Cruisin' The Caribbean With Tim

Saturday, October 1st

Farewell!

After class this morning (see yesterday's post for the project), there was lunch, and then the challenge of packing.  Luckily I left NY with two large half filled suitcases, because I needed every bit of that space for all the goodies and projects acquired this week.  At 5:00 we would have our farewell cocktail party with loads of giveaways, then on to dinner.

For those of you who have cruised before, you know that most every night, after making up the cabin for sleeping, the cabin attendants leave an animal, fashioned from cleverly folded towels.  Here is our zoo:

Everybody sing along, "I wear my sunglasses at night...."   Who is old enough to remember that one hit wonder Corey Hart?

On the very last day we grabbed a moment when everyone was working and Tim wasn't busy, and asked him to take a picture with us.  We went into the studio and got Mario in there too. 

Val, Pat, Mario, me, Tim and Elena

Before the cruise, Kyoko wrote that she'd heard that our collaborative journal group was starting an Asian themed book, and she kindly said she'd bring some things for us to share.  Did she ever!  And it seemed as though Naomi was giving things out every day.

 A Japanese catalog, newspaper, a handmade button, and in the wrapper, some

washi tape.  By the way, on the tag, my name in Japanese.  Naomi also

gave out Japanese bubble gum, but no photos of that.  Long since chewed.

Antique silk.  Wow!  Thanks, Kyoko!

Here's that washi tape, perfect for holiday projects.  Thanks,  Naomi!

To truly enjoy dinner on a cruise you need three things.  Good food, good company, and a really good waiter. We had it all.  AK was attentive, thoughtful, and always had a smile.

Some more great gifts from great friends:

 Gorgeous necklace, made by my cabinmate Pat!

 Val found some cigar boxes in one of the ports and

got one for each of us.

 I don't even remember who gave out the Caribbean cards, but

I received three from three different generous cruisers.

I got several great gifts from Pam, including the puka shells. The old

type piece with my initial was from Gloria.

I was wandering around the Promenade deck and saw this incredible display of fruit and vegetable carving.  And here I thought that stuff was just for eating,

And some random shots of friends.

Our cabin doors are metal, so the cruise line allows door decorations as long as magnets, not tape, hold them up.  Look at the fantastic sign Pat made for our door:

Every time you made a purchase in Mario's shop you received raffle tickets.  At the farewell party tickets were drawn and many wonderful gifts were given out.  Mario really loves this part....look at him here with all the tickets:

I didn't win anything this year (not that I could have fit one more thing in my bags), but Elena (who already owns every craft supply ever invented) won three times.....a full set of archival inks, a huge stack of Thickers, and....are you ready for this.....a Vagabond!  Which, of course, she's going to give away since she already has one.  She is a generous soul with a huge, huge heart.  And another wonderful lady, Linda Ledbetter, won a spot in next year's Scrapmap Mixed Media cruise.  That really warmed my heart.  By organizing both the Compendium of Curiosities and Grungy Monday challenges, she really kept me happily busy and creative all year.   Oh, and check out this awesome slide show she made from her cruise photos.  While you're blog hopping, you won't want to miss

Val's cruise posts.  They are detailed and full of great photos, almost none of which duplicate mine.  Were we really on the same boat?

As we left the party and headed for dinner, we learned that the gifting wasn't finished.  Everyone received this exclusive Tim messenger bag:

It's a great size....holds a ton of 12x12 paper and lots more. 

As I've mentioned before, I was very tied up this summer with some family stuff, so not only did Pat do our door sign, but she also made sure we could show up for the final dinner in style.  It wouldn't be a party without a tiara.

And see, I'm wearing my watch necklace too!  Never enough bling.

One more thing.  I mentioned in an early pre-cruise post that I was bringing the smash book I'd altered to use as my day to day journal.  I have to say, this was a very liberating experience for me.  Although I haven't scrapbooked much in recent years, I was at one time a very active scrapper, and would spend hours on my layouts.  This time, just getting those memories on paper, smashing them in, so to speak, without worrying at all about matting, embellishments, color combinations, etc. was like a breath of fresh air for me.  I'm sure there's room in my world for both methods of documenting memories, but I'm telling you, I'm in love with the smash style. 

Two pages about getting to Florida, and Disney.  I'm almost finished with this journal; I just have some more photos to print and smash in.  Lots of room inside for all the little odds and ends one collects on vacation.  Love it!

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped make this cruise the wonderful experience it was.  Tim, Mario, Monica, Joy, Richele, Jim, Beth, and all my old and new friends.....THANK YOU!!!!!

And that's it!  But tune in tomorrow to see our post-cruise adventures.  Cocoa Beach, here we come!