Day 09 11/29/21 - At Sea to FLL - 1

Overnight and all day we continued to sail at 23.5 mph.  Generally speaking it was a lazy day at sea.  We got up late but made it to the Lido for breakfast.  Afterwards, I spent time in the Crow's Nest updating my blog until the 1pm Port to Table cooking demonstration by the head chef VJ and CD Rebecca.  Today's topic was jerk cooking. Immediately following that was a free wine tasting for 4 & 5 star Mariners featuring relatively expensive and highly rated Italian wines.  None really impressed us.

 

While I skipped lunch, some Dutch café split pea soup helped tide me over until our 5pm dinner reservation in the Canaletto Italian restaurant.  We shared small portions and it was good.

 

Tonight's entertainment was a Main Stage combination performance of Billboard hits by the pianists from Billboard and the singer from BBKing and the dancers from One Step Dance Company.  It was a powerful combination on this large stage with terrific graphics.

 

Afterwards we watched the Seattle-Washington Monday night football game in the Lido pool area. Unfortunately the Seahawks lost.

 

As we come to the end of the cruise, I need to note I've had a number of billing issues with our onboard account.  And this is the first time in many cruises that this has been a major issue.  It seems to revolve around having 5 star status and using the Have It All promotion. We were charged for every specialty restaurant dinner when all were free. I also had an onboard credit which didn't didn't get added to a future cruise booking.  While each have been corrected, they take time to resolve.  So a word to the wise:  keep an eye on your statement using the Navigator app.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  After taking the wonderful 21 day Seattle to Florida cruise in October on the Nieuw Amsterdam, we returned to the damp and cold Pacific Northwest.  And our thoughts immediately began to drift to where we might travel to next that would be sunny and warm.  I did a little exploring of cruise options that wouldn't keep us away from home at Christmas this year, and I found a nice 10 day cruise on the brand new Holland America Line ship  Rotterdam.  We previously were able to sail on the inaugural cruises of the Rotterdam's sister ships (Koningsdam and Nieuw Statendam), but we weren't able to do something similar for the Rotterdam.  So this cruise will have to substitute for it.  Plus it's just the 4th or 5th cruise for the Rotterdam after beginning sailing. Following an hour long hold on the telephone, I contacted our travel agent (Costco Travel) and I booked the cruise.  We're in our customary inside stateroom (7173 for this cruise).  I booked us on a red eye flight
Read more

Day 08 11/28/21 - Bonaire

One of the three reasons we booked this cruise was that one of the ports of call would be Bonaire which is the last of the three ABC islands for us to visit.     And now that we have visited it, we are glad to have visited it.     It's quaint and the waters are so clear.     But I am getting ahead of myself.   While the ship arrived at 7am, we never felt it.     After our customary breakfast with nice views of the harbor area, we left the ship and had a mandatory check by the local authorities of our vaccinations card.     This was the first one the entire cruise.     We found our local guide that I had booked through Viator.     The tour I booked was a "South Island Tour and Snorkel".     We were the only two people with Brenda our guide.     She's Canadian who splits her year between Bonaire and Newfoundland.     She has a crew cab pickup or for larger groups a bus and will only take groups where all the participants know each other.  
Read more