Sea Day - April 29

Monday, April 29, 2024

This sea day turned out to be somewhat unique. The daily activities offered on the ship certainly weren't anything different. The list was almost identical to what we had seen four days prior on our last sea day. Just some examples of what was available...

• Coffee with CD Stone (yes, we were surprised that a new cruise director, Stone, appeared at the beginning of this four day cruise segment to replace Erin!)
• Adventures with Water Color (Rose would be repeating her same directions word for word)
• A City on the Sea (the same presentation we had just seen showing how all of the different departments function on the ship)
• The Art of Flower Arranging (been there, done that)
• Cake Me Away (same cakes, same "no sugar added" layers of fluff)
• Origin Story (only difference is this time it was offered in the middle of the afternoon instead of as the main evening entertainment)

Based on this list, I don't remember anything that we did that morning. And from the following photo, I think the four of us parked ourselves on "our private deck" like a bunch of senior citizens (which we are!) and just enjoyed the journey. 

This photo was taken at 9:30 am. What an energetic bunch! 😄

This is the view looking across "our private deck". The outdoor stairway leads up to the Lido Deck (so handy!!) or down to a slightly larger public deck below on deck 6.

So what was different? With rough seas in the forecast on our way to Seattle, the captain put his foot on the gas peddle and made it to the protected waters between Vancouver Island and the mainland MUCH earlier than planned. That meant we had to then slow down and kill time otherwise we were going to arrive in Seattle far too early. 

Lunchtime at the buffet. Another "Cake Me Away" extravaganza!

Looking out the window at lunch we saw a pilot boat come alongside the Zaandam. 

Why a pilot on a sea day? Because the captain parked the ship off of the coast near the city of Port Angeles and dropped anchor. There we sat for hours. 

Photo from: OnTheWorldMap.com

Because of the long breakwater, the Zaandam sat peacefully in the water all afternoon rather than rocking and rolling in the rough seas. Someone on our cruise Facebook group jokingly suggested that passengers should demand tenders to visit Port Angeles since we were so close.

Bob, Jon and Michelle took advantage of the stable ship and played pickleball in the afternoon (or at least until the wind picked up.) 

After dinner we enjoyed another performance from Mark Donoghue. From The Daily newsletter: Multi-Instrumentalist, vocalist, arranger and composer Mark Donoghue brings a fresh, modern edge to his own original interpretations of rock and pop classics.

And if the Cake Me Away extravaganza at lunch wasn't enough sugar for one day, the evening ended with the Chocolate Surprise. We sat and listened to the guitar soloist (sorry didn't get her name) in The Mix bar and then at 9:30 the waiters came rushing through with trays of several different kinds of chocolate treats...chocolate covered raisins, chocolate almonds, chocolate rice krispy treats, etc. They came in several different waves and there was no shortage of the chocolate goodies.