Days 17 At Sea
Cruising day today – we are heading back from Kirkwall to Rotterdam as this is the end of the one week cruise for many people. When we booked ours it was a two week cruise but it’s actually back to back – two 7 day cruises.
Didn’t do too much today – I wanted to see about having a shared table in the dining room for brunch. They automatically suit you at two person tables unlike all other cruise companies we have ever been on which will sit you with other people unless you request it and there is a table free. Anyway, we got seated with two couples both from America and was good to have people to sit and talk to – very interesting lives. From a dentist to a psychologist and everything in between! We wandered around and got a bit of exercise and read our books from the ship library before getting ready for our specialty dinner at The pinnacle Grill, which is a steak and seafood restaurant. We had two of these specialty meals included because we had a two week cruise.oh my goodness – it was so nice – we got a couple of cocktails as well – this package that includes your drinks, Internet, on board credit and a couple of short excursions is great. The meal was a giant ribeye steak and I had a 19oz lobster tail as well – I love crayfish but even I couldn’t eat it all! we were so stuffed afterwards we went outside and found that you can walk around the entire ship at the bottom on deck two – a lot of it is semi covered by the lifeboats but was great to find as the walking track at the top is just a little tiny one. There have been my only disappointment about the ship not being nice and open at the top where the swimming pool is, so this was a good find! We tried to walk off some of the feeling of being over full – felt so uncomfortable all night and neither of us had a great sleep because of it, but it was a beautiful meal.
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Day 18 Rotterdam
Today is disembarkation day for more than half of the ship – And all the new passengers will get on. For those of us that stayed on and I’m not sure that there were many, we got a transfer card that we could just show so we could bypass most of the security when we got on and off.
Yesterday we had gone to a talk in the morning and another one in the afternoon about the behind-the-scenes work on the Rotterdam ship. The second one was about the history of Holland America – it was super interesting actually and about how they were initially a ship that carried poor immigrants to America and wanted to give them a better experience than going in common hallswith no designated sleeping or eating areas back in the 1800s. The company has certainly gone through a lot with wars, stock market crashes, Covid etc. But they have kept going – the Rotterdam ship we are on is about number seven I think with the same name and the old ship is in a port just down the road so we decided to walk there this morning. A very pleasant day weatherwise and we walk to it but it was a bit awkward as it’s also a hotel now and there are stuff everywhere asking you what you need! So we walked back and then over a huge bridge next to the dock and aroundthe town area.
There the town Lane streets with all the apartments – we walked over 11 km today and then back to the ship as Graeme was starting to flag. He is starting to get better but still feeling quite dizzy at times.
It’s interesting as the new passengers got on, It is a markedly younger crowd – funny as last week was the second week of the Dutch school holidays so there were more children on the first week and maybe lots of elderly grandparents? Anyway this feels a lot more upbeat and people in their 40s upwards this week.
, It is a markedly younger crowd – funny as last week was the second week of the Dutch school holidays so there were more children on the first week and maybe lots of elderly grandparents? Anyway this feels a lot more upbeat and people in their 40s upwards this week.
We went up on the top deck as we sailed out of Rotterdam again – with a tug spraying water into the harbour in front of us. We actually backed out and then spun around and were away.
We went down to the bar and had a few of our favouriteCocktails, we have mainly been having mojito’s for Me and bees knees– They have honey and lemon with vodka in them. They got steadily stronger as the night went on and again we don’t have to worry aboutPaying extra – you only pay the difference if they are over $11 per drink. A lot of of them are $12 so you pay the USD $1 + tax so only about USD $1.18 extra a drink. Then we had dinner in the restaurant, played a trivia game with guessing songs and the artist – there was a limit of six people in a team and one other team got more than us but they had 7 or 8 very merry people! so we were declared the winners with 32 points – we only missed one song which was we built the city by aeroplane! Will remember it now ha ha. Up to read our books and mooched around quietly as Graeme has been grumpy and feeling knackered.
Day 19 – at Sea
We’ve had large rolling seas today – very different to when we sailed this way a week ago. We went up to the crows nest on deck 12 as it looks out the very front of the ship. It was crowded today but Graeme got a seat and we sat talking to a couple. It’s interesting talking to them about languages there as they speak Flemish which has a variant of French, but the lady said they can’t understand each other as the dialects are very different.
I started feeling quite seasick which is new for me – even with vertigo I dont usually get it but today it really deteriorated into motion sickness and then feeling seasick – felt exactly like when I was pregnant🤢. So have had a quiet day lying fairly flat and sipping sparkling water.Wasn’t sick though so that’s good ha ha!
We just grabbed a small dinner from the Lido deck cafeteria tonight and we’ll have a quiet one as the seas started to subside, thankfully!
We watched an Australian movie called “long story short” tonight about a man who wakes up after his wedding and time keeps jumping forward on him- quirky and thought provoking 🧐
1 comment:
Pity Covid has made things a bit tough for Graeme. And not surprised you felt seasick by the look of the waves and swells. When the ship judders, its fighting both the swells and the winds. Yucky!!
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