20240506 Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 33 - Sea day 8 of 8 back to San Pedro - The final sea day

Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 33 - Sea Day #8 back to L.A. - The packing

Our last day started out with trivia a little earlier than usual. We tied for the win and won in the tiebreaker. The afternoon trivia saw the reverse - we tied for the win and lost in the tiebreaker. Noon progressive trivia saw us with 8/10. That paced us three points out of third, so no prizes for us. No matter, we had a great time with the folks we played with.

Our final day misses:

• What is the part of a flower that has sacs that produce and store the pollen?
• Anther - never heard of it
• Our morning tiebreaker was: How many words are in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I guessed that there were perhaps 400 pages in each book for 1200 pages in total. I guessed that there are ten words on average on each line and 40-50 lines per page, so let's call that 45 lines.400 pages x 10 words x 45 lines = 540,000 words. The correct answer was 576,459 words - less than 7% off - not too shabby.
• What is a group of eagles called?
• Convocation
• What is the capital of Greenland?
• Nuuk
• Who designed the collonade in Rome and several of the fountains?
• Gian Lorenzo Bernini
• What first appeared at a fashion show on June 3rd, 1946?
• We guessed the Little Black Dress (it was in the 20s) - it was the bikini

We really enjoyed the folks we played trivia with. It was a great group of people to spend time with these 32 days.

Arlona has taken an elevator perhaps three or four times this entire cruise. Today was one of them. And...she found this - her third cruising duck. Some things happen for a reason.

The seas were rolling a bit today - a last reminder that we're at sea.

Mist from the bow was creating continuous rainbows - they were faint, but there

The time came to take everything we took out of the suitcases 32 days ago and put it all back in. Arlona packed first and then I packed. The room isn't that big so this helped us keep out of each other's way.

We enjoyed a final pre-dinner drink at Explorers before heading to dinner. As we arrived, the crew was singing their farewell to the early diners.

We enjoyed bacon-wrapped meatloaf for dinner.

I had the baked Alaska for dessert

Arlona opted for the turtle cheesecake - I'm not sure what kind of turtle they use, but she said it tasted good :-)

We haven't seen many decent sunsets, but we did get a usable one tonight.

Sizzle, sizzle

We had fun with a world landmark game at Explorers after dinner. Then, the staff had a "Can You Beat The Cruise Staff?" game. I was on the guest team.

We competed in music, trivia, team construction, and improv

In the end, the crew team won - mainly on the strength of goofball and improv genius, Victoria, who came up with passing gas on moths in an ice cave in Iceland to quell the invasion. Seriously!  It was great fun and we had a lot of laughs.

We spent a few more minutes with friends that we made at Explorers before heading to the room for the last-minute wrap-up in the room in preparation for tomorrow's departure. It will be an early morning tomorrow so we can grab breakfast before disembarking and catching an Uber to LAX. I had my fast fingers working at flight check-in time at noon and scored Southwest boarding positions B13-B14 on the flight from LAX to Austin and A35-A36 for the flight from Austin to Orlando.

I'll wrap up this trip with a post tomorrow as we travel across the country toward home.