20251227 Saturday, December 27, 2025. Final Day at Sea

20251227 Saturday, December 27, 2025.  Final day at sea

A lot of us stayed up late last night hitting the club action around the ship.  John and Iram tried to get through all the tequilas on the bar menus last night, so we were surprised to see them at the morning trivia because we barely made it there after getting up ourselves after 9am.  It turns out Iram was a bit hung over and after the trivia she had to lie back down for a bit before resuming the day’s activities.  But thanks to some key answers, we did win the morning trivia, getting some bottle stoppers in a string bag.  

Ben and Janet spent most of the sea day doing various trivias including a general music trivia that we could have won, had Price been around.  We got out-scored by only one point, and Price knew two of the answers we missed.  We also missed winning a Broadway Musicals trivia by one point.  On the one we missed, we had debated between 2 possibilities but Ben had chosen poorly and should have picked Janet’s because she is always right.  There was a new word Bee trivia in which you have to write down the correct word from a dictionary definition.

Ben and Janet ran into and pretty much kidnapped Lifen to do the Galley tour.  There was a very long line from the Piazza to the Soleil dining room kitchen which probably took 20 minutes to get through.  The galley tour was just a walk in a U from the starboard entry to the kitchen and out the port side entry.  Along this route were 4 dedicated staff only elevators connecting kitchen, prep and storage areas on 3 floors.  Much of the prep work and the bakery are all downstairs in areas not included in the tour.  The corridor we walked along was lined by cages filled with liquors and some other finishing ingredients, lots of assembly and warming counters, and racks for holding dishes.  There was one person actually assembling croque monsieur sandwiches that we could see actually at work. 

There are some static displays of vegetable carvings, seafood arrangements and dry goods along the corridor, and the head chef was there to greet people and answer questions.

Ben, Janet, Tom, Ciara, Sam and Price all got together to have lunch at Alfredo’s, which is a casual dining venue featuring pizza and pastas.  It was nice to have sit down table service, and the service was a lot better than at O’Malley’s Irish Pub. The food was also better.  Of the two casual dining venue choices on the ship, Alfredo’s is the best.  The Plus Package includes one appetizer or starter (soup or salad), one main (mostly pizzas and a few pasta dishes), and one dessert.  Everyone got pizzas, and we had enough of a selection that everyone could sample all the premium pizzas on the menu plus Ciara and Tom had their own custom creations.  While the pool deck has decent pizza, the Alfredo’s pizza was better in quality and had far more options for toppings and sauces.  

We finished up the day with the 4:30pm general trivia.  We missed winning that one by just 2 points.  We didn’t know what John Walker invented in 1825, which sea creature eats itself when stressed, or the second official language in Israel besides Hebrew.  

We then retreated to our staterooms to pack everything back into our suitcases, which will have to be out in the hallways tonight to be taken off the ship.  Ben, Janet and Price depart at 6:50am.

We resolved to try to see the 7pm Farewell Variety show, and while it took a while for everyone to show up (Janet, Ben, John, Price, Ciara and Iram all went into the theater together and saved some seats a half hour before show time. Andy, Lifen and Sam showed up about 5 minutes before show time, and Tom came in several minutes into the first number) We did manage to sit in decent seats and watched the show.  

This started off with the production dancers and singers rising up from the pit and doing a number.  There was then a performance by a different acrobatic couple doing similar balance, strength and coordination routines on the floor, on straps and on a ring suspended from the ceiling.  The assistant cruise director and cruise activities director “Liberty” did a vocal solo backed by the Sun Princess band.  Janet and Ciara both thought we had seen her on a prior cruise, and Janet recognized one of the male dancers from a prior cruise as well.  

From the Princess Arena, we all walked into the Soliel dining room to do a drop in dinner at 8pm.  While there was a big line at our usual Eclipse dining room on deck 7, there was hardly anyone waiting at the Soliiel dining room on deck 6, just one floor down.  

We found the experience in Soliel to be much better than in Eclipse.  We were seated quickly, and the waiters were much more experienced and professional.  We got through dinner in under 90 minutes rather than 2-1/2 hours.  

After dinner, we had to rush to get our suitcases out into the hallways.  We said our good byes because different groups are heading to different airports at different times.  All in all, it was a very pleasant way to get the families together for the holiday season.  We still don’t have a plan put together for next year.  John and Iram have been wanting to get us to do a Golden Triangle tour in India, so we will drag our feet on doing another Christmas cruise next year.