February 25 -- Sailing to Singapore, Day 2

This was the second and final day of sailing back to Singapore, the port/city/nation from which our cruise began. Tomorrow morning, we would be docked and disembarking. Sailing on day two was fairly tame and non-eventful.

Early this morning, before I had awakened, Patrise went back to the medical unit requesting assistance with the GI tract infection she had been suffering with for the past five days. Her hope, our hope, was to get her feeling well enough to get on a plane at the scheduled time to return home. The doctor gave her a list of nutrition instructions, some medicine for bloating and nausea and sent her back to the room.

We ate a light breakfast in the suite -- yogurt for the both of us. Patrise had conserved enough energy to join the Our Gang hostess, Sheila, and other ladies for a Ladies Spa Day on board, so she was gone for about 3-3-1/2 hours. Meanwhile, I stayed in the room and on the balcony reading for a bit. Then, feeling cooped up, I got out of the room and went to hang out on Deck 14. She returned to the room about 20 minutes after I had left. After a quick exchange of text messages, she continued in the room, while I continued hanging out on Deck 14.

The rest of the afternoon crawled by, without much action except that I went to our Gold Lounge (Deck 16) Concierge, Jen, to get envelopes in which to put the tip funds. Then, I went to an ATM in the casino (Deck 4), to get funds for the tips we planned to give certain staff, before making my way back to the room. We had already decided yesterday, whom to tip and how much each, so I went about doling out the moneys, labeling the envelopes and preparing them to be distributed. Later that afternoon, I gave Sean his tip envelope and thanked for everything. Still later in the evening, I took the tip envelopes for Jen, Xinyi, and Juan up to the Gold Lounge, just as it was opening for dinner.

After I had returned to the room, Patrise asked if I would go to the Windjammer -- the main room for general dining -- to get her some rice, with chicken broth, and a small piece of chicken. This would be her dinner, as she had no energy nor appetite (literally and figuratively), to venture out of the room for dinner. We had agreed that I would join the Our Gang group for dinner at the regular 8pm time, in order to learn the details for tomorrow's disembarkation, Singapore day tour and travel to the airport. My journeys to the Windjammer (Deck 14) and the Suites Dining Room (Deck 4) had me arrive at both locations just in time to see the chefs and waiters parades -- the former about 6:15pm, the latter about 8:30pm. If you have not experienced a cruise before, it is a tradition on the longer cruises (7 days or more) that on the last cruise night, the chefs, waiter staff, and busboys/kitchen attendants do a parade to lively music in front of the dining guest. The purpose is for the guests to thank the kitchen crew members for their hard work throughout the voyage. Here are some photos of each celebration.

I returned to the suite after dinner and shared the next's day's disembarkation instructions with my bride. I finished packing and rearranging my clothes, the souvenirs, and preparing for the items I would have to carry tomorrow. We had to have our luggage outside of the room by 10pm that evening. I got ours outside with four minutes to spare.

After this, I dressed for bed, joined Patrise in watching a great movie about the struggles of an immigrant family from Guyana and their strained and estranged efforts to reunite after having been separate for 17 years. Unfortunately, I was not able to stay awake to see the end of it. I kissed her goodnight and knocked out about 10:50pm. I have no idea what time she went to sleep. I was deep into la la land (Zzzzzzz, Zzzzzzz, Zzzzzzz).