After the president of Royal Caribbean arrived in Bermuda on September 6, the homecoming celebrations were planned and announced. The day he arrived we had the aerial drone photo of all 600+ world cruisers taken out by the pool deck. I added that photo on the previous post. While there we also had a small celebration with champagne. So many hugs and lively chatter in those few hours. The most words coming out of people was “I can’t believe it’s almost over”. We said the same thing. Where did that time go? We celebrated with hugs to executives that helped us along the journey. Thanking them for a job well done. Not an easy journey but most certainly an amazing one.
The following day we had a very early town hall meeting. We just hate getting up by an alarm clock. The meeting was scheduled for 9 am. Uugghh!
The town hall (they called it common ground 🤷🏻♀️) explained how all our massive amounts of luggage would be handled. And that was the jest of “current information”. What the president relayed on stage was how incredible this journey was and that YES! They will be doing another one. However they need to do a better job in planning so they will announce it next year after receiving all our feedback. And then came another surprise. A reunion cruise in Alaska one year from the date we end this cruise! September 10, 2025. You should have heard all the cheering! We were all so excited and not quite as sad in leaving our friends. We all get to sail again together once again! The rest of the meeting consisted of fellow cruisers standing up to ask questions, however the vast majority just talked about how grateful and thankful they were for the staff and crew and how much we loved them. This was also a one of a kind journey for them. We, Chuck and I, got really close with 3 of the 5 singers, the two dancers and a few members of the orchestra. They are now part of our cruise family! The town hall was a great start to our day.
In the afternoon we attended an auction of World Cruise memorabilia to benefit the Make A Wish Foundation. They raised $35,000. A record in one sitting. The most expensive item was a piano that was custom made and traveled up and down the elevators and in different venues with a musician. It sold for $5,000 and shipping was included! Is was a custom $30,000 piano! Several cruises were given away and a few auctioned off. We bid on and won a photo with the band and singers, a glass plaque on a small pedestal commemorating our first time arrival in the Philippines. This was presented to Royal by the country. We were also given along with it the same Serenade plaque that Royal provided the country. Our final piece was something I was really wanting. It was a banner that was on the entrance and exit ramps on the ship. It had the Ultimate World Cruise lettering and the entire world map with our path mapped out. It was even changed to include our African rerouting. I have plans to use this map with all those magnets I bought! Hopefully my plan works! I was very excited I won that banner!
Our evening ended with an amazing show put on by the entertainment group. The last chance to hear them al so wonderfully sing!
On the next day, September 8, (2 days left) we had a walk down memory lane. Joff, our cruise director had a good time going through all the photos and memories that people submitted. There were so many photos and comments with crew that they decided to have a special meeting to give them a walk down memory lane as well. That’s wonderful! a trivia game was part of this as well. We truly enjoyed the reminders and had a blast.
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A special brunch hosted by our president was nice with more champagne and wine handed out.
This evening ended with a huge balloon drop from 10 floors up. There was music, dancing, (if there was room), champagne (again), songs that commemorated our journey and lots of hugs, laughter and tears. This was our last party!
Tomorrow we arrive at Royal Caribbeans private Island and Perfect Day at Cococay in the Bahamas We have 1/2 the island to ourselves until afternoon. Our last day to relax on the beach before re-entering reality. That will be tough.
More about our final da and leavning the ship on the next post.
May God bless you always!
Chuck and Lea Ann
WorldTravelReynolds 