Cruise Day!
Trip Start
Apr 01, 2004
1
4
12
Trip End
Apr 11, 2004
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, United States
Saturday, April 3, 2004
We got to the Port around 12:00 and I was instantly aware of being surrounded by thousands of women! Wow! It was an amazing experience to be in the majority. A porter was immediately there to take our bags, our bottled water, a four-pack of mudslides (which we never drank and ended up giving to our steward at the end of the cruise) and a 12-pack of
Yoohoo. We saw lots of cases of beer and wine being brought on ship, but we had our Yoohoo
Chocolate covered strawberries on nightstand
. We stood in the pretty well organized lines to get our ship cards (used as a room key and to buy anything on the ship, which was then charged to our credit card) and to get our Indigo Girls tickets. We also made our Spa appointments at a very overwhelmed spa desk. After waiting for our number to be called, chatting with fellow travelers while we waited, one couple we actually had met at the airport, we were finally on the ship! Woohoo!We were onboard by 1:30, just in time to go to the Lido and get lunch. The Lido is on the 9th deck of the 10-deck ship. It's a large multi-station buffet with nearly everything made fresh to order. There's an Italian station with pasta and sauces created with ingredients that you pick, and pizzas as well as Caesar salad. A sandwiches station with all sorts of deli meats, salads and fruit. They made a great BLT. Also an Asian station with sushi (not-so-good), and stir-fry. Of course, there were lots of desserts of all different kinds. They even had a make your own ice cream Sunday bar with all sorts of toppings. The best though was the bread pudding and I normally don't like bread pudding. It was so good though and they had a yummy vanilla sauce to go on top of it. This was our introduction to the world of cruise food. Unlimited anything you wanted. Food wasn't of super high quality, but it certainly was plentiful. Out went the diet and we just ate what we wanted to
Looking up from our verandah to the Crow's nest Ba
. Lost weight too. I wish we had worn peidomoters to calculate just how many miles we walked each day. We ate at a table next to the floor to ceiling windows and watched the huge crates of luggage being loaded onto the ship. I have no idea how they manage to get the right bag to each stateroom, but somehow they do. After lunch, we went to our stateroom and were pleasantly surprised. We had a Deluxe Veranda stateroom at the very back of the ship. It was larger than I had expected with a very big verandah. On the verandah, there was room for two chairs, two lounge chairs, a footrest (which we used as a table) and a small round table. We spent a lot of time on the verandah just watching the ocean. Our room had a queen-sized bed, two nightstands, a couch, coffee table, desk and a fairly good-sized bathroom with a normal sized tub/shower combo. There were four closets, so we had ample closet space, even with our over packing.
We had each gotten each other surprise sail-away gifts and many of them were in the stateroom when we arrived. I got my wife flowers, a Holland America picture frame, a "Dam Ship" baseball cap because the ship is called the Zuiderdam and some chocolate covered strawberries. Not all of My wife's gifts to me had arrived, but what was there was a large gift basket full of delicious snacks, two personalized bottles of wine, and a personalized bottle of jellybeans
Our verandah. Cat Am aft stateroom
. More gifts arrived just about daily. She's so sweet. We also met our cabin steward, Mastaur, who was very nice and helpful to us. He's from Indonesia, as are most of the stewards. The staff is hired to be on the ship for a full year and work 12 hour days, six days a week. There's a ridged seniority system, which people are locked into for the full year. The front desk staff is mostly Asian women, the bar staff is mostly Phillipino men and women, the spa staff are mostly from Germany, with a few Americans and the restaurant staff either Hungarian or Indonesian. Interesting cultural divisions. Despite the not-so-great working conditions, the entire staff was so pleasant to us, without any weird vibes or odd looks. They were just great. Olivia also had a help desk by HAL's front office and they were always available to answer any questions or respond to any concerns.
We were too excited to unpack, so we headed out to explore the ship. Of course, we had no map and no idea where anything was, so we just walked around and ooh'ed and ahh'ed. People were still arriving, so it was a little chaotic, but the excited energy in the air was so much fun.
Then came the announcement for the mandatory life jacket drill
Table and Desk with snacks
. We hustled back to our cabin and after a good 10 minutes of searching, found the life jackets on top of the closets. I couldn't quite figure out how to put mine on correctly, even with the video playing constantly on the tv in our room, but a crew member strapped me into it. I don't remember life jackets having quite so many snaps and ties. The crew got a little frustrated with us all, because trying to keep 1850 women quiet for 15 minutes proved to be impossible. We were all too excited to be there and make new friends, even during the life jacket drill, that to stop socializing was very difficult. Finally they freed us and we all trooped back to our cabins to drop off the life jackets. At 5pm, we sailed out of Ft. Lauderdale and enjoyed the sail away party. By then, we'd started drinking the "Drink of the day" which on Saturday, was vodka, cherry brandy, orange and cranberry juice. It tasted like fruit punch kool-aid and was dangerously good. I think that nearly all 1850 women were at the back of the ship for the sail away party. There was great music, food being passed around, a comedian to tell us some of the rules of the ship (don't sit on the toilet while you flush, because the vacuum suction will remove your tonsils) and of course, a conga line. We got into a conversation with some women out on their verandah one deck below us who were enjoying the party without the crowd
Verandah below ours
. They passed us up a bottle of champagne for us to enjoy with them. Lots of merriment ensued as we waved to people on shore and watched the port slowly receded into the distance.We had reservations at 8pm for the ship's special restaurant, The Odyssey. The Odyssey served "Pacific Northwest" cuisine. Basically, lots of really good beef and seafood dishes. Even though we were eating later, we wanted to meet our tablemates at our scheduled dining time of 6pm. We had been thinking about switching to the later seating, but after meeting them, we decided they were way too much fun for us to switch. Plus we had a great table right at the window with a beautiful view of the sunset over the water.
After meeting and chatting with our new friends, we headed off for the Odyssey. It's a very elegant restaurant and the night we went was surprisingly uncrowded. We both got a tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil salad for an appetizer. I had debated on the crab cakes, but went with the salad instead. I wish I had gone with the crab cakes. The tomatoes, while beautiful and huge, were crunchy and unripe. Bummer. However, that was the only not-so-good thing we had. I got a delicious steak and lobster combo with a nice fluffy baked potato and asparagus. My wife got lamb shanks, creamed spinach and scalloped potatoes
Wine anyone?
. For dessert, I had their famous Volcano Cake. It's a very warm molten chocolate soufflé over which you glop your own whip cream and the whole thing just oozes together. Blissful. My wife had baked Alaska, which was fun to watch go up in flames. We waddled out of the Odyssey and back to our cabin to unpack and recover. We also sent some clothes out to be pressed or cleaned-n-pressed and didn't see them again for three days. However, we set out our riding boots to be cleaned and polished and we got them back within a couple of hours.
I think we wandered the ship some more as we tended to do that every night. We were pretty tired and after watching the wake from the verandah, went to bed relatively early.
