Day 01 11/21/21 - Embarkation Day

Finally embarkation day arrived.  I slept poorly last night waking up every few hours.  The checkout process went well and I figured out why we likely encountered the difficulties yesterday.  The clerk who checked us in assumed we were with the other two ladies and didn't properly pre register us. I also learned that they didn't put us on the 11am shuttle because it was full.  So we were on the 12 noon shuttle and that worked out fine.  Check in was very smooth and it took no longer that 15 minutes and we were on the ship by 1:15pm.

 

Upon boarding the Rotterdam, we were struck by the new ship smell.  It was a smell we hadn't smelled since we sailed the inaugural voyages of the Koningsdam and Nieuw Statendam.  This cruise is the 4th since the ship was put into service.  We made our way to our stateroom 7173 and collected our keycards and got our first look at this aft inside stateroom.  

 

Our first impression was that it was bigger largely because the bed was sideways.  In addition there were many drawers which were much more practical.  Finally, the glass door shower was much larger.

 

The next stop was the Lido for a little lunch and then we watched the safety video and checked in at our muster station in the main dining room. One scan and click of our key cards and we were done with the safety drill.  My wife had a zoom call to participate in and I adjourned to deck 9 aft and called some cruise friends from back home to give them a live update.

 

We were expecting a 4pm departure, and I went up to the Crow's Nest to watch the sail away.  Angela eventually joined me and indicated she had found a replacement snorkeling trip at Amber Cove for one that had been cancelled on us there.  It'll be a form of snorkeling we've never done before.  Stay tuned for details in a couple of days.

 

4pm came and went and the Celebrity Edge departed clearing our way, but the Captain announced on the PA system that there was an electrical issue affecting the gangplank retraction.  More time passed and a second announcement was made that the electricians had to swap parts from the starboard side of the ship.  More time passed and we had a 5:30pm reservation at the Tamarind, so we went there.  We were immediately recognized by Ara, our server, and Panca, the manager.  I recognized them also.  They had not seen us in at least 3-4 years.  Talk about feeling special!  It's another reason I like sailing on Holland America Line.  Dinner was excellent and we'll be back! Two hours after the planned departure we left the berth and the sail away was enjoyed while eating dinner. We did learn that the ship is sailing with 1472 passengers or about 50% capacity.

 

We skipped the opening program which is a video presentation of the history of Holland America Line.  We've seen it many times including by the creator. So we walked around exploring the ship and comparing it to our memories of the two sister ships.  One big change we noted from the other ships is that the large movie screen above the Lido pool is quite viewable and not pixelated like the other two ships.  It was a football night and that's what was playing on the screens. We ended up at Billboard online (duel pianos and a favorite music venue).

 

The cruise is off to a good start and we will be at Half Moon Cay, HAL's private island where we plan to snorkel at our secret place.