We are here.
WE. ARE. HERE.
Wow, does it feel amazing to be able to say that.
You know, it suddenly occurred to me yesterday afternoon, while I was racing around the house packing, that we had been on the Nieuw Amsterdam before. We’ve only done four Holland America cruises in the past, but, looking back at our cruise history, sure enough, one of them was on the Nieuw Amsterdam, nearly eight years ago. Apparently, we liked it then (http://pescadoamarillo.blogspot.com/2013/11/holland-america-line-and-nieuw.html); we’ll see what we think after eight years and a pandemic.
And let me take a minute and set up a keyboard shortcut for Nieuw Amsterdam. As you can imagine, autocorrect is giving me fits about the “Nieuw”.
As I said in yesterday’s post, we had a very early morning today. We got up at 2:00am, and by 3:30am were driving away from the house. We already knew that we would be out of luck with an Uber or a Lyft at 3:30am on a Saturday morning (the bars were closing about then!), and the prices of hotels at the airport have more than doubled since we last stayed in one in September 2019. We decided that our best option was to drive to the airport yesterday, rent a car, drive both cars home and return the rental to the airport this morning at 4am. Naturally, even that solution was not worry-free. Would the rental car company actually have a car (shades of Seinfeld here)? Would our Southwest flight be late or cancelled due to system-wide computer issues, or pilot, aircraft or fuel shortage? So many travel things we used to be able to trust would happen pretty much as planned can’t be relied on right now. So we packed an extra helping of patience and hoped for the best.
I’m happy to report that, on our first travel day in 18 months, it all went off without a hitch. I’m always amazed, when we leave our neighborhood that early in the morning without encountering a single other vehicle, to find the expressways busy and the airport absolutely packed. At 4:30am! Our TSA Pre check saved us a lot of time going through security (nice to be using it for the first time since we renewed it earlier this year), and though our plane was full, the travel time was relatively short. After all, my most recent flight had been the one home from Sydney, so anything shorter than that was all good.
Sunrise over the Cascades
There was no YouTube-able mask drama on our flight; people were too sleepy at that hour to put up much of a fuss. We wore KN95 masks from the time we boarded the rental car shuttle until we were in our cabin on the Nieuw Amsterdam and added a cloth mask on top of them on the plane. Interestingly, I did a Blood Oxygen check on my Apple Watch toward the end of the flight. It was 97%, which was higher than it’s been in the smoke at home for weeks. I wish some people could be convinced that wearing even a double mask is not depriving their brain of oxygen, and would stop behaving like it actually is. Just sayin’.
We had an early flight, and knew we’d have to wait somewhere before boarding the ship, and I really didn’t want to be standing outside the cruise terminal while we waited. Not knowing when we were supposed to be boarding, and this being the Age of COVID, we thought we’d let Holland America figure out when to take us to the ship and so purchased transfers through the cruise line. Once we landed in Seattle and collected our two suitcases, we were personally escorted from baggage claim to a waiting area carved out of the airport parking garage. It’s convoluted to get to this shuttle waiting area on your own unless you know where you’re going, and I can see why we were escorted over there, despite that fact that our names didn’t even appear on their list (since the list was printed before we booked). I’m also quite sure (but not certain) that this is the same place guests wait for the Princess shuttle, as the lady who helped us said she would be a greeter for the Majestic Princess tomorrow. She was quite happy to be back to work, and even if she hadn’t said so, we could have surmised that from the friendly way she did her job
At 10am we were allowed to board the large bus to travel to the ship, but were stopped just before we left the parking garage. Apparently the ship was not going to start boarding until at least 11am, and travel time to the pier was about 35 minutes. Oh, and the driver had been informed that she wasn’t to deviate from the normal route getting there, so we were going to have to sit on the bus for a bit once we arrived at the pier. Well, the driver didn’t deviate; she simply drove slowly and gave us a great narrated tour the entire way. She also said (and again it was obvious this was true) that she was so happy to be back at work. It’s nice to feel appreciated for doing what we love to do. We all know that the tourism business has been devastated by the pandemic, but it’s quite poignant to meet the people who have been most affected, and made me feel glad that we are contributing in even the smallest way to the industry’s recovery.
She did so well with that driving slowly thing that when we arrived at the pier, we were able to disembark the bus immediately and start the boarding process. And considering where G and I were starting from, even that went well. When I completed the Holland America online check in on Wednesday, their system told me that we were too late to get boarding passes for the cruise (less than 72 hours pre-cruise). No worries. We figured we’d simply show up with our booking number and passports and vaccination cards and we’d eventually be allowed to board. Then, this morning, while we were waiting for our flight to depart, I checked the HAL Navigator app on my phone (yes, they have one too; it’s just that guests still check in on their website) and saw that we did have e-boarding passes and a UPC code. No worries!
We were required to show our vaccination cards before we even entered the port terminal, though I heard an announcement that anyone without a card (like the couple of kids on board, I guess) had to be COVID tested before they proceeded any further into the terminal.
Despite our e-boarding passes stating we were Boarding Group E at 1:20pm, at check in we were assigned Group B and were onboard and in our cabin shortly after 11:45am.
Correct mask usage (over the nose and mouth) was strictly enforced at both airports, on the plane, on both shuttles and in the cruise terminal. At the SeaTac airport, an announcement stated, over and over again, that gaiters were not acceptable unless they were double-layered, and handkerchiefs weren’t allowed at all. Entering the cruise terminal, I saw one person stopped for only wearing a single-layer gaiter. I’m not certain how that got resolved, because I heard him say he didn’t have anything else to use.
And G and I will continue to wear masks, probably for the entire cruise. I am simply most comfortable doing that, because it’s already obvious that there is limited social distancing on the ship. Guests have the option of dining alone or with strangers, seating for shows is not spaced out other than what happens naturally from a lower passenger load and there are no limitations in elevators (which, thankfully, on this ship arrive quickly and mostly empty). We have another cruise after this one, and I am leaving to visit Mom five days after we return home. I want nothing to interfere with those trips (see previous post re: mom hug) and would never forgive myself if I inadvertently took COVID into Mom’s retirement community. Maybe we’ll feel differently in a few days, but for right now, we are among the very few masked passengers on board.
We dropped our carry ons in our cabin and immediately headed to the buffet. We were starved. We hadn’t eaten yet today and, frankly, our entire diet since we booked this cruise three days ago consisted of a large salad I made by chopping up everything that was left in the produce drawer.
This was offered at the first station in the buffet and it was as far as I got!
I took this photo at our house earlier this summer, just to prove that my watermelon obsession is not limited to cruises.
We were happily served water, lemonade and ice tea in the buffet, but coffee seemed to be “get it yourself”. And I happily did help myself, and was a little thrilled that it was the same excellent coffee I remember from Holland America eight years ago. Despite the self service, the wait staff (on Holland America they are all from Indonesia) was extremely friendly and welcoming.
QR codes for all menus…but you don’t have to use them. Paper menus are also available.
Water in metal cans instead of plastic bottles. Yay!
We returned to our cabin to find that our large suitcases had been delivered, and it took no time at all to unpack them. Even better, there was plenty of room in our cabin for everything. It was tough finding enough storage space when we were on this ship in 2013, with a winter’s worth of luggage. But two weeks worth? Piece. of. cake.
The only nod to social distancing was a different kind of muster drill. Most cruise lines are doing some variation of this now: We watched a safety briefing on our cabin TV, we went to our muster station sometime during the afternoon (on the Promenade Deck) and had our key cards scanned, and we listened to the captain’s safety announcement. We were also encouraged to try on our life jackets in our cabin, and you know us…we really did. With 26 years of military service and 12 years of Catholic school between us, we are rules followers.
There was a sailaway party on the aft pool deck starting at 3:30pm, and it was very nicely and somewhat subtly done, with a perfect DJ playlist, a fair amount of alcoholic beverages consumed and the beautiful Seattle skyline in the distance under overcast skies. And here’s the thing…unlike what others have reported when they first stepped on a cruise ship post-COVID, I had managed to get to that point in our day without feeling the least bit emotional about finally being back. But when I looked over the side of the ship and saw the water churned up by the Nieuw Amsterdam pushing away from its berth, I literally choked up. I don’t know what that stirred up inside of me, but it did it quickly and thoroughly…and then I was fine. I took advantage of our cell phone signal to call a few friends who didn’t know until they read my blog that we were even leaving home a week early. Sorry about that. Like I said, we’ve had an intense few days.
That left us about 15 minutes to nap and five minutes to shower before going down to dinner. We wanted to be there at 5:30pm when the dining room opened, to try to get a table for two in a nice location with the same waiters for the rest of the cruise. Yeah, this one will work. 😉
The view from our dinner table. Oh how I’ve missed this!
Waiter Karma (we call him Good Karma) from Bali and his assistant Aziz from Java were so so so friendly. Like everyone else we encountered, they are thrilled to be back at work. The entire ship’s company (all vaccinated) is wearing masks, but Karma made a point of telling us that we didn’t need to if we didn’t want to. No, really. We want to.
Day 1 dinner menu, page 1
Day 1 dinner menu, page 2
Salmon with cilantro rice
Love the way they serve my soy milk for after dinner coffee
Triple berry Alaskan tart
So many good things happened today. I am grateful.