The final day of a cruise is always a mix of emotions. We love travelling and we love cruising, but we also love our home and, most importantly, we love our cats. So the last day is always a happy and sad one. Grateful for the experience, but ready to go home.
Overnight, the ship felt very different. For most of the voyage we’d been cruising comfortably at around 12 to 14 knots, but during the night the motion became much more aggressive. The ship was pushing hard through the water and by morning we were still travelling at around 19 knots, which is fast. The wind was howling and the ship was chopping into the swell with real force.
The change was enough to wake Mardi around 4.00am. With the wind roaring and the room rattling, she worried for a moment that the ceiling might come down again. We shut the balcony door and eventually settled, although Mardi didn’t get much sleep for a couple of hours.
When morning came, she wanted to take things slowly, so I wandered the ship on my own for a bit. I popped into Princess Live where morning trivia was underway and found Bob, Carol, Andy and Jodie already there. I joined them for the quiz before heading back to the room. By then Mardi was up and feeling better, having managed to get some rest.
Around 11.30 we headed to the International Café for lunch. It’s a good option late in the morning, offering a range of savoury snacks. Mardi chose a quiche and I went for a cheeseburger meat pie. We took them back to the room so I could watch the cricket while we relaxed ahead of the final round of progressive trivia at 2.00pm.
The Ashes were well and truly on the line. Australia had won the first two Tests and were in a strong position in the third in Adelaide, so the cricket stayed on in the background as we made our way down to trivia just before two.
We met up with Bob, Carol, Jodie and Andy, and Donovan was once again our host. Even though this round didn’t count toward the final scores, he was in full schoolteacher mode. We scored 15 out of 20. Donovan didn’t immediately reveal the overall results, instead announcing fourth place, then third place. When our team name hadn’t been called, we assumed we’d missed out.
Then came the surprise. We were announced as second place overall, finishing with 82 points. The winning team had 85. It was incredibly close, and we were absolutely thrilled with that result. Over the past couple of weeks we’d also picked up a couple of bottles of champagne through trivia wins. We’d had one already and decided to save the second to celebrate properly later in the afternoon.
After trivia, we wandered through the photo gallery one last time and finalised the last of our photos from the previous few days, arranging prints of our favourite six shots.
At 4.00pm we were back in Princess Live with our friends, champagne in hand, for a relaxed couple of hours of trivia. We played the usual Let’s Quiz Again and then a Before They Were Famous challenge featuring 20 childhood photos of well-known figures. Some were very tough. Recognising Barack Obama at five or Taylor Swift at six isn’t easy. We managed a few, including Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, but it was more about fun than competition.
Dinner tonight was our final meal onboard, and we chose the sushi bar. There was a real end-of-cruise atmosphere throughout the ship. As we sat eating, a live band was playing in the Piazza below, performing well-known songs from the 80s and 90s. Sitting directly above them, we could see the keyboard player, drummer, backing vocalists and lead singer. It created a great vibe and felt like a fitting soundtrack for the final night.
After dinner we returned to Princess Live for one last trivia session and then said our goodbyes. With early starts the next morning and people heading in different directions, we might not see each other again. Bob and Carol were heading back to Perth and then down to Rockingham, Jodie and Andy back to South Australia, and we were off to Canberra. We exchanged contact details, took photos, and promised to stay in touch. We don’t usually make close connections on cruises, but this time we did, and it really added something special to the trip.
Before turning in, we decided to try our luck one last time in the casino. We started on the poker machines, hoping our favourite Founding Feathers would be free. It was, the same machine on the left that we’d played earlier in the cruise. We loaded our $50 credit and played for about 90 minutes. The animated chickens eating coins and exploding into free spins never gets old. We bounced between $30 and $80 before landing back on $50.
We then moved to roulette, sticking with our familiar strategy of five numbers and a couple of outside bets. We quickly lost $50 and thought about calling it a night, but on a whim decided to try another $100. That turned out to be a good call. Over the next couple of hours we clawed everything back, and when we finally cashed out we were almost $400 ahead. We don’t gamble big, and it’s never about the money. It’s just a bit of fun and escapism, and finishing the cruise roughly break-even felt like a nice bonus.
Back in the room, we finished packing. We’d already done some earlier, but tonight we got ourselves about 90 percent ready before turning in.
Earlier in the day, the captain had made a series of announcements that explained the rough night we’d experienced. Overnight, there had been a serious medical emergency onboard. To get help as quickly as possible, the ship increased speed to around 19 to 20 knots to bring us within 14 kilometres of the Sydney coast, where a helicopter could rendezvous with the ship.
Discovery Princess doesn’t have a helipad, so the helicopter had to hover while the passenger was winched up. Around 3.00pm the helicopter arrived. Out of respect, the captain asked passengers not to take photos or stand on balconies due to the risk from rotor wash. The aft area of the ship was cleared and secured. The operation was calm, professional and over in about ten minutes. The helicopter lifted the passenger and headed straight for Camperdown Hospital. Everyone onboard was hoping for a positive outcome.
It does make you think. With more than 3,200 passengers at sea for 14 days, medical issues are inevitable. This was the only emergency of that nature we were aware of during the cruise, but it’s a reminder of how complex and capable modern cruise operations really are.
Tomorrow is an early start. We’ll be up at 6.00am, hoping to disembark around 7.00. My brother David and his wife Kerry are meeting us for a quick coffee before we head home to Canberra.
It’s been a fantastic cruise. We loved the ship, the staff, the balance of activity and downtime, and especially the people we met along the way. Plenty of time to read, do puzzles, watch videos, relax, and just slow life down for a couple of weeks. That’s really the whole point, isn’t it.
