It’s nice to see the Bahamas when you emerge from your room, seeking coffee. We were already stationary by then, the tender to shore starting service while I made my way back down to my cabin.

Half an hour later I was on it, landing on Half Moon Cay and going for a 3km walk. There’s nothing there, just scrubby trees, sand and horribly overpriced drinks. $5 just for a bottle of water.

The cruise line owns the island, stops its ships here most days. Two today, another one parking near to ours. There’s horse riding, bicycling and various water based activities but when you can’t afford a drink those are remortgage level expenses, so I just wandered, lost amongst the maze of roads, paths and sandy tracks, none of them signposted, all of them criss-crossing multiple times.

I headed back to the ship, found breakfast, fended off surprised queries by the crew. “Are you going ashore later?” They seemed to struggle with someone being able to go ashore, walk two miles and return by 10am.

I saw rain in the distance, then looked up from my book and cursed the filthy window.

By the time I’d reached the deck just 80 yards away the moment was already past.

Not a hope I could have traversed six decks for my camera and returned in time. The rain reached the ship, nice and cool to the touch. I grabbed pizza, headed to the day’s film, one starring Melissa McCarthy. This was a serious drama, very few laughs, much like her comedies.

As it’s the final full day of the trip, well into the final 24 hours, I acted on the advice given to me at the start of the voyage and approached the Guest Services counter to reverse the daily service charges prior to Saturday. They had a silly form to fill out that asks you to quote a revised ‘charge per day’ rather than explicitly declining to pay for specific days. I did the maths, pro-rated the charge for the 12th onwards across the trip, rounded it up, stated that number.

I could’ve saved myself £500 by doing that for all four cruises, but that feels unfair. The travel agent made it clear when I booked that I’d incur these charges, so I planned for them as part of the total cost of the trip. There is though a level of comedy that the poor service by the head office team has led to me saving £100 on this cruise; quite a contrast from the $50 compensation they offered me for the distress caused on the previous one, something for which they still owe me.

The lady in Guest Services seemed surprised that I’d reduced my service charge due to something happening on a previous cruise, and said she’d mention that to her manager. I did suggest that the team on this ship invite the head office to cover the service charge, but also made it clear that this was between them, nothing to do with me. I do understand why the people on this ship would be disappointed, but I’m not feeling sufficient empathy to act on that.

Dinner in the Lido, mainly to avoid the end-of-cruise congratulations for the chefs in the main dining room. They did ok but I can do without the noise that involves. The lido was barely better, clusters of Americans demanding photographs with the catering staff, fake wishes for the future, over the top exclamations and thanks. The staff bore it well, hid their disgust for the cheesy crassness involved, possibly hoping their continued friendliness would translate into financial generosity.

My stateroom attendants seemed to harbour similar hopes. They were perhaps unlucky to get me; far lower workload than a pair of Americans would’ve caused them but also substantially less forthcoming in paper based gratuities.

The night’s entertainment was split between two previous performers. One was the American comedian that had been professional without making me laugh. Tonight he did better, stepped away from the ‘shared experiences’ humour and threw in some actual jokes. They worked, confirmed that he’s good at his job, that I just wasn’t the right audience the other night.

He was followed by a fat man on a sax, going all jazz in a somewhat scripted way, managing to both stifle the free form flow that proper jazz should offer while reining in some of the excesses and wasted tendrils that always result. Sadly it succeeded more on the first than the latter, resulted in music that was recognisable, but also recognisably worse than the originals he was covering. He switched to the clarinet, a beautiful sound but not music I wanted to listen to, so I left early.

Back in my room I did the man thing of going from ‘I guess I should pack’ to ‘suitcase outside the door’ in under ten minutes, including dismantling the clothes line I’d set up in the bathroom. Since I wanted to pack today’s laundry that left me trapped in my room by 9pm, unless I wanted to wear tomorrow’s clothing instead. After putting my suitcase outside it occurred to me that I hadn’t packed my waterproof coat. I also hadn’t worn it, couldn’t remember seeing it since the flight from New Zealand. It certainly wasn’t in my cabin, so either it had stayed hidden in my suitcase for two weeks or I’d left it somewhere in California. Too late to worry about it now.

I put the professionalism of Guest Services to the test, drop them a note asking if I can get the playlist from the Lido. All cruise it’s been playing music that I dance to, it’d be fun to throw the set list at a DJ friend, test whether it’d survive Saturday night at the Uke. They’re under-strength in Guest Services after 9pm any night and always busy on the final night of a cruise, so perhaps not the best time to ask.

Only 5km walked today, but that’s still more than either of the previous two days. I need to get out in Florida, stretch my legs a bit. I fear the terrain wont be conducive to walking though: the Everglades aren’t renowned for vast tracts of solid ground.