The reality of blogging in the absence of any WiFi at all hit me like a brick late last night. I had spent last night’s dinner uploading all the pics in yesterday’s post while we were still cruising Puget Sound and had an excellent cell phone signal, intending to add the narrative later. I had done this everyday when we were cruising in Europe and Asia…upload photos while we still had a cell signal and write the post hours later offline and then log into the Princess WiFi and publish the post. Last night, using the BlogTouch Pro app and writing the post on my iPhone, I went to save it when I was finished and my only choice was to save it offline. That shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but it was, and it means that all those photos will have to be re-uploaded when I finally publish the post from Juneau tomorrow. I don’t know if any cellular internet is fast enough to load that many photos at one time. I guess I’ll find out. I may have to remove them and add them back one or two at a time. I told you this might be a rocky process.
G returned to the cabin to see what I was up to, and by 6:30am we were both in the buffet. He went all out and had a made to order omelet prepared, his first omelet since he was on the Majestic Princess. I had just coffee and melon; I had been checking out the breakfast menu in the dining room on the Navigator app and saw something that appealed. We decided to head there when it opened at 8am (leaving me to utter that traditional cruise phrase, “Hurry up and finish eating so we can go to breakfast”). It’s good to be back!
The view from our breakfast table
Let me take a moment here and talk about the Navigator app. I have issues with it (quelle surprise!); I’m logged in as me, it shows that it’s my account but it only displays G’s on board statement, and my name doesn’t appear in the Chat directory at all. When he searches for me, people with my first name and people with my last name show up, but I do not, leaving him to tease me that I’m not really on the ship and this is all a dream. I’m so over all this app stuff. I told myself I was not going to spend one second fighting the Medallion app on board the Majestic Princess and I’m not going to do it on the Nieuw Amsterdam with the Navigator app either. We’ll just skip using the Chat feature.
However, saying that, the dining menus part of the app work perfectly. I can wake up each morning and check the breakfast, lunch and dinner menus for the day in each dining venue. That is a really wonderful feature, especially when the menus are all so new to us and we’re dining around. The activities portion of the app works well too. In fact, it wasn’t until last night that we realized we still get a paper activities guide, called the When and Where, in our cabin each night for the next day. G had set something on top the embarkation day When and Where that was in our cabin when we first boarded, we never saw it, and just assumed we had to rely on the app.
So back to this morning…
My chosen breakfast item in the dining room was a wild rice, quinoa, veggie combo and I was underwhelmed. It was more wild rice than quinoa. I won’t make the effort to get that again.
The dining room breakfast menu does not change from day to day.
Dining room breakfast menu page 1
Dining room breakfast menu page 2
Dining room breakfast menu page 3
Dining room breakfast menu page 4
Wild rice and quinoa bowl
Not quite my thing
Having managed to eat breakfast in both the buffet and dining room, we did a quick tour of the ship (with a capacity of 2100 people, we love this size ship), and then returned to the cabin where G slept a little more and I didn’t. Instead I read for awhile, and did feel a bit more refreshed. We checked out the available daytime activities and found one or two this afternoon we were interested in, but mostly we decided we were going to have an unstructured day.
We next relaxed by the Lido Pool, with its glass covered roof, and that is as wonderful a thing as exists for this cool weather itinerary. There are no crowds anywhere, and it certainly shows in the availability of loungers by the pool and on the Promenade Deck (a full, wraparound promenade deck). We actually met a couple last night who are on the ship for three cruises in a row, although they were originally told they couldn’t book that due to COVID and then were told they could. They said the ship was at 60% capacity on its first sailing last week and has about 200 more passengers this week. It’s nice.
The Lido Pool area
It’s wonderful!
We returned to the dining room for lunch around 12:30pm. I had a calamari starter followed by a southwest quinoa bowl and this time both were fantastic. G ordered the Mexican street tacos followed by a Cobb salad followed by a hot fudge sundae. He is one happy camper.
Dining room lunch menu
Calamari starter
Southwest quinoa bowl. Delish!
I had wanted to get to the cooking demonstration at 1pm, but meals in the dining room take quite awhile. We’ve often found this to be the case on Holland America. Instead we went directly to the- well, I think it’s called MainStage, though it’s called World Stage on the deck plan. Basically it’s like the Princess Theater. There was a documentary on the Iditarod race hosted by the cruise director/ travel host. That they are one and the same person is a bit unusual to us, but hey, every cruise line has its differences. The origin of the Iditarod race is quite interesting. It began as a relay race for the purpose of rushing medical supplies for diphtheria patients in Nome, Alaska.
Then it was hot tub time (also in the glass covered Lido Pool area), squeezed in before we got ready for tonight’s formal night. Can’t say I missed those over the past 18 months! G brought his tux (he usually likes formal nights), but wasn’t feeling it tonight and instead wore a dress shirt and slacks. He looked entirely appropriate; we saw everything from tuxedos (a few) to fairly casual wear in the dining room.
On the way to the dining room, we went to Lincoln Center Stage for some music performed by a violinist, a violist, a cellist and a pianist. Oh my heart. I love that kind of music!! We continued on to dinner at 5:30pm and limited ourselves to just an entree and coffee; we wanted to get to MainStage for the captain’s champagne welcome. Holland America does this by having the senior officers line up outside the theater to greet guests as they enter, and then handing out flutes of champagne.
At 6:45pm, the captain was up on stage and welcomed everyone and made a toast and, if not exactly a socially distanced champagne party, it was fairly close. He told us there were 1593 passengers on board for this cruise, which is in line with what we had been told by the back to back couple, and about 500 fewer than the ship’s capacity. There is nothing crowded on this ship. It’s really nice!
The first of three production shows was performed at 7 and 9pm. Tonight’s show was called Humanity, and we should have known when the activities guide said it was going to be performed by Step One Dance Company that it was going to be simply dancers. There were six of them, and they were all fantastic, but we missed the vocalists that we’re used to in production shows, not to mention we love live musical accompaniment. The major feature of the show is the digital backdrop which really is quite amazing. I remember that about Holland America; when they invest in a technology for their theaters, they really use it…a lot. (Memories of that cantilevered and moving stage on the Maasdam that would make a grinding sound the whole time it was moving still make me laugh). But six in house dancers with no vocalists or musicians…I can understand why we’ll be treated to three production shows in a one week cruise. Happily, the three male dancers are not a bit unattractive. Note to self: sit closer to the stage next time.
After the show, we left the theater and caught the end of a piano duo playing 70’s music at Billboard Onboard (oh my, I’m struggling with these venue names) and then returned to Lincoln Center Stage for more music on the strings and piano. Holland America is known for its live music venues and I can see why. They’re simply wonderful.
And finally it was time for coffee and dessert, and we went up to the buffet to get both…and only then remembered then that the buffet closes at 8pm on Holland America, and then re-opens for late night snacks at 10:30pm. Not a fan of that! We could have headed back to the dining room I guess, but weren’t as comfortable doing that as we are on Princess, where we are always welcomed to the dining room with open arms (literally), regardless of how many times we’ve already been there that evening.
We decided instead that a night without dessert was probably not the worst thing, especially since most of our nights for 18 months have not featured a dessert, and returned to the cabin. We’re watching a movie in our cabin and, at 9:45pm it is still light outside. We move clocks back an hour tonight. I predict an early wake up again tomorrow.
And, finally tonight, I thought I’d give you our thoughts on how this cruise feels in the midst of COVID. I’m sure there’s a lot of cleaning and new health protocols going on behind the scenes, but, frankly, it doesn’t feel any different from a pre-COVID cruise…except for the entire ship’s company being in masks and the reduced passenger load. There are only a few passengers in masks, and since we rarely are in an elevator with anyone else, I’m fairly comfortable with that. But if I expected there would be seats blocked out to ensure social distancing in the theaters, bars and dining areas, I was wrong. We were told that we need to wear masks when inside or on public transport in the Alaska ports, and outside too when not socially distanced, but that’s how it was at home for over a year (and, frankly, probably still should be).
So, cruising on this relatively small ship sailing at reduced capacity with fully vaccinated crew and guests feels really safe. So far. Let’s hope it continues.
Day 2 When and Where
