Catching a Glimpse of Canada

 Friday, May 8 - Victoria

Last night was probably the best night's sleep of the cruise. No emergencies during the night, no alarm clock in the morning and no pressing reason to get out of bed. Pulling back the curtains showed no land in sight. The navigation channel on the TV plotted our location on the western side of Vancouver Island.

Bob and I went to breakfast together in the buffet and then he headed off for his "On Deck for a Cause" 5K walk on the promenade deck. For $25, he got a t-shirt and a wrist band. The money collected was going to support Ukrainian refugees.

I used the quiet time in the cabin to shower and begin packing. All of our recent cruises have been at least 14 days so a week-long cruise seemed very short.

The Norwegian Sun sailed past during the morning. Our last cruise to Alaska was on this ship.

At 10:00 I went to the main stage for the captain's virtual behind the scenes tour of the bridge followed by a Q & A session. The questions were screened in advance so most were the usual questions like "How much fuel does the ship use?", "How fast does the ship go?", etc. The captain did talk about the emergency alarm during the night and spoke about how well all of the crew are trained to deal with such emergencies. He said they have regularly scheduled drills each week but every 3 months they are required to have a surprise drill. He laughed and said the middle of the night alarm would qualify for their surprise drill.

Bob joined me in the theater about half way through the captain's presentation. We stopped at the gift shop after leaving the theater to figure out how to use up the rest of our onboard credit. The day before Bob had bought a pair of gloves and a neck tie but still had a sizeable sum left over. After a lot of searching, he got an Alaska themed water bottle and a hooded fleece shirt. I looked for some gifts for our grandkids, but there was almost nothing for children in the shop. We only left $1.07 in our account so we did pretty good with the "use it or lose it" money.

It was a good thing we stopped to shop when we did. An announcement was made that the gift shops would be closing at 1:00 pm when the ship would no longer be in international waters. The shop was so crowded that I suspected many other passengers were also using up that last bit of credit they might have had. There was no "last day t-shirt sales" that we have experienced on other cruises.

Bob made an attempt at his packing until it was time for lunch. At 2:00 pm we went to hear the naturalist, Kainoa, talk on Alaska explorers which was interesting.

Bob wanted to attend the concert "Masterworks by Brahms" at 3 pm at the Lincoln Center Stage. I noticed an activity at the same time called "Adult Coloring" was being held in the Digital Workshop, right next to the Lincoln Center Stage and thought it sounded interesting. On a previous cruise I had attended a digital art session that I enjoyed and I assumed this would be similar. But it wasn't.

In the past, Holland America has had a partnership with Microsoft and each ship had a room filled with computers where classes were held. I assume that was what this room had been used for previously. But there were no computers now...just tables and chairs. I was confused so I asked the guy sitting in the back of the room if I had the correct location for the adult coloring class. Without saying anything, he just pointed to a box of colored pencils and several stacks of childish color book pages on a side table. So...I picked out a picture of a mother bear and her cubs and sat down and started coloring! A few other people walked in after me and questioned whether there was a DIGITAL art class as well (which one would assume when the location was called the "digital workshop".) What a weird activity. The room was eerily quiet and everyone just colored. With a name like "adult coloring" at least no one came expecting X-rated art! 😏

I tried to make a decent attempt at my art (er...coloring) but kept thinking "why am I spending my last day of the cruise doing this?!" I was careful to stay inside the lines when I colored and finished the picture as quickly as I could. (My five year old grandson even complimented me on the picture after we got home.) 

My masterpiece. I could have used some different shades of green for my trees. 😏

We finished the last of our packing and hung out in the room until it was time to go to dinner. I was hoping to see some more whales, but none appeared. It was well after 6 pm when we got to the buffet and we didn't make any effort to hurry so we missed the 7 pm show on the Main Stage. It was to be the musical production show "In Tandem". Since we would be docking in Victoria at 8:00, the show would not be repeated at 9 pm as it usually was, but a movie would be shown instead. 

I am sorry now we did not make more of an attempt to attend the 7 pm show. I wasn't thrilled with the dance show we had seen earlier in the week and assumed this one would be the same. But I might have been wrong. YouTuber Don Terris put out a video raving about the HAL entertainment on the Rotterdam and mentioned that some of the shows feature singers from BB King Blues Club or Billboard Onboard. I missed the live vocals at the show we attended so might have enjoyed those more. Here is a link to Don's video: Holland America Entertainment 

The Eurodam docked in Victoria, Canada at 8:00 pm. Originally we were to arrive at 6 pm which would have given us time to explore a bit. With the later arrival we decided to just stay onboard. It appeared most others did too. An announcement was made that passengers going on shore needed their passports, their completed ArriveCAN app and masks. 

Docked next to us was the Majestic Princess. The Norwegian Bliss followed us into port and docked on the other side. Passengers on those ships probably looked at the Eurodam with pity since we had none of the fancy stuff available to them...water slides, fountains, outdoor movie screens, go carts, laser tag, etc. But different strokes for different folks. I love the smaller HAL ships and probably would not use any of the features listed above. I wonder if either of those ships offer "adult coloring!" 😆

Norwegian Bliss coming in to dock at Victoria.

Majestic Princess

Bob and I walked around the upper decks of the Eurodam and noticed two ambulances pull up to the ship once the gangplank was in place. Paramedics entered the ship pushing a gurney and returned with a female patient. She was propped up in a sitting position wearing an oxygen mask. None of the paramedics or others helping were wearing any protective clothing (other than masks) so my conclusion was that this was not a Covid case. The lady was loaded into one of the ambulances. A crew member came out of the ship pushing a wheelchair loaded with luggage and it was put into the 2nd ambulance. (Wonder what the charge for that would be?)

Our second port where we have been met by emergency vehicles.

After the patient was loaded into the first ambulance, the luggage was loaded into the second.

I wonder if these passengers were ending their cruise in Victoria.

Our last sunset.

The movie, Lost City with Sandra Bullock, was being shown in the Main Stage Theater at 9 pm rather than a second performance of "In Tandem" by the dancers. We still hadn't received our luggage tags for the Port Valet service and I was concerned enough that we stopped by guest services on our way to the movie. I had made reservations online several weeks earlier and was assured by guest services that I didn't need to fill out any additional paperwork on the ship. Well...the ship hadn't received our info for Port Valet. Luckily they said there was still time to get our information submitted so I filled out the form right then at the guest services desk. 

The movie was OK, but I was concerned enough about the luggage tag issue that I left halfway through and went back to our room. I breathed a sign of relief when I saw the envelope with our luggage tags in our cabin mailbox. Knowing we had until midnight to get our luggage set out in the hallway put my mind at ease enough that I returned to the theater to watch the remainder of the movie.

In addition to being convenient, the Port Valet program does not charge any extra fees for overweight baggage. That makes packing much easier! It was about 11:30 pm when my bag was finally packed, locked, tagged and set out in the hallway. I went to bed with my fingers crossed that our luggage would show up in Minneapolis as planned. Our Port Valet info also had us scheduled to depart the ship around 8 am with "group C".  Our flight wasn't until early afternoon so I would have preferred to wait until later to leave the ship. 

We set the alarm for 6:15 am and went to bed for a short night's sleep.