TCM Classic Cruise: the stars were watching over us

This year's classic cruise was a completely different experience for me because:

a) I wasn't sick,
b) I wasn't a huge fan of the movie stars on board, and
c) I was only interested in seeing two of the movies.

BUT ...

The ship was almost identical to last year (which made it easy to find our way around), the cruise was a day longer (giving us more time to relax by the pool), and many of my fellow cruisers from last time came back! So really, this year was mostly about socializing and enjoying the cruise ship rather than darting in and out of the movie theatre between fits of coughing.

One thing TCM did really well last time and even better this year was decorating the ship with huge banners of movie stars. Around the pool were photos of starlets in bathing suits (like Liz, above), and stars flanked the main staircase too:

Here we are doing our best Mickey Rooney impersonation:

As the ship left Miami, we hung out on the pool deck to get our first glimpse of the actual, in-the-flesh stars sailing with us. I didn't have the best view, but here they are. Can you see Robert Osborne, Ben Mankiewicz, Alex Trebek, Norman Lloyd, Rich Little, Debbie Reynolds, and Mickey Rooney?

I was more interested in pointing my camera at my fellow passengers, who were just as colourful:

When we started bumping into people from the last cruise, the real fun began. Here's Lawyer Bobby and Rajeev with Debbie Reynolds (this is just about as close as we got to the real star):

Another location graced with old photos was the Rendezvous Lounge, which was the place where we danced and socialized every evening. The walls were covered with huge photos from classic movies, depicting scenes in nightclubs (naturally). We couldn't resist having fun with them:

The saddest part of the cruise was the last morning.

We had to wait in the Rendezvous Lounge for about an hour before we could get off the ship. It's always a bit weird to be in a nightclub during the daytime, but we had to witness a defrocking too:

It was so sad to see these photos ripped down!

If TCM ever gets into the wallpaper business, you KNOW what my house is gonna look like.