Our last few hours on board were spent wandering around the ship. This is primarily due to the fact that we had to be out of the cabin by 8am but weren't due to allowed off the ship until 10am.

Having cleared out of the cabin within the appropriate timeframe, we wandered up to the buffet to make up of it one last time . I think several people were making the most of it as there were a couple of plates that were surely straining under the amount of food heaped upon them.

Trying to show some restrain while still making good use of the facilities, Mum had a fried egg, fried tomato, diced fruit and a cup of tea for breakfast, while I had cereal, two link sausages and a tiny scoop of scrambled egg.

Over breakfast we ran into our tablemates who were also having a hearty breakfast before the madness that can be getting of a cruise ship.

Feeling that if we were to stay near the buffet for much longer we would feel the need to go back for more food, we gather our declarable items and our overnight bags and headed to one of the public areas to wait for our turn to get off the ship. As was expected, there were few seats in the area we chose, so there was some standing around until some seats became free .

To get 2000 people off the ship, they take a staggered group approach – we were Purple 4 and towards the end of the queue. Purple 4 should have been off the ship by 10am; however we were informed that due to people in some of the earlier groups being naughty and trying to take non processed/food from the buffet off the ship and through customs, they were being much more strict with checking bags. The additional checks that were being done meant that there was now a backlog of people needing to get off the ship but not yet having clearance to do so. At its worst, I think the delay got up to an hour, but by the time it was our turn, they were only running 40 minutes behind.

Unfortunately the naughty people trying to take their ham sandwiches and fruit ashore with them meant that we were delayed and the people waiting to board the ship for the next cruise were late boarding the ship. It’s a case of needing to get all the disembarking passengers off before the new ones can get on.

Once we had cleared immigration, it was time to collect our luggage. For some reason, the customs fellows took an interest in our luggage and as I was trying to stack it on the trolley asked me if it was all mine – Mum was off getting another trolley. When I replied that it was mine and my Mums they started asking me about what we were declaring and where we had gotten off the ship. By this time, Mum had gotten back and we explained where we had been and what we were declaring. They seemed a little grumpy and I’m not sure they liked our responses. At the time, I was too busy trying to fit many pieces of luggage on to our two trolleys’s to really care about their grumpiness. We had one more check with a customs person before we could leave.

Eventually we made it to the exit and after a short search; we found our ride back to Canberra. The family reunion was relatively dry and no tissues were needed – there were fears that there would be extreme eye leakage from some parties. We were even able to introduce Peach and Doug to our table mates. Given that the table mates had spent 3 months listening to us talk about our nearest and dearest, it was nice to get them all to meet in person.

Even thought we had hired a larger car (there was no way my car was going to cope), the ride back home was still a little on the squishy side. After a 3 and a bit hour drive, we were back home and looking for somewhere to dump the luggage and wondering what food was in the house.

The fun bit of the trip over, it’s time to unpack and try to find space for everything we’ve collected.

Fun fact:
While we ended up with 8 items of baggage, there was a rumour that one passenger disembarked with 14 items of luggage plus two backpacks.