We're Cruisin'

We flew into San Diego the day before and the hotel shuttle was waiting for us, so we got to the hotel easily and after check in it was already time to head out to dinner. We’d had good food and a good time with Josh and Jen at Queenstown Public House, so we went back there again and while the food was still good (especially the lamb skewers!) the time was not as good without J&J, which will be a bit of a theme here I’m sure.

Back to the hotel for reading and bedtime, and the next thing you know it was after 6 am and Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas (bigger than our ship, but not one of the monster ships) was pulling in. About 15 minutes later the beautiful Zaandam came into view, and we watched the sky lighten as it pulled in. Yes, our ship had come in.

Last time we went to Queenstown there was an Egg Tuck breakfast place under construction and it looked yummy. We had breakfast there this morning and are here to report that it was yummy, delicious soft scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese and a super yummy sauce in a pita-shaped piece of buttered grilled Texas toast. We split one and it was plenty of food although I would happily have eaten a whole one.

Then we headed to Ralph’s grocery to get a large bottle of hand lotion for Dave and some other sundries; note to self the CVS probably would have been a better choice for more variety. We walked back along the bay and it was already getting hot. We were hoping to find more bucket hats, but the vendors mostly weren’t open yet.

We got back to the room and grabbed a luggage cart so Dave could take all the checked bags (two medium roller bags and a very large, heavy garment bag without wheels) to the front desk where they have a stapler for attaching the HAL luggage tags. This is always an extra step and one of these times we are going to BRING A STAPLER. And not one of those mini ones, either, because they don’t do the work. With the amount of stuff we bring, it will barely be noticeable.

When Dave got back he changed into lighter weight clothes (he didn’t freeze on the airplane like I did) and it was pretty much time to walk across the street and get on the ship. Because we’re now 4 star Mariners (woohoo!!!) we get priority boarding and early cabin entry (and free laundry!), so we were through the check in process and in our room by 11:30. We had a small hiccup where they got our dining room assignment wrong, so we stood in two different lines for a while and got it taken care of. This is a pretty classic HAL move and everybody was pretty chill in line.

Lunch at the Lido was fine – not as memorable as Egg Tuck, that’s for sure, but few things are. We spent the rest of the afternoon reacquainting ourselves with the Beautiful Zaandam (we were on her for the Panama Canal and also the Vancouver-San Diego repositioning cruise) and getting our heads into cruise mode. Dave had a Portland Recorder Society board meeting, which he took from the comfort of our stateroom. Of course in the middle of the meeting our Captain had to do the testing of the emergency alarm, but that’s life on the ship.

It had been a nice leisurely day and then suddenly everything piled up. Dave’s two suitcases had arrived, but my one suitcase had not. At about 4 they had taken down the net that goes from the dock to the ship under where the suitcases are loaded in giant bins, and my suitcase still hadn’t arrived. I went out in the hall and another passenger was in the hall clearly looking for her suitcase, and then Nyoman (one of our cabin stewards, the other is Zal) came by and we asked him and he said they had probably had a problem and we should go to deck A forward. So we did and I found my suitcase had been tagged as containing a contraband power strip, which is not allowed if it has a surge protector, but it didn’t. So I grabbed it and a baggage person put it in the scanner, at which point everyone in line started yelling at me for cutting in line, which I had not realized I was doing, so I tried to get the baggage guy not to scan it but it was too late, so I apologized profusely to the people in line and they seemed to forgive me. Dave helped me do speed unpacking and we went to the bow deck which was open for the sailaway, but then we had to go to dinner to meet our tablemates who will be just fine, and then we had to rush to the 3+ star Mariner welcome, where we talked to a bunch of officers in a very weird receiving line, and then it was off to the show, which was a cello soloist playing everything from Bach to Bohemian Rhapsody. She had an excellent sparkly dress and the show was fun.

Then we were exhausted even though it wasn’t even 9:00 and we’re getting an extra hour tonight, but it has been a big day!

No towel animal. It’s a big day for the hotel staff too.

Bonus Photo: This is Captain Lewie. He will be have the riddle of the day every day, and at lunch our cruise director Dario will announce the answer. He was hanging out for photo ops while we were checking in.

Cruise note: while our cabin seems smaller than the one we had on the Nieuw Amsterdam it has a ton more storage space – we actually have a couple empty drawers! 

Cruise Note II: Google Chrome won't do photos in blogspot, but Firefox will.