July 1, 2019

Yesterday we had the White Elephant Auction of items that the world cruise passengers donated.  Ray was a terrific auctioneer! He even modeled some of the items as he auctioned them off.  Here are a couple of pictures of the mayhem!  It raised $2500 for the crew welfare fund, and they couldn’t even get to all of the donated items within the time limit. Some people bought some of the items that were left and the rest will be donated.

We saw a whale just off the ship today – too quick to take a picture.

We were also invited to a cocktail party hosted by a fellow around the world guest, Marie.  And she was surprised at her own party by a video of crew members wishing her a happy birthday.  She is very fond of bananas – here is an ice sculpture that was made for the party – a banana with a space for champagne to flow through it!  And there was a beautiful cake in the shape of a suitcase with a globe on top of it.  Lovely time.

We went to the late night cabaret featuring one of our entertainment team, Charisse.

Today we arrived in Sydney,  Nova Scotia to a cool and rainy day.

Here are pictures of our arrival into the port.

It is Canada Day today so the shops, banks, etc. are closed.  It is very chilly and rainy so we decided to just go to the local markets which open whenever cruise ships are in port.  They had such lovely merchandise and all were wonderfully friendly.  They gave us Canada pins and even had cake to celebrate the day! With many crew and passengers visiting, they went through two cakes!

The huge fiddle is the world’s largest – 60 feet tall – and pays homage to Cape Breton’s Celtic heritage and fiddle music.

Here are a few pictures from the shops.

And one of a silly guy in a kilt!

At lunch on the ship there was a Canadian flag and the dessert that Vic and Stephanie gave Mario the recipe for – naniamo bars.

Ray said we will be having the traditional beaver tails in Horizons tonight, so we didn’t buy any at the port, but they did have them there. All kinds.

Well, we started our packing.  There is a sea day the day before we get to NY, so we will finish then.

There is a saying that is sometimes attributed to Dr. Seuss:

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

We have to keep remembering that – it will be hard to leave.