June 28, 2025: Final Sea Day

(Written on June 28th by Brian)

After yet another rotten night, we were just all beat. Rachel and Michael didn’t wake up until about 10am, but Gabe was up by 8:30am bouncing around in our room a bit. He finally asked me if he could go get breakfast, so I snuck into the other room where they were sleeping and grabbed his sandals. I miraculously fell asleep again and didn’t get up until Rachel knocked on the door just after 11am. She felt awful when she realized we were still asleep, but I was glad she woke me up so that I could get breakfast before they closed. I went and grabbed some stuff for Devri and I, took it back to the room for her, and then went to go workout. It was a little rough since it’s been about a month since I lifted weights even though we’ve been walking 5+ miles most days until this last cruise. Afterwards, I changed into my swimsuit and laid out on the deck in the adults-only Serenity area. I even was able to nab a cabana. I also grabbed a Guy’s burger and fries for my last time (oh Guy’s, how we will miss you…).

Devri stayed in the room since her head was hurting her and read her book and even did some packing. Around 3, I grabbed some Guy’s fries for her and brought them down, then got to packing as well.

Meanwhile, Michael woke up not feeling great. He only drank some water all day and then came to the room at about 1pm and stayed their for the rest of the day. Around dinner time, he threw up and then came over to our room to get some fresh air from the balcony. His might be related to nausea as well, but this feels more like a bug since he even dry heaved a couple of times after he threw up everything in his stomach. He’ll sleep in our room tonight just to have fresher air.

The rest of us went to dinner and said goodbye to our servers, Dennis, Audeleen, and Dian. Audeleen was especially awesome as she had so much fun dancing with Rachel during the “showtime” they put on once every couple of nights. She even got up with the flamboyant sleeves on the tables in the middle of the room and danced sometimes, which was fun to watch. We forgot to mention that on Thursday or so (a few days earlier), Dennis brought out Gabe’s triple portion of ice cream and then started asking if we had been on other Carnival cruises. We mentioned some of the ones we’d been on and then said he’d been on the Carnival Panorama in 2023 out of Long Bleach and remembered that he served us previously since we weren’t able to get an early time dining and so we just checked in at a different time each day. We double checked the dates and they totally lined up. It was awesome (or scary??) that he remembered us from 2 years ago, but really fun that he made the connection.

Rachel with Gary. our Scottish cruise director

We now get one free drink per cruise, since we're all gold-level cruisers

Parade of our servers with the flaming Baked Alaska

With Dennis, Audeleen, and Dian

Since Gabe got stuck in the elevator for a few minutes, guest services dropped off a coupon for $30 in the candy shop on board. He went in with Oliver after dinner to pick out his selections for the plane the next day. Kudos to the Cherry on Top shopkeeper, she let him even go over on the amount a couple of dollars for free. Well done getting stuck in the elevator boys! Rachel even got some candy out of the deal. We would have asked Michael too, but the thought of any food was making him retch, so we did not.

Gabe and Oliver

We went back to the rooms and then packed up everything we could. We packed up Michael since he couldn’t really move and was in and out of sleep on our bed (it was really so sad, he felt awful), and then helped pack up the other two as well. The absolute best part is that Gabe was wearing his pajamas this morning again after they got washed for the second night in a row, and then he changed out of them and then a leprechaun from Ireland clearly stole them. Maybe Darby made it back over here just to pull one last trick this year. Hopefully we find them before the get off the ship in the morning. We even checked with housekeeping and they checked everywhere and didn’t see it.

Most elevators on the ship look like this

 

But one looks like this-someone thought they were pretty funny

We’ll all ready to go early tomorrow. We even listened to Kenneth Cope’s “Going Home” from the Doctrine and Covenants soundtrack that we both listened to in the past. In our mission, it was basically disallowed by the missionaries since it tended to make everyone so trunky (as in wanting to pack up their bags and go home immediately). Here’s hoping it all goes smoothly in the morning and that Michael feels better! And especially that Gabe doesn’t pull a fourth night throwing up, we certainly loaded him up with anti-nausea/anti-motion sickness medicine tonight to prevent it.

Gabe did not throw up that night, yay!