Last 3 Days of our Cruise

Day 6--May 1

Since today was a sea day, we slept in till about 9.  I love sleep!  We had a really relaxing day--breakfast, then reading out by the pool, swimming, then lunch, naps (for some) and more reading.  How can it get any better than that?  :)

 Garrett went down to swim while I was up on the next level reading.

 The view from my spot.

 It was a formal night, so we dressed up and had pictures taken before we went in to dinner.

 We were able to get a seat by the window this time.  Makes a nice back drop.

Georgia and I

Jim and Garrett

After dinner, we went to Club Fusion and watched a sort of Newlywed Game.  They had 3 couples--newlyweds, ones married for about 10 years and one couple that were married over 40 years or so.  It was really funny to watch.  

Then we went to the Princess Theater and listened to some 60's and 70's music by a guy named Zach Willingham.  He was really good and played some great music!  

After that, we went searching for Garrett's phone because earlier in the day he realized that it was missing and he thought he left it in the restaurant from last night's dinner.  So far no one had turned it in, but we went looking in the restaurant anyway to see if it had slipped down in the cushion of the seat or under the bench.  No such luck.  But miraculously, when he went and checked the next day, someone had turned it in!  Yay!

Day 7--May 2

This morning, we thought we would try to have breakfast in one of the formal dining rooms, just to see what that was like.  After sitting there for 2 hours with 2 or 3 other couples, we realized that we didn't want to do that ever again.  The food was basically the same, we just had to wait forever for it.  Plus, I'm not much of a social person, so I don't really enjoy talking with strangers.  

After breakfast, we went searching for the professional pictures that they take on the boat and decided which ones we wanted to buy.  There were so many!  We finally narrowed it down though and bought those.  Then we went outside and found a nice place to read until it was lunchtime.  For lunch, in one of the restaurants called the Crown Grill, they were offering Fish 'N chips for lunch, so we went and had that--so good!  It was a nice change from the normal buffet food.  Then we decided to go back to the room to get most of our packing done because our luggage had to be out in the hall by 11 that night.  

When we were done, we went to listen to a trivia game in Club Fusion for awhile.  Then we had a quick dinner, so we could go watch the dance show, "Do You Wanna Dance?" in the Princess Theater.  

 We took these pictures while we were waiting for it to start.  Garrett's always making goofy faces. 

 One of all of us minus Jim who didn't want to watch the dancers--he was saving seats for us in the lounge where Bert Stratton was going to play later.  

 They did all sorts of dances from various parts of the world.  It was entertaining and a lot cleaner than the last time. 

 Waiting for Burt to start

 Bert Stratton--again

Georgia liked him so much that she got a picture with him and bought his last DVD.  

After that we finished our packing and got to bed.

Day 8--May 3

We were up at 7 since we had to be out of our rooms at 8.  Usually they have to start cleaning rooms as quickly as possible to get the ship ready for the next cruise, but our cruise was the last one for the Caribbean Princess for awhile.  It was actually heading to the Bahamas to get some work done on it, so it was going to be out of commission for awhile.  After our breakfast, we had to wait in the Princess theater, because we had one more excursion that we were going on.  Since our flight wasn't until later in the evening, they had an excursion to NASA or the Johnson Space Center in Houston available.  When we were done, they would drop us off at the airport.  So we said, why not?  

 They first brought us to Rocket Park, where they have the Saturn V Rocket housed.  I actually remember coming here when we lived in Houston.  At that time though, the rocket was outside.  Since then, they've had to move it inside because it was getting damaged out in the elements.  

I found this on the internet.  This is when it used to be outside--pretty cool aerial shot.  

The rocket is in this building now.

This thing is massive!  It's over 36 stories tall!  "It's the most powerful rocket ever built and operated. It’s design played a major role in successfully transporting and landing American astronauts on the moon during the Apollo missions." (taken from the internet)

 Love the movie Apollo 13!

 Then we went to the main part of the museum at Space Center Houston.  This place was so big, but we didn't have time to go through the whole thing.  Part of our group had much earlier flights than we did, so we had to leave to get them to the airport on time.  Bummer.  

 There were lots of cool things to see--you could easily spend a whole day there. 

 After looking around for awhile, we had to leave and get to the airport.  The bad thing was that we were like 4 or 5 hours early for our flight--and we couldn't even check in for our flight and get past security until it was closer to our flight time.  So, we couldn't even go and find any good restaurants.  We did find one place and it was OK, I guess.  So we all just hung out and read... 

 and got massages in these massage chairs.

 Finally on our flight home

Getting into Portland at about 11 that night, which was really 1 am Texas time.  We were exhausted--and we still had to drive home!  It was a great trip though and over waaaayyyy too soon!  :)