Day 108 – At Sea

Day 108 – At Sea – April 22

The guests for Coffee Chat this morning were three members of the band Savannah Jack: Don Gatlin – lead vocals, Jay Smith – fiddle and Kenny Ames – bass guitar. The front man for the group, Don Gatlin, took most of the questions. Don is from Nashville and the other members of the group are from Fredericksburg, VA and Farmington, Maine. Don has written songs for Kenny Rogers, and his group has been the warm-up act for Kenny Rogers on some of his tours. Toward the end of the interview, Don sat at the piano and played a nice rendition of Barry Manilow’s Mandy.

Mariner Society Lunch

Today was the Mariner Society lunch, hosted by Captain Mercer and Hotel Director Henk Mensink, where we would receive ceramic tiles emblazoned with an image of the ms Amsterdam. There were two luncheons today, one at 11 AM and the other at 12:30 PM. We were in the first group at 11 AM.

Even though we arrived about 5 minutes early, we were among the last to be seated. One thing you’ll find on World Cruises is that many people arrive at least 30 minutes before the scheduled starting time for any event. They handled the seating much like they do for lunch or breakfast. Everyone is seated at empty tables as they arrive starting with the lower level and those closest to the door and then working their way around. Our seats were on the upper level.

Here is a picture of a typical table. I’ve included a copy of the menu on the blog, you can find a copy of it HERE along with the invitation.

We were seated with two other couples and had a pleasant conversation. It’s always interesting that as long as we been on the cruise there are still many people that we’ve never spoken to and in many cases, we don’t recognize from our wanderings around the ship. Most people tend to get into a routine and it’s quite easy that you’ll never cross paths with people who dine at a different time or go to different venues.

We both picked the Filet Mignon with the shrimp. While we are waiting to be served the Future Cruise Consultants, Lynn and Larry, made a few brief remarks, followed by Hamish who led us in a toast. From where we were seated we couldn’t see the people speaking because they were on the first floor of the dining room. I walked around to the other side of the upper level and was able to take the following video of the toast and give you an overview of the dining room.

Once the toast was over the official party left and didn’t join any of the tables.

As usual on Holland America, the food was very good, and we were finished and on our way about 12:15 PM.

LCR

Before dinner, everyone at Table 303, all 10 of us, assembled in Rick’s Neptune Suite where we played another round of a dice game called LCR which stands for Left, Center, Right. More about the game HERE.

LCR is a simple game, requiring no skill and be can learned to play in about 30 seconds. The game consists of three dice. Each die has three dots in addition to the letters L, C and R. Everyone gathers around a table and there is no limit to the number of players. Each person starts with three chips or three $1 Bills depending on whether you want to use real money. The gameplay consists of each person rolling three dice. If an L, C, or R appear that person passes one chip in the direction indicated either Left, Center or Right. Chips that are passed to the left or the right remain in play as they are now in the possession of another person. But once the chips are passed into the center they form the pot which will ultimately be won by the last person to have any chips remaining.

The play continues clockwise with each person rolling as many dice as they have chips remaining, up to a maximum of three. We added a twist that when a person rolled three dots meaning you didn’t transfer any of your chips, everyone took a drink from their beverage of choice. The game continues in this fashion until only one person has any chips left. Repeating her win from our previous games of LCR, Judy again won the last game.

We had a great time playing the game as well as enjoying the camaraderie of everyone from our table. We played until it was time to go to dinner when we proceeded down to the main dining room for another wonderful meal.

Monster Cut

One of the featured items on the menu this evening was the prime rib which is usually pretty good. People often ask for a small piece or a small cut and sometimes the menu even mentions that there is only one size available. I asked our waiter, Deden, for a monster cut. When our meals arrived, he didn’t disappoint and you can see in the following picture the size of my prime rib which was quite tasty.

Suzanne Godfrey

Suzanne Godfrey was the featured entertainer this evening in the Queen’s Lounge. She plays the flute and put on an amazing performance featuring such songs as the theme from the Pink Panther, The Penny Whistle Jig, the famous song from the movie Frozen, “Let it Go” and a classic from the movie Titanic, “My Heart Will Go On”.