One more day at sea before docking in Southampton and yet another fine cruise has come to an end.

In our 6 days aboard the Grand Princess, we have now solved the mystery of the 'missing bong'!!  A few days ago I wrote about the lift ‘binging’ but not ‘bonging’ when it arrived at a deck. I was premature when suggesting that this was another slight defect in the refitting of the ship a month or so ago. This is an ingenious idea to assist visually impaired people who struggle to see the red ‘LED’ directional arrow at the side of each individual lift door. A ‘bing’ means the lift is on the way up whereas a ‘bing bong’ means the lift is on its way down. Fantastic IF you know what this means in the first place. Otherwise you’re just going to think that the lift is missing a ‘bong’ and get in it anyway!!!

On the way to breakfast, I asked Roisin what is the worst thing that she could think of being onboard (other than sinking). She said getting stuck in a lift.

On the way to breakfast we got stuck in a lift!!! The automated voice said ‘Deck 12 - Aloha’ but the doors failed to open. There were 6 of us standing there. Roisin pressed the alarm. Nothing!! One of the other passengers pressed all the buttons in the lift. Nothing! Roisin then spotted a small door below the buttons. It was a telephone. As she placed it to her ear she was immediately connected to the engineer of the watch. As she was explaining what had happened, the lift started moving again. When we arrived at deck 14 other people got in this lift. ‘Great’ I thought. ‘Now they’re going to think that we pressed every button on purpose and they’re going to stop at every deck. How annoying is that??!! Funny, though. It must be the schoolboy in me!

After our daily dose of trivia (I’ll skip this bit as we all know, winning is not important!!) Roisin went to the ‘da Vinci’ dining room as, is customary, ‘Princess’ have a sale of all the stuff they haven’t been able to sell on previous cruises. You can buy t-shirts from Mexico and Puerto Rico and other such tat such as mugs with the inscription: I ‘heart’ St. Lucia!! I’m sure this is a prime opportunity for the captain to get rid of all the junk he has accumulated on his trips. Sort of a car boot sale at sea. Does that then make it a ‘car boat sail!!??!’

Whilst Roisin was at the jumble sale, I took the chance to revisit some of the areas of the ship that have been refurbished or introduced since the refit.

The obvious winner is of course the atrium (deck 5, 6 and 7) now known as the Piazza. From being just somewhere you have to walk through to get from the forward to the aft, it is now a hive of activity at all times of day. The International café has proven a success. Whether it is a savoury or sweet you feel like, you only have to ‘point’ to be able to enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee knowing it won’t be long before the next piece of entertainment starts on deck 5; from jugglers to ‘balance artists’ to mime. It is very ‘street entertainment’ and far from predictable. When I walked past today, a mime act was in a children’s swimming pool and the ‘jaws’ music had just started! As I said, totally unpredictable.

Alfredo’s Pizzeria is a pleasant alternative to Horizon Court or the more formal dining. However, there are 5 pizzas on the menu and they remained the same throughout the cruise. Whilst the pizzas were very tasty, Alfredo’s would benefit from widening their menu to include side orders such as salad. The murals within Alfredo’s are hand painted (as are all the murals throughout the restaurants) and give this corner of the Piazza a light and cosmopolitan ambience with a bit of Venice thrown in!

It is unfortunate that the panoramic lifts haven’t been in operation for the whole of the voyage. No explanation has been forthcoming but I’m sure it won’t be long before they are in perfect working order.

I took the lift up to the top deck and walked toward the aft where I popped my head in the Club One-5 for the last time. This used to be the Teens centre but has been transformed as a suitable replacement for Skywalkers (R.I.P!!). The features are as with any modern club – all neon and plastic. There were half a dozen passengers slumped in the plush sofas reading or having a kip. I find it ironic that when clubs aren’t ‘open for business’ they become as quiet as a library and as atmospheric as a morgue.

Not all the upholstery is ‘plush’. Some complaints have been made about the state of the chairs in the Explorers Lounge. About half have solid membrane under the cushion that gives it a firm support. Whether they ran out of material or out of time but the rest of the chairs have webbing across the frame of the seat that isn’t even taught. This gives you a ‘sinking feeling’. Not sure if that was the intention (being on a ship, and all!). I say to these moaning minnies ‘A bit of inconvenience. Find another chair!!’

I met Roisin outside the Vista Lounge. It was the final call for Bingo. The jackpot of $1,500 had to be won. The design is weird but it seems to work. The seats are set out in a theatre style with each row consisting of a length of comfortable sofa style seats. In front of these are some glass tables with a chair either side. All seats face the stage. The Vista Lounge is kitted out for all sorts of entertainment as the stage is fitted with a lighting rig with a sound-mixing desk that sits at the rear of the lounge.

Between games 4 and 5 (we didn’t win a bean!!), an auction was held for the actual chart used to navigate this cruise. This was conducted by the deputy cruise director.

The cruise director has been nowhere to be seen for the whole of the trip. Martyn Moss, the producer of the video blog throughout the Grand Princess refit, had taken a few weeks leave and has been replaced with a right ‘potherb’ who would be better placed wearing a red blazer in a holiday camp called Billy London, (if that IS your real name!!) He only seemed to make an appearance at the Captain’s special functions and to close each evening show performance. His jokes rarely got a laugh but he would wait for one anyway. He reminded me of an unfunny Ted Rogers of 3-2-1 fame. As Ted Rogers was unfunny anyway, did this make the cruise director doubly unfunny?? Luckily for him, the rest of the Entertainment staff were fantastic, especially Brett and Paul. It takes a certain kind of personality and skill to do what they do and pull it off. The balance was perfect.

The navigational chart finally went for $400 dollars. At one point, I scratched my head and didn’t realise I’d just started a bidding war!!!

T-shirt of the week went to Ken. Alice and he live in Forth Worth, Texas and Ken used to work for NASA in Houston. One day this week he wore a t-shirt that said ‘No, I really was a rocket scientist"!!’

We planned on attending the farewell multimedia quiz at 9pm then up to the MUTS to watch the late film, Vertigo.

Atomic, the ships ‘house’ band was well in the middle of playing their set in the Explorer’s Lounge. We sat on the periphery as the noise coming from this 5 piece was starting to grind. The Trivia was due to start at 9pm. But Atomic just kept churning in out. They reminded me of a very bad pub band. Their music ability was not really in question but a good singer will make or break a band. The lead singer, a female, was a passable karaoke singer but the real weak link was the guitar player. He occasionally took the lead on vocals. His voice was so weak that the music would inevitably drown him out. They broke in to Bryan Adams’ ‘(Everything I do) I do it for you’. I wonder if I shout at them to get off, they’d do that for me!!!

The saviour of the entertainment has been the quality of the theatre productions. The shows have been very energetic with a great choice of themes. On the way to our film, we caught the end of the shown. ‘A British Invasion’. It was a medley of British music from the early sixties to the late eighties. The set was very professional and credit has to be acknowledged to all those involved in its production.

On our way up to the MUTS we went out on deck to savour our last cloudless evening on the Grand Princess where I spent most of the time 'playing' with that great ball of fire known as 'the sun' as it was setting over the North Sea. At one point I tried eating it to prove that it is possible for the sun to shine ouit of one's a*rse!!!

We grabbed a few brownies, a bag of pop corn and a cup of coffee before slumping on to the reclining chairs and settling down covered in a blanket to watch some classic Hitchcock.

The wait was nearly over then…what was Bono doing in a Hitchcock movie. Then a flash and U2 broke into their little known ditty "City of Blinding Lights”. b*****!! This was U2’s 2005 Vertigo Tour!!!

So as another cruise draws to a close we said our farewells and got our stuff together for the mass exodus. Our debarkation time was originally scheduled for 09:30. As the ships first passengers we being offloaded at 07:15 we asked to be changed to an earlier time. At 07:45 we were disembarking from the Grand Princess after having sailed another 2041 nautical miles. Only another 241 miles left for Roisin to drive!!!! (I’m knackered after writing this blog!!!)