We woke up to a foggy morning, but it soon changed to sunny skies with some clouds later in the day. No rain. The seas had become rougher overnight due to residual swells from the waters in the Gulf of Alaska, according to Captain Michiel Willems. Hmmm, sure brings memories back from 22 years ago when we hit seriously rough waters near Dutch Harbor. We are well aware of how nasty these waters can be.
With the rolling of the sea, we slept soundly last night. We were ready for our first breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill restaurant at 8am. To our surprise, Tina from the world cruise is the manager here until November 9th. Knowing that we were arriving, she saved a space for us every evening for dinner in the Pinnacle Grill if we wish to dine there. How thoughtful that she was thinking ahead, since the ship is sold out and reservations are limited. By the way, new Pinnacle menus appeared last night with revised choices. One item missing was the halibut. The lunch menu has also changed and no longer offers the well-liked hamburger. We do appreciate that the time has come for changes in this venue.
Our orders took a while this morning because the restaurant filled with guests….all from the Neptune suites. Tina admitted that this morning was the busiest yet this summer. The breakfast menu was updated a bit, and we still get the complimentary mimosas, fresh-squeezed orange juice, cappuccino and espresso coffee.
One of us went to the front desk with a list of questions regarding our shipboard account. There were at least one dozen people in line doing the same thing. On both sides of the counter were signs announcing there were no rooms available for upsells. The staff member who helped me was patient and spent 20 minutes getting most of the questions answered. If she was not sure, she went to the back and asked someone in charge. When we do linked back-to-back voyages, we always make sure that we can carry over the credits from trip to trip. I was advised they had to make an exception in our case, and would let us know tomorrow.
I did learn that the room tips have gone up. For the inside and outside cabins, the gratuities are $17 per person per day. Vista rooms and Neptune suites are now $19 per person per day. So having a contract that includes the tips is a good deal these days. The charge for the refrigerator recently re-appeared on all of the HAL ships and is $2 a day. We will only need it for three weeks, then we will be moving to a Vista suite that already has one. Hope it works….
After our refreshing morning walk, we came back to the room to do the fine tuning. That included setting up plug strips for numerous things like clocks, camera battery chargers, Sonicare toothbrushes, a razor kit and our new little USB tower. With the Zaandam being an older ship, there are no extra plugs or USB ports on the nightstands. So one needs to be creative.
There was an invite in our mailslot for a complimentary Regional Wine Tasting at 2pm in the main dining room. Of course, we would have the chance to buy a wine package for 50% off. However, since we do not drink wine, we did not attend.
We had a light lunch at 2:30pm in the Lido with salads and shared sandwich and thin crust pizza. We had considered attending the Dutch high tea, but decided salads were a better choice. By this time there were fewer diners, but some of our favorite items were gone and not replaced. A chicken Caesar salad was a turkey Caesar salad. It worked.
There was a notice in the daily newsletter saying there may be wildlife spotting between 5 and 7pm at the Sea View Pool. Of course out here in the open waters, our best sighting had to be humpback whales. It took maybe ½ hour of watching before we started seeing those spouts in the distance. Very few were breaching or diving, but they were surface feeding. One large whale actually appeared right down where we were standing and blew its spout. We heard the noise before we saw him ski the surface. We guess it was as close as 20 feet to the aft of the ship. Doing 19 knots, we put some distance between us and the whale in a short time. We must have cut through a large pod since they were spotted on both sides of the ship. We do have Canadian pilots onboard and we are certain they are well aware of where these pods hang out. Other than the whales, we also saw some cargo ships and later on an NCL cruise ship.
This evening was the first "dressy" night and the Captain's welcome at 7:15pm in the Main Stage. Since that is in the middle of dinner service, we do not know how many would attend this brief welcome. We are still keeping away from large gatherings, so we missed this one. "Dressy" turned out to be a bit above casual. No tuxes, few suits, and mostly collared shirts. There are still fellows that arrive with baseball caps on their heads. What's with that? Oh well, each to their own we say. The menu had some nice choices with shrimp cocktails, French onion soup, Caesar salad, and fresh rolls. Mains for us were rack of lamb and the surf and turf…..tenderloin steak and shrimp (no lobster and filet mignon). Still tasty, we ended the meal with a shared strawberry sundae and a cup of coffee. We had several visitors that made certain our meal was perfect. The wait staff has been most gracious.
There was supposed to be The Step One Dance Company performing Humanity, but it had been cancelled due to rough seas. There was a substitute comedian instead. Also performing in the lounges were Cat Paz on the piano and The Band in the Ocean Bar. In the Mix, Josie Oliva played her guitar and Eli Moore played the piano later on. At 11pm, you could dance to the hits in the Crow's Nest. From what we saw on our way back to our room, all of the lounges were full of guests.
Finally, the clocks were set back one hour to be on Juneau time. We will give this hour back on our return to Vancouver. We are headed to Juneau tomorrow by 1:30pm with an early morning service stop for a tour in Tracy Arm.
Bill & Mary Ann
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