At the b
eginning of the World Cruise it seems like it’s never going to end. Those 115 days stretch in front of you like some kind of vast highway lazily making its way towards some far off unreachable horizon. You look at the scala screens and see “Day 1” scrolling across the bottom and you rolls your eyes and think simply ‘here we go’
And then before you know it, those same screens are scrolling the words “Day 106”…and the horizon isn’t so far away anymore.
Hard to believe it, but we’re almost finished. I have slightly longer left aboard than some of the team as my contract extends into the relocation cruise this season. The upshot of that is that they’ll be dropping me off practically at my front door – which makes for a lovely switch from flying, at least I won’t have to worry about luggage charges when the time comes!
But even I only have 20 or so days left.
As usual at the tail end of a world cruise, there’s an odd sense of melancholy that kind of sweeps through the ship. For me this season is particularly unusual as I won’t be returning to my dear flagship for quite a while longer than usual. This is for the best and for a very good reason but it still feels odd every time the realization hits me.
At any rate, come May 1st there will be a huge shift over in crew and passengers alike, and the guest mentality will change. Not necessarily for the better or worse, things will just be different. As my boss keeps reminding me – the world of the rest of the fleet is totally different from the world of the Grand cruises. I’m glad to remind myself of that sometimes, because to be honest it can be easy to forget.
I’m gradually starting to tackle the issue of packing. Some things – like the beautiful tie-dye sari I wore to Carnival last night – will not be needed during the relocation, so they can be neatly packed away now. So can my ‘big dresses’: my prom dress, my under the sea ball gown, and my black full length. Any formal nights that are coming up on that last twenty day stretch in the tropics aren’t going to be ball gown occasions; instead I have a beautiful knee length black number that will perfectly fit the bill.
Yup, that’s me, a dress for everything.
The ship is starting to show signs of the upcoming wrap-up. As I’ve said before, the word ‘final’ is starting to creep into everyone’s vocabulary: “final” deck sale, “final” prize voucher redemption (though that hasn’t been announced yet), and pretty much anything else you can tack the word ‘final’ on. Little signs are everywhere that the voyage is swiftly drawing to a close. The paperback exchange has gone from empty to overflowing within the space of a week, and I’m fighting the urge to ‘rescue’ even more books than I already have.
There are still some things that are on the line-up that we aren’t sure when they’re going to happen yet. The end seems to have crept up on us so quickly. We still don’t know when we’re going to have the Pajama Party for example.
And behind all that, already, I find myself slowly starting the prep work for next season. If you’re doing your job right, there’s very little rest for the wicked on the flagship – when we go home for vacation we don’t always leave it all behind, even though we should. Even though I should. I’m doing as much as I can before I leave, since I am under a strict order from my shore-side supervisor not to work on my holidays, it’s an order that she knows full well I’ll ignore, but it makes her feel better to make it (and if she’s reading this she KNOWS that’s true) – and there’s not as much to be done as there could be, I can afford to take the occasional evening to simply read and enjoy the sensation of the world going by around me.
The past is unchangeable, the future is unknowable, today is a gift, and that’s why it’s called the present.
Cliché yes, but still oh so very true.