Carnival Spirit - May 2013, Day 12 It's All Over

 Our bags are almost packed :-( Unlike our other cruises on the Dawn and Jewel on the Spirit you take your own luggage off the ship - self assist. This worked fine. We did notice some people leave their bags out on the last night which seemed mainly for people who had organised their transfers through Carnival but if you were doing your own thing they requested that you take your own bags off the ship and not leave them outside your cabin. A couple of days previous we received a form to fill in advising what our debark plans were. We chose the latest time as we weren't in a great hurry to leave. Then on the last sea day we received our debark notice advising what time we would be leaving the Spirit - it was about 9am. Another sad face :-(

Back at the Overseas Passenger Terminal - 6.30am arrival

Not many people about at this hour of the morning, especially when it's still so dark

Looking to the rear of the ship (aft)

We had an amazing time onboard the Carnival Spirit and just couldn't believe that it was already over - where did the days go??? We had planned on being up a bit earlier to see us sail through the heads but it was SOOO dark and SOOO early. By the time I woke up and rang the other cabin we were almost docked! Apparently Mr 6 lifted his head, said he was still tired and promptly fell back to sleep! One of the, many, great things about cruising is that we had no worries about leaving him in the cabin while we all went upstairs - I don't think he even realised we'd gone!

We did notice that the beverage station had run out of hot chocolate and only a few of them still had coffee - a little bit disappointing as we were still on holidays! Not sure why they would run out or decide to clean them before we had all disembarked especially when our arrival time is so early - people need the coffee! Thankfully I did find a machine working properly - phew, crisis averted! There were a few other things running low, like Yoghurt - there was no strawberry left. I wonder what would have happened if we'd been running a day late like our last cruise on the Jewel??? Would they have had enough toilet paper to see us through??

Waiting in the Atrium for our debark number to be called

Booo - we're off. Our cabins were behind the middle tenders. Starboard side.

Circular Quay Train Station

We were catching the XPT back home and decided it would be much easier to catch a train from Circular Quay to Central than walk! Our train didn't leave until 11.40am so we had plenty of time. Once we got to Central we checked our luggage in and then headed back into town to find something for lunch on the train. The train does have a buffet, (which the kids loved) not quite like the Spirit though, but the choices aren't huge and they are a little pricey. We found a Coles and went all out with bread rolls and ham - we all missed the buffet!

Almost at Central, at least we didn't have our suitcases!

On the train and heading home - only 7 hours to go!

Lunch when you're not on a cruise ship!