Sea Day #2

Monday, April 16

Bob got up and went to walk outside right away while I took my time getting dressed. The two of us met up with Dan and Stan at breakfast. After only a couple of days we have begun to sit on the starboard side of the ship at the buffet. The restaurant isn’t very large and it makes it easy to find each other when we sit in about the same place each time.

Tim Calvert was the guest lecturer onboard. Having skipped the lecture yesterday on “Great Cruise Liners” the four of us decided to attend the 9 am talk on “Lighthouses”. The guys went on ahead to get seats while I made a side trip to the Explorations Café to pick up a latte. Bob and I both had a $25 beverage card we had received when we called to get the promotions being offered for Black Friday back in November. The card had to be activated first, but then all it took was a quick swipe and I had my latte!

After the talk, we stayed in the theater to hear the EXC Host do a slide presentation on things to see and do in Puerto Caldera and Corinto. We had independent tours scheduled for both ports but just wanted to see what she suggested doing.

As soon as the talk was finished, Bob, Danny and I went to the Crow’s Nest for BBC Earth Trivia. Bob and I had sat in on one of the BBC Earth trivia contests on our last cruise and were surprised that we knew the answers to almost every question so we went into the game confident that we would shine. Well according to Taylor, the cruise director, there are several different sets of trivia questions and he used one of the most difficult. Needless to say, we had a lousy score. We joined up with the Aussies that we had met the day before and at least they knew a couple of answers dealing with Australian animals.

For lunch, I had some pizza. I know I keep comparing everything to our cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam (NA) back in October, but this pizza just wasn’t very good. The NA would make the pizza fresh for you and give you a beeper to alert you when it was done. They also had this available in the evening…something the Zaandam could learn from. (Other than room service, there are no options to get food between 8 pm and 10:30 pm.) Bob grabbed some things from the Asian station. He thinks he has died and gone to heaven because he can get Asian food every single day.

I attended the America Test Kitchen presentation of “New Italian Favorites” while the guys went to the team trivia. I had to sit towards the back and the set up of the Wajang Theater makes it a little hard to see what was happening. Neither of the TV monitors that should have been showing a closeup of the cooking were turned on. Turns out the recipes that were prepared were some I had seen on the NA.

When I got back to the cabin around 2 pm the room steward was just then cleaning the room. I left to let him work and walked a lap around the ship. It was very windy outside and the starboard side was getting some spray off the waves.

There was a black poodle onboard as a service dog and the ship had provided a "potty station" for him at the front of the promenade deck. They even had spare sod!

I couldn’t resist a quick nap and then I changed and went up to the aft pool. With the wind and ship movement it was like being in a wave pool…in fact water was spraying out of the pool!

A couple of weeks before the cruise we found another couple through TripAdvisor who wanted to share a private tour in Corinto, Nicaragua. We exchanged emails and photos and planned to do the tour together. While I was in the pool I recognized Dick and we spent some time chatting.

During the time I was at the pool, Bob went to the BBC movie “Inside Earth: Extreme Worlds” with Stan and Danny. Having just left wintry Minnesota, I was much more excited about being outdoors in the sun!

STARTERS

At dinner I chose the French onion soup from the HAL favorites that are available each night along with shrimp jambalaya, and Caribbean rum cake with coconut ice cream. Danny went all out and had 5 desserts…and the photo promptly got posted to Facebook!

Who wouldn't be happy with all of the desserts sitting in front of them!?

I will mention that Danny chose to purchase one of the internet packages for the length of the cruise. I believe he paid $189.99 for the “Surf Plan”…the middle of the three packages. He was pleased with the speed of the service.  I checked ever now and then and as the cruise progressed, the prices dropped accordingly. Here is a screen shot from the Navigator App later in the cruise:

 

Internet packages available (taken later in the cruise.) Prices dropped as the cruise progressed.

By the time Danny had finished his five desserts <yikes!> we didn’t get to the theater until 7:45. By then all of the seats on the upper level were filled. We were able to find seats on the main level at the far side, but almost all of the seats were filled there too. Most people just got into the habit of showing up 30 to 45 minutes early and bringing a book or something to occupy the time. The evening entertainment was Matt Disero who was billed as a comedy magician. After watching I will comment that the show was more comedy than it was magic.

A full house.

Same routine after the show…back to the cabin after the show. Bob continued to watch the movie Hidden Figures while I gathered up stuff for our tour in Curacao the next day.