Sunrise Serenity, Slow Sushi, and Star-Spangled Shimmies
The Grand Finale: Finding Quiet Corners and Karaoke Queens on Our Final Day at Sea
Our very last day on the Vision of the Seas started bright and early. I slipped out of bed before the sun was fully up to photograph the ship before the rest of the world woke up. It was breathtaking. If you want to see how stunning an empty cruise ship looks, check out my previous post because I snapped far too many photos to crowd into this one. The quiet, the stillness, the total emptiness of the ship—it was magnificent and easily one of my favorite moments of the entire trip. A few hours later, Brian and Priscilla tracked me down and surprised me at Starbucks to kick off the rest of our morning.
We spent the majority of the day relaxing by the pool, but the real highlight was our lunch reservation at Izumi. This meal was my official birthday request, and my only rule was that only the adult children could join us. The restaurant was located in the top deck, aft-observatory area, giving us an incredible, sweeping view of the ship and the ocean. I kicked things off with a sake tasting flight—funny enough, I never actually tried any sake when we visited Japan! (If you haven't read the posts from our Japan trip yet, feel free to search the blog for them; you won't be disappointed.
Now, for the plot twist: the food at Izumi was fabulous, and every single bite was delicious, but the service was shocking. Our meal took a little over three hours. Brian officially declared it the worst waitress he had ever encountered. She literally disappeared for long stretches of time, which really sucked because it ate up so much of our precious vacation time and caused us to miss a few afternoon shows we had planned to check out.
Once we finally escaped lunch, we managed to catch a comedy act and a mini show before heading over to the "Parade of Flags." We honestly had no idea what to expect from the parade, but because our family is fascinated by different countries and cultures, we wanted to give it a look. It instantly became a surprising favorite! The show is a fantastic tribute where crew members from dozens of different countries parade through the Centrum with their national flags, sharing music and celebrating the incredible diversity of the ship's crew. It was a fantastic show and one I highly recommend you don't miss.
The rest of the evening was filled with chilling out with the family, drinks, and a special dinner in the Aquarius Dining Room, where we celebrated Emery and Dylan's anniversary! It was so sweet to toast to them before heading to the grand finale of the guest karaoke competition. The finale was an incredible show, but as anyone who watches talent competitions knows, song choice can make or break your night. Every single contestant was a really talented singer, but well, you all know I'm biased and thought Emery was the best by far! She sang beautifully, though I could tell she wasn't performing at her full sparkle. Another girl chose a song that perfectly targeted the demographic of the audience and fit her vocal range flawlessly. The winner was decided by the crowd’s cheers, and the other girl took the trophy, but Emery still absolutely killed it.
Afterward, we stayed in the lounge for the adult couples' game show while Brian took the younger kids around the ship. Dylan and Emery decided to try out for it. The first round to narrow the crowd down to the final three couples was a dance-off. Now, Emery is a wonderful dancer, and she absolutely danced her heart out around Dylan, while he pretty much just stood there almost completely still. It was quite the comedic pairing, but sadly, they were not chosen as one of the final three couples. That turned out to be a massive blessing in disguise because the gameshow quickly became incredibly raunchy and hysterical. I don’t think I would have been laughing nearly as hard if my own daughter and future son-in-law were the ones up there participating!
It was the perfect, hilarious way to wrap up our final night on the water. Tomorrow we head back to reality, but I'm just thankful we get one last night of falling asleep to the rock of the ocean before we have to face packing up and heading home!
