Coastal Cruise - Astoria

 It’s Bubby’s Birthday!

Pilot Boat

The fearsome Columbia Bar

We woke up around 5:30 to get ready to cross the Columbia Bar – the place where the widest river in North America meets the mighty Pacific Ocean, the Graveyard of the Pacific, the place we’ve been waiting for. The Pilot came on board a little after 6, and Dave and I bundled up and went down to the Promenade deck (there are no open forward facing decks on this Dam ship) to watch us cross the bar. It was forecasted to be a beautiful day in Astoria – sunny and 55 – and the Pacific was living up to its name. We crossed the bar as the tide had just started going out, and it was about as unexciting as it is possible for a thing to be. Like, unnoticeable. Shortly after we crossed we saw the Cape Disappointment lighthouse, a lighthouse which they put there because they knew how we’d be feeling.

I was cheered up by breakfast at the Lido with Jen and Dave (one guess about where Josh was) and then it was time for our Behind the Scenes tour, a fun excursion through the working sections of the ship. It was lead by our cruise director Simon, and took us to all the places you can’t usually go, including the engine control room, which was pretty cool. The tour lasted about two and a half hours but went by super fast, and there was bubbly at the end. I was wearing my David Hill sweatshirt on the tour, and we met someone from Hillsboro who knew the winery, which was fun. Photos will be in a separate blog.

Bridgewater Bistro left, ship center.

After the tour we disembarked and went for lunch at Bridgewater Bistro, a 10 minute walk away. (You can see our ship from here!) We had a super corner table and lunch was delicious, especially the outstanding crab and artichoke dip that Jen got. (The dip replaces the fabulous crab cheesecake, which is sad). After lunch Dave and I decided to continue walking towards the Maritime museum, while Josh and Jen headed back to the ship. Josh had been getting notifications on his watch all through lunch about how his favorite players were doing in the Masters golf tournament, so he needed the downtime for sure.

Meanwhile we walked up the waterfront trail, which runs for about 5 miles from the cruise ship pier up past the museum. There’s a trolley that runs along it, but the timing was exactly wrong – we saw it pull out from the station when we were maybe 40 yards away, and it takes about an hour to do the whole loop. That was fine because it turned out to be a stunningly beautiful, completely wall to wall blue sky day, with temperatures in the low 60s – T-shirt weather on the sunny walk back to the ship. At the Maritime Museum one of the American Cruise Lines riverboats was docked (180 passengers) so Astoria was full to bursting for an April Thursday.

On the dock there was a cute little makers market with 8-10 local vendors. I almost bought a souvenir but our suitcases were too full. On the way back, we saw the Captain and his dogs – he’d told us at the coffee with Simon that his dog sitter was driving them down from Seattle for a visit.

Once we got back to the ship it was time for some blogging again – it has felt more like a chore than usual on this trip, because we’ve been so busy. I did a little blogging on our verandah, but eventually decided to head up to, you guessed it, the Tamarind bar, stopping at the Lido for my usual fizzy water. I learned today that ordering a sparkling water gets you imported San Benedetto, while ordering soda water gets you a domestic. Now we know.

Astoria-Megler Bridge from the Tamarind Bar

After blogging I showered and got dressed for Dressy Night and picked up Jen for One Hit Wonder trivia. Our partners from yesterday were there and were happy to team up again. We got to talking about kids, and she told a very sad story of her son marrying a woman with 6 daughters, and then his wife died of a brain bleed and now he’s engaged to a Samoan woman but the girls don’t think he should remarry. We still don’t know her name. Anyway, they were thrilled to have Jen along because the theme was one hit wonders and Jen is a hit at that category! We got a lot more things right but still didn’t win.

The timing worked out that it made the most sense for us to go wait in the Tamarind bar, since dinner was in about 25 minutes 9 floors above where we were doing trivia. Fortunately I was wearing heels so we took the elevator. Josh and Dave joined us and at 7:30 we headed in to dinner at the Tamarind Restaurant, which was a flop.

First off they hadn’t realized we were a 4 top, not 2 2-tops, so we ended up at a table smushed in a corner by the kitchen. The food was just ok, and we didn’t get out of there until almost 10 – at 9:00 we hadn’t yet gotten our entrees, which were just ok. If we were to go back, we'd remember that the medium is too mild. We tried making conversation but eventually it was past all our bedtimes and we just sat there. Apparently their grill had died shortly before service began, but that doesn’t explain why everyone else was gone an hour before us. We slunk back to our cabins, grabbing our nightly mint tea on the way, and for us at least everything got better!

Many of you know that we took this cruise to get our 4-star mariner loyalty status, but what we haven’t mentioned is that this cruise also put us over 100 days on board HAL ships. So when we got back to our cabin not only were our 4 star mariner pins and congratulatory letter waiting, but our incredibly gaudy and fabulous 100 day “bronze” medallions were waiting for us as well! And a towel swan! We went to bed as happy & proud as can be. (Photo was taken the next day)

Also it was cold crossing the bar.

Bonus Photo

Coastal Cruise - At Sea, at last!

We were up early because that’s what we do, and I had my usual breakfast in the Lido (Josh, Jen and Dave had a slightly more leisurely version shortly after) and headed to the gym for a quick workout. The instructor I did the bootcamp with gave me a huge smile when I came in and set up my laptop and didn’t make me move when it was time to set up the exercise bikes. After a nice session (well, productive) of upper body resistance it was off to the “Coffee with the Cruise Director” feature. Today it was our Simon our cruise director and Capatain Eric Van der Wal, who was LATE. We’d be sure he wasn’t Dutch except when he talks it’s very clear that he is. He was entertaining, and very focused on the HR side of his job – creating a strong team to give customers a great cruise. Dave was able to ask him to explain a little more about why we had to change our San Francisco arrival time, and we now understand the combination of booking error, currents, and narrow docking area. We also got a chance to ask Simon how many people are on board. The answer surprised us – the ship is pretty much full, but it doesn’t feel crowded.

Next for me was on the port talk about Astoria and Victoria, which seems to have been attended by most of the folks on board. In Astoria there are 2 taxis (not taxi companies. Taxis), 6 Uber drivers, 1 rental car company, and a single trolley car that shuttles from the port to the Maritime Museum on the other side of town. Fortunately there is not much to do, so most of the 2,100 passengers on the ship will not all be trying to get the aforementioned taxis and Ubers. There are several shore excursions, including one that does the Cannon Beach/Tillamook loop that Dave and I did last month. I had to leave about halfway through the Victoria talk because we had our Pinnacle lunch.

The Pinnacle is another of the specialty restaurants on board, and way back when we took our family cruise in 2009 we took the boys there and we all thought it was amazing. It hasn’t been as amazing since, and the lunch experience isn’t as good as dinner, so now we know. Jen’s hamburger was the standout. Jen and Dave had leave early to go to the Premium wine tasting, so Josh and I stayed and ate their desserts.

Next up for me was the Lido Fair, where I played the games but didn’t win any raffle items. I did have a moment where I was trying to knock over things by throwing balls at them and hit 3 out of 3, which made people clap and give me fist bumps. I will remember that as a triumph of hand-eye coordination, perhaps never to be repeated.

Then I went down to the cabin and slept for two hours. Cruising is exhausting! After I woke up I blogged for a bit, then headed to the Billboard Lounge to meet Jen for some live music trivia. It was a good time – our assistant cruse director Lauren teamed up with the piano bar performer for a colors-themed trivia session. We joined in with a couple sitting next to us and did way better than we would have by ourselves, but not well enough to be in the 4-way tie for first place which was too bad because Jen knew the answer. It was fun sitting in the bar watching people go by in their orange (it was Orange night), and our teammate had a particularly good deely bobber headband with orange cindy-lou who pigtails.

We went from there to dinner in the dining room. Arta our server was apparently overjoyed to see us again, and was even more pleased when Dave asked if the Bami Goreng was spicy. It wasn’t, but he managed to get some Sambal from the crew mess, which turned out to be delicious and enhanced many of our dishes. He was so overjoyed to see us that he kept bringing us extra food – 2 extra appetizers, 2 extra entrees, and an extra dessert. I have to mention the dessert, which was on the menu as a “molded Lindt chocolate tulip” and looked like a cross between a tulip and two lips and had a very strange almost rubbery consistency, but was delicious.

Because we have late seating (which I need to remember is called main seating) it’s almost 9:00 by the time we get done with dinner, so last night we got done and it was time to head to the Orange Party line dance, which was an absolute ZOO but of course I have to do the line dancing. Then as soon as it was over it was bedtime because the next day would be an early one to CROSS THE BAR.

Coastal Cruise - San Francisco 2

Up early breakfasted and out at 8:15 for our trip to Muir Woods NM. Thanks to Ben we knew about the required parking reservations and had our parking permit ready to go, and also thanks to Ben (and Joan) we had a car. Getting it out of the parking garage went smoothly and we were off to Muir Woods, which allowed Josh to point out the Skywalker Ranch General Store for the second time (he pointed it out on the way to B&J the day before as well). Josh drove smoothly and carefully up the twisty roads so Jen and I didn’t have any trouble. We found a nice route that was about 3.5 miles and really enjoyed our hike. 

Everyone else has been to Redwoods NP and apparently the redwoods that we saw were on the small side, but we saw redwood burls and fairy rings or family cicles, which they hadn’t seen in other places. Also lots of baby redwood trees, also something that they hadn’t seen. Since this was my first visit to redwoods, it was all new to me. I’ve put some information from the NPS at the end of today’s blog if you want to know more.

We ate lunch at the Barrel House Tavern in Sausalito, which had excellent views out one side and a mirror that made it look like they were on the other side, too. The baked oyster appetizer was so delicious we had to order a second one. Sadly the rest of the food was good but missing spice or heat or acid, so fine but not worth going back to. 

While at lunch we discussed our plans for the rest of the day. The original plan was to meet Ben at the Japanese Garden, but even though Josh never actually said out loud that he wanted (really, really wanted) to go to the Skywalker Rance General Store, his excellent wife understood what he wanted and suggested we accommodate him. It worked for Ben to meet us there instead, so there we went. In case you don’t know, the Skywalker Ranch General Store is at the headquarters of Lucasfilm, home of Star Wars (among other things). Josh was beaming the whole time, and found several things to bring home. Dave did not buy the Shakespearean versions of the Star Wars stories, but he was tempted.

Ben arrived while we were checking out the Yoda fountain and the Lucasfilm lobby, and after getting over his horror that nobody but Dave knew who Philo Farnsworth was, he drove us back to the ship. We dropped off Dave, Josh and Jen, and then he and I drove to Swensen’s ice cream (note to self: the chocolate raspberry truffle is good, but the sticky peanut butter is better) and had some cone and sibling time. It’s never long enough.

He dropped me off at the ship just in time to join Jen for trivia, although she might have been better off by herself – including our 3 bonus points we got only 9 out of 15 correct. She wrote 60%- D on the top in her best teacher writing, but we had a good time anyway. I went to the cabin to grab my computer and then joined Dave at the Tamarind Bar for a little blogging. Then it was time for watching the cast off and going under the bridge, which we managed to not get quite right and emerged onto the deck on 5 forward just after we’d passed under the bridge. We did have an excellent view of Alcatraz earlier in the afternoon. I blame the Captain, who had announced we’d be passing under the bridge 6:45 but it was closer to 6:20. We think he might not actually be Dutch. (It turned out that he’d said 6:45 with an on-time departure, but we ended up departing early, hence the early bridge-going-under. He’s Dutch.)

To console ourselves we went down to the explorer lounge and listened to Vivace, the classical duo of piano and violin. They were mostly playing old pop favorites, but they were very good and we enjoyed ourselves.

Then it was time to go up for dinner – only our second dinner in the dining room. Jen and I had the black bean soup, which 3 out of the 4 of us thought was delicious. Josh is not a fan of bean soup so this didn’t change his mind. I had eggplant cannelloni and was surprised to find that the eggplant sheets were the cannelloni. While we were eating our dining room section manager came over and I actually thought to ask him what kinds of Port they serve on the ship (we’d asked many servers and gotten several answers), and he sent over the sommelier, Jonathon,  who answered the question definitively by bringing over the bottles of the three types they serve – all ruby, one of them an LBV style, if you’re curious. Most of the excitement came with watching the beverage server take our drinks to other peoples’ tables. In the spirit of exploration (we just did the tasting on fortified wines at the winery) I ordered a glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream [sherry], and watched it be delivered to another table. Mine never came, so I asked our server to cancel it, which caused the dining room section manager to come over and encourage me to stay and drink it, which I said no to, which probably made a black mark for the poor server, who is new. But it was time to move on.

We moved on to the Ocean Bar where the Dam band was playing jazzy music. Like most HAL bands they probably met a couple days before the cruise but were tight and fun to listen to. Dave stayed until they finished their set, but I went down to the Rolling Stone Lounge (formerly known as the Queen’s lounge) and danced both my shoes off. There was a group of 10-15 women and a couple reluctant spouses just boogieing our hearts out. It was super fun! I danced until 11 and then was wide awake and sweaty until about midnight. In case you’re wondering, my fitbit recorded 26,904 steps today.

About Redwoods:

“Occasionally, an almost perfect circle of redwood trees grows in the forest. Known as fairy rings, they are evidence of several bud-collar sprouts, normally of a similar age, encircling a long-fallen parent tree. Redwood trees are unique conebearing trees because they reproduce via burl and seed. If a redwood falls or is otherwise damaged, the burl may begin to sprout from the trunk or branch it developed on, sharing or taking over the established root system of the parent tree. Staying true to its name, the adaptations of Sequoia sempervirens (ever-living Sequoia) seem to bend time as it continues to prove itself one of the earth’s most tenacious survivors.“

Coastal Cruise Day 3- San Francisco 1

 April 6 San Francisco 1

Lido for breakfast again, this time with Josh too, then I tried out the Tai Chi class and for the first time on a HAL ship it was not well done. That turned out to be just as well because it gave me time to get to the Trilo3y boot camp up in the fitness center (yes, Josh was there too, doing leg day). I was the only person in the class. They’ve made it easy to teach by putting time cues into the soundtrack, which could increase the opportunity for phoning it in, but the instructor stayed involved and laughed at all my jokes, so it was a good time, and a challenging workout as well.

Then it was time to get ready to go outside for going under the bridge. Unlike Avalon, San Francisco was cold and gray this morning, so we bundled up. As previously discussed, the Nieuw Amsterdam doesn’t have a lot of front-facing deck space. They opened up the small forward deck on deck 5, and many people came out. Fortunately the bridge is up high, so you could still get cool pictures.

Once we were safely under the bridge, I showered and Dave and I headed out in search of lunch. We’re parked at Pier 35 – there was a whole thing about us having to leave Avalon early and slack tides and not being able to park at the usual pier that we don’t completely understand – which actually worked out well as it’s closer to the overnight parking garage (more about that later), but that puts it right smack in the center of the touristiest part of the city. We were able to find Scoma, an Italian restaurant that’s been around since the mid-60s, about a block off the main drag. The food exceeded expectations, and the old school vibes and big windows letting in the sunshine (it cleared up) made for an enjoyable lunch. Dave’s pasta puttanesca with seafood was worthy of mention.

We headed back to the ship, with a short detour to see the parking garage (more on that later) and ran into Josh and Jen, who were headed out in search of sea lions. When we got back to our cabin I took an excellent nap while Dave hung out in the Tamarind bar, and then he came back to the room and we switched places and I got some blogging done. At one point we got a text from the kids saying to go out on our balcony, and there they were on the gun turret of the Liberty Ship Jeremiah O’Brien, which was parked right next door.

Then it was time to head out to visit Ben & Joan & Avery & Hannah; I ordered a bigger Uber so we could stretch out. We got there and had a little while to chat with Joan before the rest of the troops got there. We had a nice dinner of Indian food and catching up, with the girls at their own small table off to the side. I always wish we lived closer together!

We’d made a plan with Ben to borrow his car for our day in port, so we drove back to the ship to the aforementioned parking lot which was now locked up tight, even though our ticket said arriving at 8:30 and even though the guy I talked to on the phone said it was accessible 24/7. This was too much for me, but Jen was able to find another place just a couple blocks away that worked fine. But GRRRRR it made me mad. By the time we got back to the ship we were ready for bed and another big day coming up.

We didn't get any pictures at Ben and Joan's, but we did get this picture of me mailing Bubby's birthday card.

Coastal Cruise Day 2 - Avalon

We had an early shore excursion – 8:00 – so we were up and out after a quick Lido breakfast. We were at anchor just off Catalina Island, so we gathered in the Rolling Stone lounge and trooped down to our tender. From there we walked over to the one pier on the island, where we boarded our tour boat. Our tour was billed as a Wild Dolphin Adventure, and we were super lucky to get into a big pod shortly after coming out of the harbor. Our captain drove with the pod so they could surf our wake, which they did enthusiastically for quite some time, and then they were done. 

We headed out towards the wild south-eastern tip of the island to see what we could see, and what I could see was a whale spout. It was very cool! I told the captain and the whale actually blew a couple times before diving. We hung out in the area and saw it a couple more times before we continued on to see sea lions and a seal. It was a fun trip!

We walked around Catalina for a while. We’d wondered if things would be open given that it was Easter, but no one on the Island seemed to have noticed – it was jammed with tourists and everything was open. We’d thought about having lunch there, but it was really a zoo. We decided to come back to the ship and eat in the dining room, so we got it the tender line and were back on the ship not long after.

Unfortunately a new thing seems to be not having the main dining room open for lunch, so we went to the Lido. The food is good there, but there’s a lot of waiting in line and not-quite-warm-enough food. I had some very tasty chicken (adobo and satay) and somevery memorable shrimp paella.

After lunch we had some down time, so I decided to head up to the Tamarind Bar to do a little blogging. It wasn’t staffed, so I stopped at the lido bar and grabbed a club soda to go. The Tamarind bar is midships on the top deck (11), and it’s a wonderful spot to hang out.

Meanwhile, Dave went to the international beer tasting, where he took home a can of beer for winning the trivia contest, and then he and Jen attended the regional wine tasting, where the information which was presented was of questionable use and verity, but they had a very good time chatting with their tablemates.

Josh and I both ended up in the gym, where he rode the exercise bicycle to single-handedly (double-leggedly?) power the ships’ engines, and I did a very hard TBP online workout and mat pilates. There was time for both of us to get cleaned up and recovered before our 6:00 reservation at Morimoto by Sea, a specialty restaurant on board and the only one of its kind in the entire HAL fleet. 

The dining room was fairly small, bright and open, and we had a table right next to the window. The food was fabulous – we ordered almost everything on the menu (it’s a small menu) and enjoyed tasting all the wonderful things. Everything was perfectly prepared and delicious. I had the best steak ever, and even Josh’s sushi was above the usual.

After dinner I went in search of a dance venue but nobody was playing dance music, so I ended up in the lounge where they were playing “LaLa Land”, a game where the group hums songs selected by your assistant cruise director Lauren, and one person tries to guess what they’re humming. Usually it’s played in teams but we were a small group so we all played as one team, and it was hysterical and harder than you’d think, even though several of the people playing could actually carry a tune. Lauren said we were all winners and everybody got a Nieuw Amsterdam sticker.

Afterwards I joined Dave at the evening show, a “xylo-synth” player with a choreographed light show. It was lots of fun to watch and listen to, and both Dave and I enjoyed the laser organ, which had a semi-circle of lasers shining up from the floor that the performer could play music on by interrupting the beams with his hands while his wife did a dance with color changing batons. Well, you had to be there.

We were making good speed overnight – 17 knots or more – so unlike the first night the ship had some sway and vibration, so excellent sleep conditions. Also, Towel Dog!!!

Coastal Cruise Day 1 - San Diego and Sail Away

This is our ship!

Our ship did come in, but the Norwegian Jade came in first and docked on the other side of the pier. Our ship, the MS Nieuw Amsterdam, arrived around 6am, and we hung out on our balcony with Josh on his balcony and watched it come in and dock. Jen and I went to yoga while Josh worked out, and we all got cleaned up and grabbed various breakfasts. My plan for the day was to go to Balboa Park until noon, then come back and grab some lunch and get on the ship between 1:30 and 2, which would be at least 1.5 hours after boarding started but still plenty early, with the goal of avoiding standing in line. The Nieuw Amsterdam is a bigger ship than both our beloved Zaandam and Oosterdam, so crowds were a possibility.

Jen had suggested The Museum of Natural History as a compromise between her choice, the Art museum, and the other choices, aerospace and toy railroad museums. Balboa Park is cool, and they have a multi-museum pass, so it would be a fun place to spend a day if you came in early for a cruise. BUT, in San Diego the airport is so close to the cruise terminal it probably isn’t necessary to come a day early. Note to selves.

Anyway, the Natural History museum turned out to be awesome. They had a scavenger hunt and we enjoyed having it to give shape to our visit, but it’s a nearly perfect museum – lots of things to touch and crawl through and very, very short descriptions of everything which is my favorite way for museums to be. They also had the biggest hunk of tanzanite we’ve ever seen, and an ankylosaurus, which is my favorite dinosaur! We spent about an hour and a half there, which was just about the right amount of time for that museum, but a little longer than we should have stayed per my plan.

We Ubered back to Miguel’s for lunch, and there was a wait for a table that put us even more out of our timeline (we should have left the museum right after the scavenger hunt and not gone to the basement of amazement), and once we picked up our luggage and got it dropped off there was a huge line to check in. We stood in line for a couple minutes before word got passed back that we were in the Norwegian line, and once we got into the HAL line it was maybe 10 minutes before we were completely checked in and heading for our cabins. So my plan and the timing turned out to be perfect.

We split up to tour the ship, and by the time Jen and I visited our muster(d) station and got back to our stateroom all the suitcases but hers had arrived. I unpacked and then Dave unpacked, because the verandah cabins on this ship are about 30-40 sq feet smaller than the comparable Vista Suites on the Zaandam, so there’s less space to put things away in and also less space to stand in when you’re putting things away. We had a little time to relax before the Sail Away party.

We’ve never gone to the Sail Away party, because it is loud and rah-rah and that’s not usually us, but we did go this time and it turns out there was line dancing and it started with the Cupid shuffle which I learned on our last cruise, so this girl got up and boogied. A very cool woman named Barb was next to me and we had great fun.

While I was dancing everybody else went to watch us cast off, and discovered that there are almost no places on the ship where you can be outside and not glassed in. Once I found them we did more exploring and came even more to the same conclusion. We did watch the harbor pilot come off the ship onto the Pilot Boat, and while we were still on deck an F-18 zoomed by from the nearby Navy base and gave us a friendly wing-wave.

We had some relaxing time before the 3 star and above Mariner welcome party, where the champagne was free and abundant – when I waved off the second glass, the server just put it down in front of Dave. Then we had a little more resting time before dinner, and then dinner – we are at the later seating, which we may or may not change. Our table is in a nice position by the back windows and our server Arta is very chatty, but I strongly prefer the earlier dinner seating. Dave had two desserts.

After dinner Josh went to bed while the rest of us went to the magician. He was very entertaining and did a lot of tricks we’ve not seen before. The theater was pretty empty, so we’re curious to find out how many folks are on the ship.

Some extra photos from the natural history museum: