The final day at sea was necessary, but perhaps it was a necessary evil. Is there anything more depressing than a day dedicated to coming to the realization that it’s all over? We took solace in the fact that it was not, in fact, over for us, that we had four more days ahead of us, with Disneyland Paris opening its arms wide to greet us. This was little consolation, as exciting a prospect as it was, because we wanted to be here. We wanted to sail on. Maybe we could join the crew, Lisa waiting tables while I did a little softshoe as one of Disney’s many portly characters onstage. There was enough tension in the air, what with all the frenzied laundering and packing that it was obvious that a mutiny could be carried out quite easily. Disney had broken us all, though, and our bodies were only working through sheer force of will. We would have to face it: the cruise was over.

Lisa and I had our obligatory packing argument. I’m unsure what it is about putting things into things that gets us all riled up (although when I put it that way, perhaps I can see why), but there’s always a knock-down drag-out argument when it comes to packing. Things would go much smoother if I just left the room and came back when she was done, but because she had lugged half our belongings across the Atlantic, I couldn’t since I had to be the official mover of heavy things. The room, which had previously seemed so spacious as to cement itself as the room category of choice for future cruises, now seemed to be roughly the size of a matchbox. We would’ve thrown things at each other if we had the room to maneuver our arms.

The only reason we made it out alive is that we had Bingo to look forward to. As always, the impossible rules in place to keep the snowball jackpot snowballing had worked, and the Walt Disney Theater would be the meeting place for every single person on the cruise that believed they would take home the 8k+ jackpot and was willing to kill to ensure their victory. Lisa had purchased, against my advice, two 6 packs and two final-jackpot-only 3 packs (in non-Bingo jargon this means a total of 18 playable Bingo boards), further cementing Bingo as the most expensive onboard portion of the cruise. Allow me to obsess a bit on the Bingo portion of this cruise:

On our previous cruise, you played three Bingo games with varying win requirements (regular Bingo, only diagonal, only the four corners, etc.) and then a final game where you had to punch out every square on a single card to win. Each of these games had their own card on which to play, so the first game would be the yellow card, then the next the orange card, and so on. This cruise you were only given a single Bingo card on which to play all four games, so that you would have to fold the numbers you’d poked out in the previous game back onto the card in order to play the next game.

This sucked.

This especially sucked during that final game where you had to punch out every square on a card in order to win, because those numbers you’d already folded in the previous three games had a tendency to easily re-fold as you maneuvered around the other numbers. Bingo, based on what they charge to play ($25 bucks for a 3 pack and $35 bucks for a 6 pack) and what they pay out (usually starting around $100 for the first game and ending no higher than $300 for final game for most sessions except the final one) has to be insanely profitable for them, so cutting corners on the goddamn game piece is just a slap in the face to all those gambling their money away.

Anyway, this insanity is important because for the first three games of the final session, I was on my own. Lisa had gone to an art auction, something she had fallen in love with after attending one of the previous auctions, and it was apparently running long. I had to feverishly scour the 12 available Bingo cards, poking and folding and trying not to refold, running a number behind all-too-often which wasn’t good, because if they go on to the next number and you had Bingo, well, you don’t have Bingo anymore. This wasn’t helped by the fact that, despite it being the final session, they were calling Bingo numbers faster than ever before. There were numerous shouts of “Slow down!” throughout the entire game, but this did absolutely nothing to the pace they were going at. Were they afraid that, when we realized we couldn’t all win the jackpot, we would rush the stage and demand our money back? Probably, and with good reason, as the person who won the final jackpot won it incredibly quickly, far before anyone else was apparently close to winning, so that we didn’t even have the satisfaction of suspense.

Yet, we’ll still play Bingo on our next cruise. Born suckers.

Dinner was, oddly, greek-themed, perhaps a holdover from a port that was planned and fell through? Greece seemed like a no-brainer on a Mediterranean cruise and, fittingly, everyone that we told about our Mediterranean cruise asked if we were going to Greece. I had the Herb Marinated Chicken Tenders with Greek Tzatziki (as opposed to that other kind of Tzatziki) the Wild Forest Mushroom Soup, the Grilled Beef Tenderloin, Garlic and the Rosemary Marinated Lamb Sirloin. Lisa had the Grilled Tuna Sushi Roll garnished with American Black Caviar (which she didn’t like), the Spicy Tomato, Olive and Basil Bruschetta (which she did like) and the Chicken and Mushroom Wellington.

It was the Till We Meet Again Dinner, so Donald, Mickey and Goofy, all dressed in their Mediterranean attire, came out to wish us all goodbye. They brought out the chefs, who carried flaming baked Alaska, and it all concluded with the march of the servers. Wilson and Melroy, of course, had the loudest cheering section. Andy, after much cajoling, was able rangle Wilson, Melroy and our head server Chetan together for a picture and we said our goodbyes to each. We worked out Wilson’s on-ship/on-shore schedule to make sure that we could get him again on our next trip, which seemed closer and closer every time we thought about booking another one.

We said our goodbyes to our tablemates, too, but we all knew that Disney was forcing us to breakfast the next morning, so we saved the real goodbyes for the following morning.

Laurel had left us a boring old standard Swan as our final towel animal. I guess he wanted to make sure we didn’t get our hopes up and mutiny.