Days 5 & 6 Zaandam Repositioning Cruise

We got a bit of a late start to the day, so it was breakfast in the Lido again. I did find the oatmeal finally. After breakfast we went to Coffee with Clare. The guest was the ship’s safety officer, whose name we forgot. At the end they opened it up for questions, and someone asked if HAL was planning to build any of the giant ships, which we thought was a dumb question to ask the safety officer but it turned out he and Clare (and many other staff) had just been at a meeting talking about futures and could kind of answer the question.

The Zaandam is 25 this year and environmental regulations are getting stricter, so there will be a point where the cost of upgrading the Zaandam to meet the newer standards just won’t make sense – he gave it about 8-10 years. In addition, the shipyards in Italy where the ships are built are booked far out into the future. So it’s unclear how or when HAL will get new ships, but they will probably not be the huge ones.

From there we went to the world Stage for the “A City on the Sea” talk which was another half-canned presentation where the narrator (Clare, joined by several of the ship’s officers) speaks a little bit then plays a video clip, rinse and repeat. It was filmed on the newest Rotterdam, so not everything applies to the Zaandam (which still has a propeller, unlike the vista class and newer ships, which use the azipods). Still, interesting info. At the end they brought many of the crew on for clapping. We like that part.

Lunch was brunch, which we ended up eating at a table for two, but the table next to us was a couple I’d met at Tai Chi and we ended up chatting through the rest of the meal. Her partner, while good looking, was very braggy, but she was nice. We don’t know if this brunch-on-Sundays is a new thing or not – I am not in favor because it means no breakfast in the dining room.

After lunch I’d planned to go to the towel folding demo and then to the Swing dance class, but I ended up in the pool – there was a nice front-to-back pitch going on and the pool was sloshing like crazy, which is my favorite thing. I spent an hour or so playing in the waves, with other people getting in and out for short times, except for one guy who stayed in longer than I did. I think it was some of the best sloshing I’ve ever done. I debated staying in and missing swing class, but in the end got out & showered & went to class, where I was a complete failure! My usual partner Pat (Pam? Dot?) wasn’t there, and I ended up partnered with someone who was not a good match for me. In addition, swing is hard! The step is counted in 3s, but the music is in 4s, so the 1 of your feet and the 1 of the music don’t line up. I gave up fairly quickly, but enjoyed watching the other folks dance.

After that it was time for the Lido Fair, which had cotton candy, popcorm, and chocolate covered apples as well as games you could play to win tickets. Most of the games involved throwing things (into holes, onto posts, at things to knock them over) but you could also get tickets by napkin folding! I impressed them deeply by making a peacock without using the table until it was time for the reveal, and I learned a variation on the classic biscuit role that I’ll be showing off. I practiced my swing step in line and was successful about 40% of the time. I finished my day off with Stretch class with Floreeda, which wasn’t very good – it seemed like a kind of half stretch, half workout hybrid that didn’t do either very well. Before class I told her how I’d been sore for two days after the bootcamp, and it made her laugh just about every time she looked at me

Meanwhile, Dave had his first (and only) afternoon beer and reading in the Ocean Lounge; he will do more on our next cruise. He also went to a presentation on the history of HAL, which was interesting and allows him to tell little stories about HAL firsts, like cruises to Alaska and the Panama Canal.

You might think he told those stories to Laura and Larry at dinner, but we had a missed connection! They had told us they wouldn’t be at dinner because of a cocktail party, so that’s why I went to stretch class and then we went to open seating, where we ended up sitting with 3 other women, one of whom was very complainy and also had to tell about her health issues. She and one of the other women had met on a cruise and become friends and now cruised together. The third woman had gotten seated with the other two the night before and it was pretty clear she wasn’t excited about repeating it. Conversation was difficult but then I asked Micky, the singleton, what her favorite post was, and we continued on that topic and had a pretty nice dinner. I had the Opera Cake for dessert which was very yummy.

After dinner we went to the Ocean Bar, and there were Laura and Larry, and it turned out they had gone to dinner after all and we missed them. They said Rudy, our water, was very sad not to see us. I was sad too! We had a fun chat and even danced a little, then said our goodbyes and went to pack. After packing we went back to the Ocean bar and listened to the band finish up their set. They were a good group – not the best, but far from the worst. The guitarist looked like CJ, an employee of mine from my Zenith days, and had an unusual voice that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.

Then it was our last bedtime on the Zaandam for a while. We decided to keep one of the roll-aboard suitcases with us, which was an excellent decision. Dave put the other three bags (two of which had stayed packed and mostly untouched under the bed) outside and went to sleep. At this point the opera cake kicked in for me, so I sat outside on the Veranda, watching the moon set, listening to the waves, and reading old blogs.  It was a wonderful end of the cruise.

We woke up about 6:30, got all packed up, and went to the dining room for breakfast – an unusual thing, since normally at the end of the cruise the dining room is closed. Maybe it’s because more passengers were staying on than getting off? Anyway, it was a civilized way to end our cruise dining experience. We passed the time until our group (gray 1) was called, then headed down to brave the luggage pickup, which turned out to be extremely easy – there were two small groups of suitcases, and only one other couple in the pickup area. It was Larry and Laura, of course. Then on to bus and then into the terminal (you can see it from the ship). The only problem was the long wait for our flight, but the flight was uneventful and our friend Roy picked us up. We stopped for dinner at Golden Valley and got home early enough to mostly unpack – and of course do our duolingo.

It's been two days since we got off the ship, and occasionally when I’m sitting down the “ship” is still rocking – we can’t wait for our next cruise!