Vacation Day #8 (Thursday 3/23/06)

We again woke early on (what we thought was going to be) our last day at sea. We had a light continental breakfast delivered to the room at 7 AM while we showered and dressed. At 8:30, we headed to the Horizon buffet to feed the kids before taking them to the Kids' Camp. While they were there, T and I were busy. We picked up pictures on deck 7 taken on previous days/nights, shopped on decks 5 and 6, visited the Future Cruise Sales desk and put a deposit down for our Spring Break 2007 cruise (to the Mexican Riviera on the Princess Diamond!), had coffee at the Lobby Bar and did a bit of packing in the cabin before picking the kids up at noon. After lunch (pizza and hamburgers by the pool), we went to the room to work on homework sent from the kids' teachers. While they did that, I poured over and filled out the customs paperwork and disembarkation forms that had been delivered. This was the only day I made use of the self-serve laundromat on our floor. I had to iron Chase's dress clothes for the evening - our 2nd and final formal night onboard.

Once we were all dressed, we headed to the atrium to have pictures taken before dinner. We entered the Coral dining room a bit early - at 5:45 PM - and enjoyed a great dinner of Beef Wellington, twin lobster tails and more. Chase was thrilled with the sorbet selection for the night - mandarin orange - delicious! We walked the promenade for a while before heading to the room. Once there, we found that our future cruise documents (for the Mexican Riviera) and our passenger questionnaire (regarding this cruise) had been delivered. We let the kids change shoes and brought them to the Kids' Camp when it opened at 8 PM. This was the only night we'd used the Camp at night as, most nights, our kids were too tired from their busy days to even think about going. We spent an hour at Club Fusion before picking them up and heading to the room. There, we packed our beach bag for Friday and were in bed by around 9:30 PM.

We realize that we missed out on a lot of the evening/nighttime activities onboard (having exhausted children that needed to get to bed early) but know that, as they get older and we enjoy more cruises together, those things will still be there for us to enjoy.