of the evening.
We chat with the singers afterwards and are delighted to learn that they are joining Odyssey in Los Angeles the same day we do later this year!
I quickly pop along to Colonnade to photograph the Indian Market that is about to take place there, then we return to the patio Bar in order to say goodbye to Richard and David who have created so many excellent cocktails and other drinks for us this journey.
Erin takes a great photo for us too.
Dinner in MDR is delightful, we enjoy carbonara and chicken en croute / asparagus velute and crab salad / lamb fillet / pineapple upside down cake and pistachio soufflé.
As we walk home we see the corridors laden with bags, aware that we have an hour to pack ours ready for the 23:00 pickup.
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