We arrived in Key West at nearly 11:30. After clearance by the Port Authorities, the Immigration folks came on board to interview everybody. On a ship of 950 passengers, this can take time, so good organisation is crucial. Fortunately, things went relatively smoothly, with those passengers booked on excursions being the first asked to make their way to The Coral Club with their completed Visa Waiver forms, customs declarations and passports. The queue into the Coral Club was long and fractious, with a few passengers chuntering about the inconvenience and trying to wheedle their way into pole position.

My excursion this afternoon (it was just a half day today - shore leave ending at 4:30 for sailaway at 5pm) was 'Homes and Gardens'. What can I say? It is an hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back. As our guide led us off the quayside into the small town, I looked longingly at the small gathering of people who were being led off to their white knuckle high-speed boat expereince and let out a big sigh.

Okay, I told myself, this might just be a fantastic tour that I'm cruelly underestimating. Maybe the 90 minute walk we were about to take was going to be the highlight of the cruise.... it wasn't. Our guide, Denison, took us to three old houses; The Heritage House, The Curry Mansion and another one I can't recall the name of, droning on about their history and their occupants; Robert Frost, Hemmingway, and another bloke who I should be able to remember the name of but has slipped my memory. At each house, a fresh guide would take over and lead us into each room in turn, pointing out paintings, old furniture, pewter mugs, gold tea sets... Hemmingway's Hunting Rifle... Robert Frost's little book of doodles... it just went on and on and on... Since this was a walking tour, we passed places that were far more interesting; several people stopped to try and take photographs - The famous Sloppy Joe's Bar was busting with life and interesting characters, and beer; The Hog's Breath Bar had live country music - another bar was covered on every surface with old banknotes.... but as soon as anyone dragged their heels and seemed to be lagging behind and not paying him full attention, Denison would holler loudly from the front to try and keep up... aaargh!!

At the last house, our guide abandoned us completely and left us in the clutches of a woman who just rambled on incessantly about... well, actually I don't know what she was rambling on about because by then I'd pretty much lost the will to live. I could tell people were getting edgy and restless; we'd already lost one couple who flatly refused to walk another inch and wanted to go off and explore the town by themselves, and did so. Eventually, with the last guide still blathering on, people realised that the original guide had actually gone off and left us, and so they just drifted off - end of tour.

At 5pm we left Key West under leaden skies and set sail for Miami, where we should be arriving at about 10:30 tomorrow morning.

This is the last night on the Braemar, and people are busy packing, or thinking about it. Luggage has to be placed outside cabins between 10pm this evening and 2am in the morning, so when people do finally emerge, they'll be wearing their civvies; the clothes they'll be going home in.

It's been an interesting cruise, with some highlights and low-lights. The weather rather dominated people's thoughts in the first week, and the rough seas laid many up in their beds wishing they'd stayed at home after all. For me, the Island Safari trip stands out as a high point - on a par with The Dunns River Falls tour on the last cruise. The painting workshops have been succesfull, and yesterday's exhibition was a fitting end to my work this time around.

I'm coming home tomorrow, with things getting back to normality next week - back to reality. I've enjoyed my trip to the Caribbean, but it's always nice to come home....

To all my blog-readers; I hope you've enjoyed my ramblings and meanderings. I may be adding a post or two during the long hours waiting in Miami Airport, if I have anything to report - I arrive in Heathrow at about 2am on Friday morning, then make a time-machine-like leap forward by 5 hours before flying North to Manchester.

For now at least, the adventure is over.

Sounds like you have quite some adventures, and with regards to getting back, you don’t want to the really world '9-5' is not that great, stick at what you do.