Sunday, October 29 – Wasted Efforts Another sea day started in fog, according to the captain, but the sky was only a bit cloudy and the sun was bright enough that the MDR curtains were still drawn on our side of the ship when we went for breakfast. The Atlantic was so smooth that the only motion we could detect was the Veendam’s wake. It was as if we were standing still. When we returned to the cabin after breakfast, we found that the stewards had not cleaned it for the day, so we took our tablets and the NYT puzzle in search of a place to work. After several false starts, we ended up in the Explorer’s Lounge, a space frequently used for concerts by a piano-violin duo. This morning, it was empty when we got there but became busier when a group traveling with Cruise Specialists used it for a meet-and-mingle. MA didn’t even notice their presence, and we worked on our respective copies of the puzzle until we were bleary-eyed. Once again, the room had not been made up when w
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Saturday, October 28 – Pont Delgada Today, we are in Ponta Delgada, another port on another of the Azores. On the map, we are less than two inches from Horta, but the captain managed to kill more than 12 hours getting here. Apparently, he “circled the airport” all night. Although larger than Horta’s island, this one is still a volcanic rock in the middle of the Atlantic. These islands are, in fact, simply the tops of undersea mountains. We can see low hills surrounding the port but no jagged peaks. Exposed as they are on all sides, they have been worn down by eons of rain and wind. This does not mean the hills fronting the harbor are not steep – there are stairs instead of sidewalks connecting the streets which parallel the harbor. Even with the stairs, the climb can be very tiring. Pont Delgada is Horta all grown up. It is more of a real city albeit small. Horta feels more like a village that is still growing. Most of the buildings exhibit the old local archite
Friday, October 27 – Land at Last We are having a dispute, here in Cabin 584, regarding how many times we have been to Horta. Without our journals, we cannot resolve the question. One of thinks we have been here just once; the other says have been here often. What is indisputable is that we have missed this port more often than we have visited. Horta is a port on one of the Azores, islands rising out of the Atlantic far off the coast of Africa. Although they are territories of Portugal, they islands have their own culture and architecture. Like West Virginia, they get more money from the federal government than they contribute, money used for capital improvements like roads and the clean-up from the 1957 volcanic eruption. This is the other side of the political battle in Spain where Catalonia complains that it contributes more than it receives. We’ll get to test the sentiment in Catalonia when we stop in Barcelona. When we visit Ponta Delgada tomorrow, it will lo
Monday, October 23 – Wednesday, October 25 -- More of the same And, indeed, it was. We followed the usual sea-day routine of breakfast in the MDR [with Roy practically hovering over us], reading and trivia. One change which has been instituted is that the start time for trivia is different from any cruise we have taken. Going back to at least 2009, the team trivia has been before lunch. In fact, we played at 10:30 on Saturday. Now, however, the competition begins a 1:00 which makes it nigh onto impossible to eat in the MDR and still get to the Crow’s Nest on time. Another couple with whom we have been talking at trivia missed the game today for that very reason. Because lunch is important to them, we may never see them again. For us, it means eating lunch in the Lido buffet at 1:30 or so which is no big deal. If we get breakfast around 9, an early lunch is too much – we are still remembering breakfast – so the later lunch is actually better for us. It certainly impr
Sunday, October 22 – The Van Winkles meet the Veendam It was a smooth night with very little to let us know that we were on a ship instead of dry land. We stayed in bed late but still got to the MDR in plenty of time. MA decided to try for the egg-white, goat cheese and basil omelet this morning. We were not able to get a table in Roy’s section and our waiter was a little flustered with the order. MA even spelled basil for him. Soon enough, Roy came over to assure us that it would be done right and then delivered it himself once it was ready. It must have contained an entire basil plant [or two]. This was a far cry from the days on the Amsterdam when it would appear with spinach or parsley and cream cheese. Score one for the kitchen and Roy. This was such a stressful event that we went back to the room, worked on the Sunday crossword puzzle and then took a long nap. We arose in more than enough time for 1:30 trivia but should have stayed in bed for all the success we
Saturday, October 21 – At Sea Boarding a HAL ship is often like a homecoming. We have seen other passengers who look familiar and some we have toured with on previous cruises. Last night, we were surprised during dinner when last year’s waiter popped up from behind a serving station. We don’t know how Roy knew we were on board, but it was a pleasant surprise. He is working the dinner shift in another part of the MDR, but we expect we will see him frequently at breakfast. In fact, he came to check on us this morning and even remembered MA’s fondness for basil in her omelets, so much so that he came back with a sprig of fresh basil as a joke. Even the other waiters now know about the basil. Today will set the pattern for the sea days – breakfast in the MDR; the NYT crossword; Facebook update; journal writing and publishing; and trivia at noon. Lunch following trivia, reading and the requisite SCAN will round out most days. Trivia was decidedly low-key rather than the
Friday, October 20 -- Off we go In the words of the immortal Yogi Berra, it’s déjà vu all over again. Last year, we took HAL’s Atlantic Adventurer from Ft. Lauderdale to Ft. Lauderdale by way of Greece. This year, we are taking substantially the same cruise on a different ship, the Veendam, not the Rotterdam. And it is a week longer, so we won’t be home until December 8. It was all too easy today, especially compared to some of the nightmarish embarkation days we have suffered at Port Everglades. We drove to the off-site parking facility we always use, unloaded the luggage and were on the shuttle to the ship in under 10 minutes. Once the bags were off-loaded at the terminal, we breezed through check-in and were on board the Veendam, again, in about 10 minutes. We dropped our carry-on bags in the cabin and went to the Main Dining Room [herein after called the MDR] for lunch. In deference to Jon, we will omit the details. From lunch, we went forward to the showroo