Our last day at sea was somewhat anticlimactic. It was quiet, and the sea was calm. The weather was again cool and wet – too cold to be out on deck. We spent the day reading, eating, and playing Scrabble. We also packed our suitcases to leave outside the stateroom that night. By this time, we were tired of “gourmet” food and opted for hot wings and French fries. We also decided to skip the accordion player’s second performance that evening, and instead, turned in early for a good night’s sleep.
The next morning (Sunday) we were scheduled to debark at 9:30. We were ready early and went to the breakfast buffet where we ran into David and Louise, so we sat and had a leisurely breakfast with them. We were already docked at this time. This is when I took this picture of the bridge over the Mississippi. The sun was actually coming up!
We had time for one more game of Scrabble before they called our luggage tag color. Then we left the Norwegian Spirit for the last time, reclaimed our luggage, and stood in line to go through customs. We quickly found our car in the parking deck and loaded up. Then we locked the car and went to explore New Orleans on foot.
As I said before, this day turned out to be beautiful. We strolled along the river walk, taking lots of pictures, and then walked to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street. We then walked back through a large riverside mall where we got delicious shrimp po’boys, which we took outside to eat. A lone, fat seagull sat on the railing watching us. I threw it a crumb – big mistake! About a hundred seagulls came swooping down out of nowhere! We were very fortunate not to get bird poop in our food!
We began the long drive from New Orleans to Athens, where we planned to check on our house, especially the goldfish pond. That pond has been a constant source of worry since I am not there to care for it. I knew it was covered with leaves and ice as well. We had learned that it snowed in Hayesville the night before, and Saturday morning it got down to 5 degrees. It wasn’t a whole lot better in Athens.
It was 10:30 pm before we pulled into our garage. We collapsed on our air mattress and went to sleep. The next morning was cold and windy. Doug changed the heating filter while I broke up the ice on the pond and dipped the leaves out. I didn’t see any sign of the fish. I have no idea if they are alive in there or not. They can live for a while with the pond completely frozen over, but it had been a few days.
After talking with the neighbors, we went to the hospital to see Doug’s daddy. He seemed in fairly good spirits. By now, we couldn’t wait to get home, so after visiting for about an hour, we drove back to Hayesville.
So – this wasn’t the BEST cruise we’ve been on, but it was still a good one. We overheard one person on the ship tell someone that there is no such thing as a bad cruise. I probably wouldn’t go that far. If you were sick the whole time, or the toilets backed up, THAT would be a bad cruise. If your idea of a Caribbean cruise must include sunny days lying on a beach, you probably would have been very disappointed on this particular cruise. That really didn’t matter to us. Doug hates lying in the sun, and I am no longer too keen on being seen in a swimsuit. What we enjoy is going new places, meeting people, and learning about other cultures. We definitely did that! Plus we ate good – too good. We’ve been watching our diet ever since we returned. I still recommend cruising as an excellent way to vacation. There is still one more we would like to do – New England and Canada in the fall. We may wait a couple of years before that one.
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