Days 12,13 & 14. 26–28th April Amsterdam – Rotterdam – at Sea - Kristiansand

 Day 12 – Amsterdam to Rotterdam

Today we had our bags outside by 8 am., then up to the lounge to have breakfast. They need us out of our rooms by 8:30 am so they can prepare for the next cruise. Funny how they always call this one of the days of your cruise but you are up and out as soon as they can get you going. Although to be fair, the crew of the Emerald destiny, have been fantastic. We gave our lovely cabin attendant Dina some chocolates to say thank you as we left at 8.

Had a couple of hours in the lounge catching up on my blog and then we were chatting to Allison and David, before we 4 grabbed our suitcases from the end of the pier, said goodbyes, which is always hard when you’ve made new friends. 

We walked into town to brave the many thousands around for the kings birthday celebrations! All the young people and not so young people! are dressed in orange so I wore my bright orange dress today in honour as well. We walked to the main train station in Amsterdam, which was easy - 10 mins. We had researched what we needed beforehand and purchased a ticket to Rotterdam €19p.p. It is really pretty easy here to work the train system out, although some of the Dutch words are pretty long to pronounce!

Onto the train – no problems getting seats and luckily I got one with 4 seats so we could squeeze our cases in. There were tons of older teenagers coming on and off the train all dressed in bright orange, very happy! Most of them had alcohol with them and were drinking, but have to say they were no problem at all - just loud and happy which was fine. 

It took about 1:15hr to get to Rotterdam, then we went to Starbucks and got a lovely hot drink and had a look at the next step to get to the port. It was 4 stops to get to Wilhelminaplein, just had to find the right place as we were going to a different area to go on a Metro. We got out at the other end no problems – was a bit tricky to find where we had to exit and walk to as we didn’t have internet, but we got there fine.

We are sailing on Holland America, the ship is the Rotterdam – the largest of their fleet, but with only 2668 passenger capacity ( this sailing is full), so seems small to us compared to some we have done! Embarkation was pretty painless – it ran like a well oiled machine – our check in time was 2 pm and we were pretty well spot on. It started at 12 pm so probably the messes were already Through. Apparently, 800 passengers stayed on from the last cruise as they are doing the same as us – we are doing Norway in two parts, it’s two 1 week cruises put together.

Got up to our room – 6011 balcony, nice room and outlook. Unpacked our bags so that’s out of the way for two weeks! We wandered around a bit getting our bearings, the ship is a bit strange as instead of having a large central open area, it has more like a front middle and back which are not really connected – not our favourite layout as there’s no big walking track or open area but I think it is mainly because the swimming pool has a closing roof so you aren’t looking down into that area like you normally do with ships that don’t have the roof. 

We were pretty tired tonight and both of us have been sore from the bed on the river cruise. Not sure what it was, but we have both been feeling it, so we grabbed a burger and chips from the deli for an early dinner as we didn’t feel like going to the main dining room. They were very nice except the first lot that came had incredibly hot chilli all over them and blue vein cheese! The sauce was a bit hot for me so got some nice normal ones. We got a couple of smoothies and sat at a table with a built-in chessboard. I can never remember the moves but we had fun trying.

With Holland America they have what’s called a have it all package which includes specialty dining, some excursion credit, OBC, and drinks – up to 15 per person a day!! We will be hard put to ever drink that, however it does also include specialty coffees and drinks, smoothies and water. I would not like to pay for the water each day – around $10 NZ for a 1litre bottle! Discovered later on, down at reception that the daily gratuity of €17p.p per day– So about $57 NZ is being added onto our bill. I had checked these were included in our package, with the travel agent prior to the trip (who honestly has been pretty useless and made a lot of errors). So there is an error somewhere – reception screenshot the confirmation I had via email from the travel agent – I always get it in writing, so they are sending it to head office and we will have to wait and see the outcome. Will be fun to sort out if the error is at her end.

Read up on the bits and piece about the ship, then we went up to the orange party – Holland America always have one on their cruises and because of the kings birthday celebrations they bought it forward to tonight. They had a band playing, which was so incredibly loud I can say without a doubt, would cause pretty instant hearing damage – with the roof closed over the pool and the volume up, it was terrible. There were hardly any people there unsurprisingly. Anyway they finished and then another band that was quieter came out, although still very loud under the closed glass roof. Was pretty disappointing overall, as whenever Danni and I have sailed, the sale away parties have always been really good for at least 1 or 2 “YMCA”s! Anyway that was a flop so back down to the cabin and into bed. 

It’s lovely to be able to do what we want– is quite different from the river cruises where you are working very much around their timetable. There are just so many things to do on a sea cruise and I have to say Holland America have more activities per day than I’ve seen on Royal Caribbean, NCL, MSC, P&O.

Walked 19,000 steps today!

 Had to Borrow this photo from Allison – showing the orange celebrations!

Day 13 – At Sea

Woke up at 6 am- unfortunately this morning! Would so love to sleep in but haven’t managed that yet – boo.

I decided to go sit outside wrapped up in a blanket as it was really cool, and started to read a book which is lovely to do – I always feel so busy at home. I look at my books but find it hard to make the time to stop and do it.

We had showers, then went upstairs and joined the masses to get some breakfast! Found a seat next to a Dutch couple and got talking to them for a while, then wandered around getting used to where things are. We also got some nice hot drinks a coffee and a chai latte, then I grabbed some Domino’s and a Skibo card game and we went and sat at the very front of the ship where it is a bit quieter and played a game of Domino’s. Had a chat with an older lady whose table we were sitting at – she was from South Washington and a lovely lady. Then we went and checked out the library – oh my gosh this is the best one I think I’ve ever seen. It was laid out more like a proper library,  the books had stickers on the spines so that you would take them back, rather than a book exchange type of library. It was so quiet in there with big windows and a few nice comfy chairs so we sat down for awhile and read before going back to our cabin.

Mooched around for a couple of hours then went wandering again before some nice non alcoholic drinks, which were followed by some alcoholic drinks later in the afternoon! when we popped up to the deli to get a Reuben‘s sandwich – they were delicious! We wandered around the outside of the deck watching people play different outdoor games – there are quite a few older teenagers on board who were out playing basketball and beating their parents at different games!

We actually lay down this afternoon and had a 45 minute nap – was so nice and my neck appreciated it! We went to a Q &A session on the stop tomorrow which is Kristiansand. We are just going to wander around in town as it is only small and because our cruise ship isn’t huge and we can go right into the port for the most part without having to use tenders. 

Then onto the dining room and had a lovely dinner before wandering through to the theatre. Grabbed another couple of cocktails and sat down to watch it. The show is old Hollywood type singing and dancing. It was pretty good – Holland America are not known for their shows so much but they did well. I think there are only a couple on over each seven day cruise but they had a really good set up so instead of having to move the seats around continuously in between songs, they project their screen onto the walls, which wrapped right around the seats so you felt like you were in the set with them!

Back to the room and to bed - we have two cabin attendants for the first time on any of our cruises, and they had put in an egg crate mattress our bed which is wonderful :-).

Day 14 – Kristiansand 

Today we docked in the beautiful town of Kristiansand at 7am. We had a continental breakfast in our room – you can get food all day long from a certain menu, complementary with Holland America which is great. With Royal Caribbean, you can get the complimentary breakfast only.

Graeme is coming down with a bug – there are a few people coughing here and of course anywhere you have a lot of people together you get bugs. I have been very careful about hand sanitising when anything is touched or given to me, so we are hoping Graeme doesn’t get worse.

We got off the ship about 9 am and walked around the front dock area – it is so beautiful here. Very crisp and cold in the wind but lovely, with seagulls flying around everywhere with their own seaside sound! Then we walked into town. These small towns rely on the ships coming in, just like Twizel. Bought a couple things in a store that were decent priced clothing and we generally just enjoy the wander around.

Back to the ship where we decided to have a cocktail that had honey in it, the Ginny Hendrix! It was so nice we had another one and then a mojito and a martini for Graeme. Then the bartender told us about chocolate martinis – boy that one was strong so after number 4 we had to go back to the room and have a lie down! :-)

Down to dinner in the dining room – I decided to have crayfish which is $25USD extra but you get two crayfish and it was insanely good. We have $300USD on-board credit to use although we have just discovered that the useless travel agent we had tried, who has been very lazy the whole way through and made lots of errors – has made another one. It is a lesson in making sure you have in writing when things like on board gratuities are being included. 

Luckily, I had written to her when we booked specifically asking if they were included, as they are a significant amount of money at around $800NZD for our cruise – she confirmed they were in the package. Turns out they aren’t and she had made another mistake and they are coming off our on-board credit every day. Have spoken to the team at the service desk and while we could fill in a form and make them take them all off, it wouldn’t be fair as it covers the teams like cabin stewards, kitchen staff and laundry assistants who all ave much lower wages. So we will leave them on and pay the bill and then the agent will be refunding that back.

We were so tired tonight after all our drinkies that we decided not to go to the comedy show or the dancing, but we are tired in a nice way. Walked 8 kms today!

Days 10 & 11, 24-25th April Cologne to Amsterdam

 Day 10 Cologne

We are in the city of Cologne today - we have been twice prior with a cruise & then with our friends Anna & Rudy. But the cathedral still does not disappoint….there were a lot of people here, maybe also due to  the passing of Pope Francis. The stained glass windows are magnificent throughout and there are  lot of crypts —- dating back to 1063 I think & maybe before. So much history here & one of the few structures left standing after WWll bombings.

Because we had been before, we didnt join the walking tours, instead wandering around on our own, through the church & town. Thing open late in Europe - smaller towns are about 11am & 10am here in Cologne.

Back to the ship for a lovely lunch then mooched around while we sailed all afternoon & evening to get to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. We had dinner with out Utah friends & caught up on each others adventures, then into bed. We walked our 10,000 steps today!

They had the 70s & 80s disco at 9:15pm, the 2 activities managers dressed up as alter ego’s & we had to all guess the 3 most played songs. Of course Abbas Dancing Queen was top of the list- was a fun evening with everyone dancing, although it gets Very hot in the lounges, probably due to the low ceilings and smaller spaces. Was fun anyway, just had to go change!

Day 11 - 25th April ANZAC day. Amsterdam 

It was nice today, even though they dont follow ANZAC day in Europe, the room attendant had put sprigs of rosemary & a red ribbon on a pin, plus a bowl with a red ribbon & Anzac biscuits for us! Such a nice thought.

We were up & after Brekky, we were off to Keukenhof tulip gardens at 8am which are only open or 6 weeks a year. We went there on tour 10 yrs ago & it is just as beautiful this time round, although there are SO many more people there now, very very crowded. Enjoyed the beautiful displays though and walked all morning looking at them- so many photos haha! The bus left at 12pm back to the ship.  All the walking would have helped to work off some of the yummy lunch we had when we got back. The food has been superb onboard & they are turning out food for 180 in a small galley Im sure, but it runs like a well oiled rag. 

Then we went out to walk Amsterdam. Being the biggest celebration weekend for King Alexanders birthday -Amsterdam is p.a.c.k.e.d! Mostly seems to be young British & a lot of older Americans in the streets. Orange is the national colour, so lots of orange shirts everywhere in a city where anything goes. Shops advertising party pills, cannabis, sex & many others!! 

We wandered around for a couple of hours then back to the ship- had enough of the very acrid smelling weed in the streets- much stronger smelling than at home. We walked 19,000 steps today - 15kms! 

Back to the cabin to pack our suitcases- always seems like so much to squeeze in when you are visiting cold destinations! We’ve had rain pretty much the whole way to date- a pity, but I always think you get what you get with weather as you cant change it, so just do it anyway!

We sat with our Utah friends on one side & our San Fran/Portland friends on the other, for the last supper. We’ve enjoyed their company for sure! Back to the room for final pack ups. We are looking forward to being able to have earlier dinners on our next cruise, as you dont finish dinner here until about 9:30pm, which makes for late nights & early mornings every day! Getting older & feel it haha.

Days 8 & 9, 22-23 April Mannheim to Rudesheim. Rhine gorge to Koblenz Germany

 Day 8 Mannheim to Rudesheim

We were up and out to the buses after breakfast today.  They took us half an hour to visit Schwetzingen palace. It is pretty magnificent and huge with two wings and a theatre (although we didn’t see this). It was originally built as a fort in 1350 but was destroyed and rebuilt on several occasions over the decades. Then the elector John Williams built it as their summer palace in the 1700’s –Hard to believe the decadence of how some people lived. The grounds were levelled to allow the carriages to easily transverse the paths. There was also a small roman amphitheatre built in the gardens. The gardens were the most impressive, with trees that have been trained into huge arbours.

We were handed over to a local guide, as with all these cruises and like the previous one – this lady was extremely passionate which is good, but she stood and talked and talked, and talked when people really wanted to move on and see things as we only had limited time. You get to the point where you can’t take any more in! It would be good to know in advance if they framed up the tours so you could choose whether you stayed with a group or wandered around on your own. But it was still good and could’ve spent hours walking around the gardens  

They took us up into the part of the palace that is open for viewing and still has all the furniture from the 1700. Interestingly, the bed was very small… kind of like a king single today and apparently the reason for that was they slept in different beds for space, because in those days they wore elaborate wigs which they must’ve left on – why didn’t they just take them off at night?! But the servants would come and put flea cages on them as well because they were scared of these wigs getting infested! Sounds like there was a lot of vanity and the olden days instagram- didn’t want to be caught out not looking perfect!

We also saw the room where the toilet which really was a commode was kept and the electors were very confident in themselves, so if they summoned people to come and listen to them or speak with them, you didn’t refuse. But if they needed the toilet, they would get the servant to wheel the commode into the room and they would sit down and go whilst still discussing the affairs of the day!

 It was very dark and heavy inside the palace rooms and again the guide was holding us in each room for long periods talking – we had forgotten the water bottles so got quite dry and it felt so stuffy it was almost claustrophobic, so just before it ended we went out of a door marked as the exit. Ended up putting us in some back stairwell and no way to go back ha ha! A woman appeared out of the blue so we told her we were just trying to get out!

We went and sat outside and bought a drink from the souvenir shop. We also bought a pretty, miniature hazelnut liquor bottle for Alison from San Francisco on our tour. They had approached us in the morning and asked if we would like to share her significant birthday with them for dinner on board the ship, so we wanted to get her something where we could. It was either alcohol or a tray of strawberries lol :-). There were those and fresh asparagus for sale on the stalls outside. 

It’s a pity we didn’t have time to wander the colourful town with beautiful architecture cos the tour had taken so long, but it was time to get back  So onto the buses and out of Mannheim, onto the ship for lunch. We decided to keep it tiny so we got a very small bowl of pasta and went and sat up on the top deck with a beer, as it is finally stopped raining. Was very nice sitting up there enjoying the view as for the first time we are sailing during the day and headed for Rudesheim. We sailed through to about 8 pm so around 6 hours free time on board the ship.

They don’t have a lot going on entertainment wise but after about 8 km of walking, it’s good to relax. We had dinner in the restaurant onboard with Alison and David, they bought out a cake and everybody sang happy birthday – it was lovely to share her special birthday together and David ordered some champagne. 

Then the four of us we were able to walk into the town after – Graeme and I have been there before and have to say it was a real disappointment bringing us in so late as the town was closed. So compared to the previous time it was dead and all we could do was walk around and look at the beautiful old buildings. Although to be fair, there was one restaurant that had Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” playing on the dance floor, so we stood out on the street and sang to it! It was funny :-). 

But overall everybody felt it was pointless putting us off in the dark to a town that was closed – it would be better if they worked the itinerary into being in port during the daytime.

The last time we visited here, a lot of people tried the famous Rudesheim coffee where they have coffee, chocolate, whipped cream and then they light it on fire so it has this blue flame coming off  it!

Still, we had a lovely walk and then headed back to the ship and showers in bed.

  

 

Asparagus is a specialty here & in season 

Day 9- Rhine Gorge to Koblenz

We had a better nights sleep last night as we were moored and didn’t sail through the night. The juddering and movement seems to wake most people, so was better this time. Plus that meant we sailed through the Rhine Gorge in daylight - we remembered it from our 2015 trip. The vineyards that sit on such vertical fields are impressive and the towns along the Rhine are so quaint. 

It was cold up on the sun deck, but we went up there for a walk around the walking track then i grabbed Graeme a blanket they have for the cold and we watched the scenery. So, so pretty as we could see on the curves of the river all the way behind us to the towns in front!

We went and got some toast and a hot drink then spoke to Julie & Justus from Utah who we went on the e-bike tour with the other day. They were planning on riding around Koblenz on the e-bikes when we dock rather than the included walking tour with a guide. So we grabbed the bikes and rode around to the Kaiser Wilhelm monument (emperor of Prussia) on the convergence of the Moselle & the Rhine rivers, climbed the steps & had a great view out.

Then we rode round to the parliament buildings, also impressive. Koblenz has a lovely feel & has an old & a new town as many have due to extensive bombings during WWll. We rode through the old town then needed to get back for the German lunch onboard. We all would have liked more time to ride but the lunch had smelt so good this morning, when they were cooking it!

We walked in, to be handed a big glass of German beer - danke schon!!! The lunch -omg, it was amazing and we have eaten traditional German food a number of times before, but this was up there with it. Veal Weiner schnitzel that was really tender, pork knuckle & crackling that were a.m.a.z.i.n.g & lots of different German sausages for Graeme (Boo to being allergic to them). There was also most excellent Mac n cheese & sauerkraut. For dessert they had nougat balls which weve never had before - they were almost like a crumbed bread with hot Nutella inside !!!!! What a feast- had to go & thank the head chef 😃!

After lunch one of the other passengers knocked on our door to ask if we were going biking as they were going on on them, but we had a few things to do & planned to go walking a bit more in the town and see it on foot. Tidied up then went for about a 8km walk. We were feeling tired, so headed back- we are both feeling so sore body wise & constantly fatigued. The sleeps havent been great & probably the jet lag from such a long trip over is catching up. Think once you relax too, you get more tired!

A quiet dinner tonight - people are feeling the activities are somewhat lacking for an upmarket river cruise company like Emerald & we dont remember it like this on the cheaper Travelmarvel cruise we did years ago. It is still lovely to be on though, just a lot of downtime & sailings at night which mean disturbed sleep & missing seeing the landscape/lochs we go through. There are a nice group of people onboard - many older (some you wonder if they are ok as they are unsteady on their feet) right through to people in their 40’s to mid 60’s. 

It’s funny. I was looking at my phone today and all the Spark texts I’ve been getting as we’ve gone along– you can actually see the countries you were flying over in the plane as spark picks them up too! My list so far……

-  welcome to Indonesia.

– welcome to Singapore.

– welcome to Malaysia.

– welcome to Turkey.

– welcome to Romania.

– welcome to Austria.

– welcome to Germany.

– welcome to France.

- welcome to Germany again!😁😊

 

Koblenz