Heading North – Two Wonderful Days at Sea

Thursday, January 20, 2011 – The ship time changed overnight again, one hour forward.  This gets us back on Eastern Time.  It seems quiet today.  Most likely people are resting up from our wonderful, action packed days in the ports and feeling a bit sad that this special time might really come to an end.  The sun is sparkling off from the deep blue of the Caribbean Sea. Looking to the horizon you can see the curvature of the earth!  Occasionally you see another ship or freighter passing in the distance.

I never did make it to the indoor cycling class or the aqua aerobics in the pool.  Sounded like fun, though!  I missed out on all the great current movies that they were showing in the Screening Room too.  Not enough time to do it all, however, I did have one incredibly fun time.  I’ve heard that some of our group participated in the Trivia challenges.  Next time you see Nina, or Kathy K., ask them about that, if you can get them to stop giggling long enough to tell you about it!  Roxanne said she took lots of pictures of the Panama Canal for the scrapbook she is making for her two sons, Aaron, age 11 and Josh, age 9, to prove why they just missed 8 days of school!

I got an invitation for an 11:30 luncheon today with the Mariner group.  The Holland America Mariners are anyone who has been on any previous cruise with Holland America.  Guess I qualify for that!  It was a nice luncheon.  I got seated with two very nice couples from Minnesota.  Lots of those Upper Midwesterners on this cruise, not surprisingly!  On the way out they gave us our commemorative souvenir delft tiles.  Very nice!

5:30 p.m. – Jimmy Fortune’s final show for our group.  Jimmy started out by saying how much fun he had had on this cruise!  Because we celebrated 2 anniversaries (Kathy & Greg and Esther Ann & David) and a vow renewal (Kenny & Brenda), Jimmy said that this should be called the “Love Cruise”!

Dinner after the show with the group was fun!  People were still talking about the zip line tour in Costa Rica.  Everyone survived…and everyone said it was really a good time!  It seems that almost 1/3 of our group of 62 went on some sort of zip line tour.  Roxanne was on the one that had the extra long 2300 foot cable called the “adrenaline” zip line.  She said it was one of those “face your fears” kinds of things, but once she got going on it she found it to be a really a fun experience.  I’m still going to have to think about that, Debbi, but I can’t wait to hear all about your experience if you do it on our next cruise!  Good show in the show lounge tonight after dinner, presented by the singers and dancers of the Zuiderdam!
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Friday, January 21, 2011 – Our final day at sea.  The sea was again draped in all its sparkling glory, offering up a good memory just for us.   Scheduled at 10:00 a.m. is the disembarkation talk and crew farewell.  Someone from each cabin is supposed to attend so you know the procedure for getting off the ship tomorrow.  Who wants to leave?!  They enticed everyone to come and bring their camera for the big crew farewell.  Our daily cruise newsletter noted that today is your last chance to win $100,000 at the Jackpot Bingo or a 7-day Caribbean cruise for two in the cruise lottery drawing, and the last day to be pampered in the Greenhouse Spa.  Esther Ann & David want to get together and play a new card game called “Head & Foot”.  We met in the Crow’s Nest at 10:30 a.m. and had a great time, until they headed off to a special luncheon invitation they had received from the cruise line, a benefit of staying in a suite.  I headed to the photo gallery to check out the latest pictures the ship’s photographers had taken, and found a few others from our group there.  Next it was off to the Shops on deck 3 to check out any last minute bargains.  I picked up a couple t-shirts (2 for $30 less my discount for being a 3 star Mariner. Not bad!).  Then I found a cute shift to go over one of the t-shirts.  That could work to wear to our group’s farewell party tonight!  I know I should start thinking about packing (checked luggage has to be outside your cabin door by 1:00 a.m.) but it’s hard to think about leaving this dream!  I can put it off a little longer by going to “Island Magic’s” steel drum encore show at 3:00 p.m.  This group from Trinidad really brought the house down the other night and the whole ship is still buzzing about them.  I figured that I better get there early, or I might not get a seat.  I was right, the 2 story theater was packed and it was another great show!  I wonder if anyone made it to tea at 3:00 today.  Today it was going to be Indonesian High Tea.  Looks like they were all at the show!

6:30 p.m. – Our group’s Farewell Party in the Piano Bar.  Everyone was there early and having a good time.  I passed around a sign up sheet for e-mail addresses of those who want to keep in touch with others in the group after the cruise.  Lots of people brought comment sheets for me.  This group is good!  I passed around the folder from my group picture for everyone to sign.  It’s always a good memory for me of all the nice people I shared good times with.  The room was buzzing with happy talk, laughter and cameras flashing.  Then Jimmy pulled his guitar out of its case, someone patched it into the sound system by the piano and turned on the microphone!  We all joined in for a great sing-a-long, danced or just sat and listened to old favorites.  People shouted out song requests from all genres of music.  What a good time!  No one wanted it to end.

8:00 came too soon and we all headed off to dinner.  Tonight is the Master Chef’s dinner.  We noticed we didn’t have any napkins, just as a musical flourish rang out.   Then came all of the waiters dancing and waving our napkins in the air!  They danced by each table and handed us our napkins and that was the start of the dining crew’s dinner theater presentation. In between courses we were treated to tableside dancing, singing and juggling by our waiters.  Great fun!  After dinner there were hugs and farewells and talk about where our next adventure would be.  No one wanted to leave, but unfortunately that packing I had been putting off all day was suddenly moving up on the agenda.  Towel animal in the cabin tonight…..a monkey!

This is my take on an incredible 10 days on a cruise with a great group of people!  I hope that you have enjoyed reading it.  I enjoyed writing it; my first time doing a blog.  I’m sure everyone in the group would have a slightly different perspective on things and this is mine.  To those of you who have asked me (and there have been more than one of you!) if this is all really true.  The answer is….YES!   Come along on the next one and I’ll prove it!