Just for Joy: Day 4 Zaandam Repositioning Cruise

A day on shore & a chance to rest! The day started early – I was going to say bright and early, but it was still dark when we got up and moving. Sweaters and down jackets for watching our entry into San Francisco Bay. There ship was mostly deserted as we made our way to the secret deck on 6 forward, but be were soon joined by Laura and Larry and Pam (or Pat?) the weight lifter from my gym class yesterday and lots of other folks. It was a little foggy and the sun was rising right behind the bridge, so the pictures aren’t the best, but the experience of cruising into a city you know pretty well was a new one for us and we liked it a lot. More about that later.

Afterwards I went for a long breakfast in the dining room with a table full of nice folks. When I got back to the cabin we were both feeling ready to get off the ship, so we walked over to fisherman’s wharf and did the tourist thing for a while. We found some orange bandanas for Orange night. We went back to the ship and dropped off the bandanas, then headed in the other direction to the Ferry Building to have lunch with Ben & Joan & Avery & Hannah. They were wearing the dresses which I’d gotten them for their birthdays, which are very cute & made me feel good. The paper fans I brought for them were successful as well. We had lunch at Gott’s, and then headed over to the Exploratorium.

Portland’s OMSI is rated as one of the least good science museums in the country; the Exploratorium has to be one of the best. Each exhibit is hands (or eyes, or ears, or whole body) on, and each one has something fascinating. My favorite things were the monochromatic room, which was lit by low pressure sodium lights that made everything look like it was printed in gray scale until you shone a white light on it, and the revolving red-and-white ribbons that we stood inside of that made it feel like you were spinning, but without the nausea. Well, mostly. As usual it was too much fun to remember to take pictures, and as usual we barely made a dent in the museum. We’ve decided next time we need to go in the other direction!

The Klau family escorted us back to the ship. At lunch Avery had expressed some concern about our ship sinking like the Titanic, and I’d reassured her that unlike the Titanic we had plenty of lifeboats and that she’d see them when she saw the ship. I think sure she wasn’t fully reassured, because she had Dave point out our lifeboat. We did remember to get a picture, fortunately.

Back to the ship where it was nap time for me and reading on the Promenade for Dave. It was our dinner at the Pinnacle, which Dave had set up for 7:00 instead of our usual 5:00 fixed seating. I’d been ambivalent about going, but the food was very good and Dave’s “Stroopwaffle Cobbler” turned out to be more of a deconstructed brownie sundae which made him very happy.

After dinner we headed up to the Orange Party, where we arrived at the end of the officers vs guests music trivia night which seemed to be mostly made up of officers having fun and dancing, which was fun to watch. Apparently the officers once again beat the guests, except the guests won the bonus points by creating “the longest Conga line ever seen on the Zaandam”. Dave and I helped. I don’t know if that actually made the guests win because everyone was laughing too hard to care. Then it was time to do the Cupid Shuffle and a Dutch line dance that we learned on the fly. The picture of me is blurry but I’m pretty sure you can feel the joy.

A few bonus photos: