Day 2

The Endless Cruise

Today is day two of our 128 day cruise.  I remember our first Alaska cruise in 1998 which was only seven days, but that seemed like a very long cruise at the time.  Later in 2006 I took a 28 day cruise which seemed absolutely endless.  Now starting out on a 128 day cruise the end date is so far in the future that the cruise seems endless.  

Room service breakfast is how we typically start our day and it was delivered promptly as usual.  Breakfast was exactly as ordered, tasty and hot. 

TEXAS HOLD’EM CANCELED

The Casino cage opens at 9 AM and I was down there a few minutes before to sign up for the Texas Hold’em tournament which would start at 11 AM.  On previous cruises people would line up an hour before opening to ensure their spot as the tournaments filled up quickly.  Today I was the only person to sign up once the casino opened.  I would find out later that only three people signed up which is not enough to have a game.  

The games require a $60 buy for the 11 o’clock game and $100 for the game at 1:00 PM.  While this price point may work on the Caribbean cruise circuits, I don’t think the World Cruise passengers will be participating in too many $100 Texas Hold‘em tournaments.  I could be proven wrong, time will tell.  

Live dealers for Texas Hold‘em are a thing of the past on Holland America ships, including the Amsterdam.  They do have a new automatic poker table which we had a chance to see demonstrated.  It has a better presentation than ones I’ve seen in the past so I remain cautiously optimistic that things will work with the poker tournaments as the cruise goes on.

CRUISE CRITIC MEET AND GREET

A massive crowd assembled at 10 AM in the Crow’s Nest for the Cruise Critic Meet and Greet.  There was easily over 150 people.  There were no representatives from the ship’s officers or crew which is the norm on all ships nowadays.  

Kathi, aka Scrapnana, opened the meeting with a few announcements and discussed a potential slot pull and cabin crawl.  She also provided a big thank you to Mary Anne, aka MamSam, who did a fantastic job putting together the pre-cruise photo book.  

Another passenger arranged to have pens delivered to everyone’s cabin that were labeled 2020 Grand World Voyage which was very nice.  

The meeting was over in 20 minutes but people lingered for another half an hour as old friends caught up with people they knew from earlier cruises. 

OCEANS – THE REAL LUNGS OF THE WORLD

As there was no Texas Hold ‘em tournament at 11 o’clock I wandered up to the main stage to catch the lecture by botanist Ginny Stibolt who was speaking on the topic “Oceans the Real Lungs of the World”.  It was very well presented and interesting for those with an interest in the subject matter at hand.  I only stayed for a few minutes before moving on.. Judy stayed for the entire lecture and enjoyed it very much. 

LUNCH IN THE LIDO MARKET

For lunch in the Lido Market the custom sandwich bar replaces the pasta bar.  It is only available on the World Cruise.  It may be on other Grand Voyages as well, but I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of that.  If others know if the sandwich bar is available on other Grand Voyages please leave me a comment below.  We have come to enjoy the custom salad bar where the staff will prepare a very nice fresh salad per our requests from the available ingredients. 

MICRSOFT STUDIO

All Holland America ships offer “Microsoft Studio” which is an instructor led collection of classes on various Microsoft products.  Today’s topic was on the program “OneNote” and taught by Microsoft Studio instructor Claudia.  

While I have been using “OneNote” for years I always enjoy these classes as I inevitably learn something new.  I arrived exactly at the scheduled starting time and there were still two seats available.  The classes last about 45 minutes and each student has a laptop at their station.  Claudia also offers what they referred to as Studio Time which is an open session where you can come and use the classroom laptops and she will be available for consultation and one on one tutoring.  They don’t officially support Apple products but they are usually able to offer some help nevertheless.  

OneNote

I use OneNote to plan my trips and I have established a OneNote notebook for this World Cruise.  Each port is a different section which contains all of my emails, travel notes, tour confirmations, etc.  I used to print all this information out and put it into a large binder but now I’m totally paperless except for a few copies of items where it’s required to have a hard copy of the tour ticket.  Another benefit is that my entire cruise OneNote notebook is now synchronized between our cell phones which means I have access to all the data wherever we may be as internet access isn’t needed once the notebook is synchronized. 

GUEST SERVICES aka INTERNET CAFE

The lines for guest services have been fairly long over the last day and a half and I think they might want to rename Guest Services – ‘Internet Services’.  It seems that many of the queries have revolved around people struggling to get logged into the ships Internet system.  One of the changes from my earlier Holland America cruises is that you no longer establish a separate username and password for this ship and voyage.  You must log into the Holland America App using your land based account username and password.  This probably caused some confusion as people may have had old usernames and passwords still populating their login fields.  Also if you did not have a Holland America land-based account or if your travel agent ran it for you, then you needed to establish an account or refresh yourself with how to log in. 

We were able to log into our accounts easily and so far the internet service and speed has been fabulous.  Much of the quality of the internet is location dependent and being in the Caribbean typically gives us faster connection speeds since we are sailing below a large number of satellites that service all of the ships in the area.  Once we venture off the beaten path near Antarctica and in the Southern Pacific we may get slower service since the number of satellites in our area will be less. 

Judy and I have both signed up for their Premium Package which allows us to stay logged on for most of the day since the Internet is no longer allocated by connection time but by the amount of data used.  Being able to stay connected allows us to use messaging apps like WhatsApp or IMessage to communicate. 

SECURITY CONFISCATED ITEMS

Next to the front desk some luggage was located in the “penalty box” labeled as SECURITY CONFISCATED ITEM.  As you can see from the picture below, there was a handful of suitcases tied together awaiting passengers to claim them and explain what probably appeared to be contraband on the x-ray machine.  I’ve never noticed luggage that would normally be held in what some call the “naughty room” displayed so publicly.  

PHOTO SERVICES

The ships photographers, four of them, have offered several packages.  There is one called “All-Inclusive” where you get a copy of every picture that you are in, including digital files on a USB stick, for $549.  They also offer a taste of candid moments for $80 which gives you five candid photographs with the digital versions for an extra $10.  A 5 photo formal set is $160 with an extra $10 required to get digital copies.  Black Label photography is not offered on the World Cruise. 

They plan to run two photo contests which will be judged by selected officers.  In the past some photo contests have been selected through passenger voting.  We preferer the winner being decided by a panel of the officers as this avoids people establishing lobbying campaigns to vote for their favorite.

CRAFTS

Nancy Grace is once again leading the Craft Class held at 2:30 in the Lido Market.  We stopped by to check out the crowd.  About 100 people were ready to go.  This class has proven to be so popular on previous cruises that they contemplated giving out tickets to avoid long lines and people queuing up hours in advance.  Here is a copy of the projects for the entire cruise and this will also be a permanent link on my World Cruise reference page section which you can find from a drop-down menu on the front page of this blog.  

MAIN DINING ROOM

Attendance at late seating continues to be very light.  We had a chance to speak with one of the managers and he told us that main seating is roughly half full but that every table on Early Seating, and those on Open Seating, are filled by 7 PM.  

In an effort to increase attendance at the late shows they moved up the starting time to 9:30 PM instead of 10 PM.  This requires those at Main Seating to be prompt with their dinners to arrive at the theater on time.  So far this hasn’t been a problem and we finished our dinner this evening by 9:10 PM.  

ON THE MAIN STAGE

Tonight’s show, “On Tour” was performed by the Holland America singers and dancers.  It was a collection of pop hits performed by two female vocalists and two male vocalists, accompanied by three female dancers and three male dancers.  They were joined by the always outstanding Holland America Orchestra consisting of musical director Michael on piano, Connor on keyboards, Grahame on drums, Emilio on the guitar, Tyler on bass guitar.

The show was wonderful and the quality of the dancing and singing continues to be outstanding.  The Amsterdam is the last of the Holland America ships to have a traditional cast crew and we’re looking forward to seeing their performances over the next four months.  

THE CROWS NEST

After the show we stopped by the Crow’s Nest where the Station Band was playing a variety of pop tunes.  There was probably a half dozen people on the dance floor with another dozen or so in attendance sitting around the bar or in the lounge chairs 

While chatting with the bartender we learned that plastic straws are no longer available on the Amsterdam.  They will be using paper straws now and straws made from pasta later on.

PILLOW GIFTS

Back in the room we were greeted by the first of many pillow gifts.  This consisted of two messenger bags, two moleskin pocket planners, and a pocket-sized key cardholder.  There were not any towel animals this evening.