At Sea On Amsterdam, Part 2

     In addition to the main shows in the Queen’s Lounge, the Amsterdam has a number of musical groups performing in various bars & lounges.  A 3 man group called “The Neptunes” plays for dancing nightly in the Ocean bar, versatile singer-pianist-saxophonist Debbie Bacon performs nightly at the piano bar in the Rembrandt Lounge and a really talented violin-piano duo called “Adagio” plays in the Explorer’s Lounge.  The Adagios, Hungarians David & Attila, play light classics, show tunes & jazz (they are excellent improvisers).  We have listened to their 45 minute set almost every night before dinner.  The Explorer’s Lounge (there is one on every HAL ship) is a very elegant venue for interesting music.  Update:  On January 14 there was a “Jazz Night” in the Ocean Bar, in which the Neptunes really broke out & showed they were capable of first rate jazz improvisation.  This was a (pleasant) surprise to us since we had heard nothing like that when they were playing for dancing. We listened happily for an hour and a half to the Neptunes playing by themselves and with guests including clarinetist Pete Neighbor, who performed later on stage in the Queen’s Lounge, and David & Attila from Adagio

     The names of these groups are kind of a joke: most, if not all, HAL ships have a “Neptunes” & an “Adagio” duo.  On our first HAL cruise in 2012 we were entertained by the Rosario Strings (a piano-violin trio), but HAL has cut back to a duo instead of a trio on each ship (we are told it was once a quartet) and they are now required to be named “Adagio” on every ship, so that on our second HAL cruise the same pianist & violinist were now called “Adagio.”  This enforced uniformity seems pretty silly to us, but obviously we aren’t making the rules.

     The Amsterdam has two florists on staff & a refrigerated room to store flowers (which, we are told, doubles as a morgue when necessary . . . as it was one day in the South Pacific).  So the ship is full of flowers all the time.  From orchids on many of the tables in the Lido buffet to elaborate arrangements in most of the public spaces, to a small vase of flowers on the tray when you order room service, you are never far from some lovely flowers.

     Last but far from least is the food, which has been consistently delicious on this trip.  It has been great from breakfast (wonderful French Toast) to the gourmet dinners every night.  Open seating is available for the first time on a Grand Voyage, but we prefer the regular set seating with the same waiters & the same group of dinner companions every night at 8:00.  Luckily, our group has turned out to be interesting & compatible, as has happened so often before (as some of the folks reading this know from personal experience).  We were told that most passengers have opted for fixed dining.  We are seated on the upper floor of the La Fontaine dining room (again, there is one on every ship), which on this ship has a striking colored glass ceiling.  The pictures below show the La Fontaine decorated for “Black & Silver Ball” night. On gala nights Adagio plays at the top of the staircase during dinner.

     At lunch and often at breakfast we eat in the Lido buffet restaurant on Deck 8.  We always walk the 5 flights of stairs up to deck 8 to offset some of the (often excessive) calorie intake.  There is a wide variety of food available, from Asian to pizza to pasta to sandwiches & salads, to name a few.  Amsterdam has new coffee machines in the Lido (rectangular rather than round) & the coffee is much improved.  Not Starbucks, but quite a bit better than in the past.  The pizza is also much better than we have seen on other ships in the past.  Hopefully these are fleetwide improvements and not unique to Amsterdam.  Every lunchtime there is a carving station with a different kind of meat each day, & I (Rick) usually make a sandwich from that with a couple of slices of homemade bread.  There is also a sushi bar, with delicious tuna sashimi every day.  Then later in the afternoon we usually stop back for coffee & ice cream or a cookie.  No one ever starves on a cruise ship!

     There is also an upscale restaurant called The Pinnacle (you guessed it, one on every ship) where you have to pay extra to dine.  Happily, we have achieved sufficient seniority with HAL that we are charged only half price to eat there.  The food in The Pinnacle has always been a step above, and we have made reservations to eat there several times on this cruise.  Update:  Our first visit to the Pinnacle confirmed what is said above.  After consuming our crabcake appetizers, Ceasar salads prepared at the table, steaks (Rick’s a 23 oz Porterhouse) & Chocolate & Grand Marnier Volcano Cake for desert, it felt like we would not have to eat again on this cruise!

     So, enough about touring the ship, what do we do all day on a sea day?  There are a whole lot of activities on the ship but most don’t really appeal to us (such as trivia contests, lessons in dance, computers or bridge, various competitions).  We spend a lot of time reading (and one of us knitting) in the deck chairs. Although Amsterdam has a pretty good library, we have e-readers so we can carry a library in a pocket all the time.  We also attend some of the lectures & port or excursion presentations (Barbara, the travel guide on Amsterdam, who was also on the Vikings cruise with us, is particularly good). We walk around the deck every day (unless it is raining).  A mile is 3.5 times around the ship & we started at 4 laps a day & are increasing that gradually.  Then we walk up the 5 flights of steps to the Lido for lunch.  We tend to do quite a lot of walking in ports so we need to stay in shape for that (in addition to trying to avoid growing out of our clothes before trip is over). From the deck we have seen a number of interesting birds, sometimes soaring at about the same speed as the ship so they seem to be suspended in air.  One day there was a huge rainbow with a broad spectrum of colors.

     There are 14 “gala” nights on this cruise (formerly called “formal” nights) when most folks dress up & most men wear jacket & tie and many wear tuxes).  On the first gala night there was a champagne reception in the Queen’s Lounge where Captain Mercer introduced the senior staff (and the employee of the month). Captain Mercer has his own blog, which is unusual because it includes his photos from the bridge of the ship and an explanation of the navigation challenges of each port, complete with charts.

     Bringing this lengthy post to an end are some of the things we have found in our room after dinner.  Our room stewards Catur & Melpha are quite adept at making towel animals, which will be featured periodically on this blog.  And our travel agents, Cruise Specialists, gave us each a jacket & a tote bag with their special logo for this voyage, which we actually like better than HAL’s, along with a bottle of champaigne.  The next episode will (finally) be our first port.

February 1, 2016 | Categories: Around The World | 4 Comments

At Sea on Amsterdam, Part 1

       We sailed from Ft Lauderdale at about 11:00 PM on January 5, as advertised.  You will see no pictures of that because we were in bed.  Since it was dark out there probably wouldn’t have been any pictures even if we had been on deck.  We had three full sea days before reaching our first port, Puerto Limon in Costa Rica. So we explored the ship, which was new to us, and settled in to life on board.  We have been very impressed with everything about this ship so far – the ambience, the friendly & helpful staff, the management, the really excellent food and much more.  On our last cruise on a different ship much of this was decidedly less satisfactory, so we have come to the conclusion that Holland America (“HAL”) saves its best for the Grand Voyages, its longest cruises.  The difference is quite noticeable.  So welcome aboard!  

     Here are some of the ship highlights, beginning with our cabin.  We chose this cabin because of its location, near the center of the ship (more stable in high seas), with an unobstructed window, on Deck 3, the Lower Promenade deck, which is the one with an outside deck going all the way around the ship.  We are right next to a hallway opening onto the deck on both sides of the ship, & a stairway (and elevators, which we rarely use) leading to all the other decks.

       Deck 8 is the Lido deck, which houses the buffet restaurant, the swimming pool & a large open air aft deck (meaning in the back of the ship for you landlubbers), which is a great place to be when we sail away from ports.  There is a bar & a hamburger grill (the “Dive In”) by the pool, which has a retractable roof so it can be used during bad weather.  With tables & lounge chairs it is a nice place to eat or read.  There is also a stage that sometimes houses entertainment.

      The “Queen’s Lounge” is the main entertainment state.  In addition to performers, there are lectures here during the day, along with presentations about the places we are visiting & a variety of other activities.  The seating here is more comfortable than on the other Holland America ships we have experienced and it’s decoration is pretty over-the-top, with huge caryatids holding up the wall sconces.  The 5 piece Amsterdam Orchestra accompanies all entertainers, playing very diverse musical styles with little preparation, and they seem to be quite good.  So far we have seen a song & dance show by the resident singers & dancers, a singer with 2 platinum records we had not heard of, & the Finkel family.  The latter put on an excellent show: 93 year old Fyvish Finkel (who you may have seen on Boston Public or Picket Fences) sang & told jokes while the music centered on his virtuoso grey-haired sons Elliott (piano) & Ian (xylophone). 

     There is a wide variety of artwork throughout the ship.  Just around the corner from our cabin, next to the stairs, is a 19th century “Bust Of A Roman Woman,” whom we call Livia (if you have seen or read “I Claudius,” you know who we are talking about).  There are a number of paintings of old Holland America ships on the stairway landings, and other works of art too numerous to mention.  So this is just a tiny sample:

      Perhaps the most distinctive artwork on the ship, however, is the Planeto Astrolabium,” a fascinating contraption filling the the three story Atrium in the center of the ship.  It doesn’t have a regular clock face, but it has so many other things: an astrolabe on one side (showing the current star positions), a planetarium showing (presumably) the positions of the planets, a mechanical earth & moon orbiting a sun at the top, and a white face with the names of all the world’s major cities that rotates to show the current time in each (at least it does that when it is working, which it isn’t so far on this cruise).  We have seen it chime a few times, when all the gears in the top & in the floor rotate to pull strings that ring a set of bells at the top of the lowest stage of the gizmo.  No one can miss this amazing creation since it is so big & situated where everyone passes by.

   Well, this episode has already gotten pretty long and there is a lot yet to show you, so I will stop here & continue in a second posting.

January 31, 2016 | Categories: Around The World | 6 Comments

Around The World In 115 Days

On January 5 we will set sail on the Amsterdam, Holland America’s co-flagship.  It is a medium sized ship with a capacity of 1300+ (although we expect a lot fewer than that on this voyage).  The title above, obviously cribbed from Jules Verne’s book, is original in the sense that I (Rick) made it up.  Since I made it up, however, I have seen it used by several other people who independently made it up (indicating its pretty obvious & not very clever).  I considered dropping it, but what the heck . . . it’s my blog & I did think of it on my own.  So, there it is.

There should be quite a lot of interesting stuff on this voyage.  We will be going through both the Panama & the Suez canals.  We will visit lots of churches, mosques & temples.  We will see elephants & camels & kangaroos.  We will see islands, mountains, deserts & The Great Barrier Reef.  So if our ship is not scuttled by an El Nino induced cyclone, and we are not done in by pirates or terrorists along the way, we expect to be back home in May with a new appreciation of parts of the world we have never seen before & some interesting stories to tell.  Of course, many of those stories & all of our best photos will be available to all on this blog.  So welcome aboard.

Above is a map of our itinerary, & below is an easier to follow listing of the ports & sea days  (note that if you hover your mouse cursor over a picture a caption will pop up).  Of course, this is the planned itinerary; experience tells us that there will be changes along the way due to such things as weather or local political unrest.  But not too many, we hope!

No one will be shocked to learn that we will not be the first to circumnavigate the globe.  Actually, the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan was the first to complete such a journey, from 1519-1522.  Magellan didn’t make it because he was killed in a foolish skirmish with the locals in the Philippines; only one ship from his fleet with 18 survivors made it back.  We saw a monument to Juan Sebastian Elcano, the leader of those survivors, in Seville a couple of years ago.

Other circumnavigators over the centuries of whom you might have heard include:

* The first by an Englishman, Sir Francis Drake, in 1577-1580 (discovering the Drake Passage in South America)

*  The first French circumnavigation by Louis de Bougainville (after whom the flower bougainvillea is named) in 1766-1768.  His crew included Jeanne Bare, the first woman to sail around the globe, who was disguised as a man on board.

*  Captain James Cook in 1766-1771.  He actually had three such voyages, but was killed in Hawaii during the third one.  We will be visiting the sites of several of his stops in the South Pacific.

*  Teddy Roosevelt sent America’s “Great White Fleet” around the world in 1907-1909 to assert the United States’ claim as an emerging world power.

*  In 1966-1967 Sir Francis Chichester made the first solo circumnavigation of the globe, stopping in port only once.

While not technically circumnavigations, there are several other well known trips around the globe at least partly by sea that are quite entertaining.  One famous journey that didn’t actually take place, of course, was that of Phileas Fogg & his servant Passepartout in 1872, recounted by Jules Verne in Around The World in 80 Days. It is still a good read (even if you have seen one of the films) and if you have an ereader you can download a copy for free at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/103.  American journalist Nellie Bly was inspired by Verne in 1889-1890 to try to encircle the globe in 80 days and actually made it in 72, a new world record.  Her trip was an international sensation, particularly since it was quite unusual at that time for a young woman to travel alone (her luggage was limited to a single small hand bag).  In 1988 Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) set out to follow Phileas Fogg’s route as closely as possible and return in 80 days.  You can (and should) find out how it turned out by viewing his 1988 BBC documentary “Around the World in 80 Days,” available on DVD (we borrowed it from Netflix).

Last but not least (at least to us), Rick’s grandparents – Arthur & Freda Bleich – sailed around the world in 1954.  Listening to their stories about visiting Japan, Egypt, Israel & the Taj Mahal in India is what first made me (Rick) aware that such a voyage could be done & what wonders could be seen.  Of course, world cruises were a lot less common 60 years ago so this was quite exotic.  They sailed on a ship called the President Monroe from the American Presidents Line, a combined cargo & passenger ship with fewer than 100 passengers (interestingly, Monroe was also their son’s name).  The Amsterdam, which is fairly small by modern cruise ship standards with a capacity of 1380 passengers, is almost twice as long and about 9 times as heavy as the President Monroe, so times have really changed.  Here are some pictures of them on their world cruise:

They told us they were taking this ultimate trip at that time because they were in their 60’s so their travelling days were probably over.  Yet Arthur lived 20 more years & Freda lived another 50 years!  It just goes to show that you can never tell when your ability to travel will be gone; it could be over sooner or later than you anticipate.  So you have to see what you can while you can.  At least that’s our philosophy.

Anyway, that’s enough historical background (anyone familiar with this blog knows that history is one of our primary interests).  The next posting down from this is entitled “About This Blog,” which details how to go about using this website, get the most out of reading the postings & navigate its contents.  There probably won’t be a lot of content here before late January because the Internet is particularly slow & often inaccessible when crossing the Pacific.  And be prepared for the blog posts to fall further & further behind our real-time position as the trip goes on, but be assured that it will eventually be completed!

December 27, 2015 | Categories: Around The World | 11 Comments