Cruise with Goldsmiths

Peter and Carolyn and I pooled our photos and put together this blog so when friends said "what was your cruise like?" we could respond with a URL address. I was responsible for the formatting ... and as you can tell, I haven't gotten it quite figured out yet. Nonetheless, here goes.

The Holland America Westerdam set sail from Pier 26 at Port Everglades, Ft. Lauderdale on Sunday, April 13, 2008. Peter and Carolyn, coming from West Palm had a heck of a time getting to the pier because their GPS couldn't accurately lead them to the Budget Rental Car return office, and coming from Sarasota, I got lost just off the exit in Naples (don't ask), but fortunately, we had all left enough time to not be left behind.

It's a big boat. Here's what they say about it:

Gross Tonnage: 82,500 grt. (One registered ton equals 100 cubic feet)
Length: 950 feet
Beam: 105.8 feet
Maximum speed: 24 knots (service at 22 knots)
Ship's Registry: The Netherlands
Passenger capacity: 1,916
Crew: 800
Dedicated: April, 2004

The crew were impressive folks who, it was clear, took their jobs very seriously. The captain, who had a hard-for-me-to-understand Dutch accent, made announcements on a daily basis. It turned out he lives on the Gold Coast of Australia only about 1 hour from Peter and Carolyn, and the master chef lives in Brisbane frequents his favourite restaurant in their neighbourhood! (If I didn't know better, I'd guess Celene had this in mind when she recommended this particular cruise to them!)

Pay particular attention to that length (950 ft) part, because we walked it over and over and over again. How many feet in a mile? 5,280? I'd say we did an easy mile a day just getting to things, and perhaps half of that going in the wrong direction. It must have been comical to watch us as we got out of the lift and tried to work out if we needed to go left or right to get to where our cabins were -- is this way fore or aft? The ship's decor was no help -- all the artwork on the floor was of flowers and painted by the same artist.

After a late lunch at the Lido Restaurant (home to stations of enough food to feed the Russian army three times a day), we looked for our cabins and discovered we had been booked next to one another, due to the foresight of my travel agent Betty Rohan Eisenberg.

The staterooms were pretty, with a huge bed, couch, chair, coffee table and television and enough shelves and closets for everything...

but the saving grace was the balcony, over which if you hung down far enough... you'd fall into the blue, blue sea! If you didn't, you'd have a lovely view and great breath of fresh air any time you wanted. And, since we were next door to each other, it made it easy to chat on the balconies and share snacks under the partition between them.

The first "activity" was the lifeboat drill during which every passenger put on the life jacket in his room, and proceeded, looking like a pumpkin, to the lower deck where the women and children were lined up in front, men behind (just like they did on the Titanic) and we were told what would happen, apart from the obvious, in case the ship was actually sinking. (Just fyi, this is infinitely more disconcerting than the flight attendant's short speech at the beginning of a plane trip.)

Later, the crew (without help from the passengers) was put through a fire drill. They all had to man their positions, lower the lifeboats and begin to "abandon ship." I don't know about anyone else, but I was starting to wonder if there were any extra ship drivers around when I saw one lifeboat heading out to sea... We later experience what it would be like on one of those boats when they were used to tender us from the ship to the shore at Grand Cayman.

After a rest from that ordeal, we had a great meal in the Vista Restaurant...

.... and started the after dinner habit of getting mints and dates from the fellow at the door... We were pleasantly surprised to find that we had our own table for three which gave us lots of chat time over dinners...

The ceiling of the restaurant looked like Chihuly chandeliers....


On to the Vista Lounge (at the other end of the ship, which required passing through the art for auction and jewelry for sale) for the first show by the young and extremely talented dancers and singers... similar to this. After the dance routine, we were treated to a comedian named Philadelphia who brought the house down.



Back to the room, exhausted, and, after
undoing the Towel Art animal du jour (here, a pig), fell into bed to the rocking of the ship.

Day Two. (Monday) Half Moon Cay

We arrived at the Holland America-owned little island of Half Moon Cay on Monday morning.
It's a cute little place, uninhabited except for the little huts the shipline has put up for rent. The sand is white and soft and the surf is too blue for description. It would have easily passed for fake, were there not so much of it.









Of course, it rained. First a little, then buckets. We hid under a "clam shell" beach cover. When the sun came out, we went for a walk and enjoyed a barbecue lunch put together by the cruise folks.

That evening we enjoyed another scrumptious dinner in the formal dining room (they remembered what we liked to drink, our names and wine preferences) and variety show by the talented singers and dancers. This one had better costumes and took us on a grand tour of Europe.

Day Three. (Tuesday) Grand Turk

Well, I'd have to say, if there was a disappointing aspect to this trip, for me it was Grand Turk Island. Grand Turk is another island of lovely water and beach (so far, so good), but once off the beach, what there was, was an island that held very little interest. Even the ship's daily brochure said that "few passengers leave the pier area."

At the end of the very long pier is a conveniently located small shopping mall where you can buy jewelry, knickknacks and t-shirts for not such bargain prices.

Included in the shopping mall is a Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville , If you want to drink while you swim that's the place to go, though why you'd ignore one of the most beautiful beaches in the world is beyond us.

Just to make sure we weren't missing anything, we hopped in a cab (in which the air conditioning was not sufficient for the 90 degree weather) and circled around... hoping to find something of interest. I noticed another cruise ship anchored at the island.











The highlight of the afternoon was a game of Trivia in the Explorer's Lounge -- on the top deck of the ship. I was particularly interested in the fellow who was washing the outside of the window where we were seated. Risky business.
We joined forces with an Ohio State couple from Columbus, Ohio and WON! The prize was "dam dollars" which we ultimately cashed in for key chains. That evening, the dinner fare was its usual excellent fare. The entertainment was Joel Mason, Elton John impersonator par excellence. Joel looks like a rooster, recently awoken from a bad dream, and is nutty as a fruitcake. And a wonderful singer and piano player and overall character. Here's a video from a last year's show. Watch.

Day Four (Wednesday) At Sea.

If I recall, Wednesday was a day I slept late, read a good chunk of my Margaret Atwood book, played more Trivia and watched the beautiful blue ocean roll by and strolled around the ship looking at all it's various aspects.

There are two large swimming pools










A smaller entertainment lounge (here used for a Jeopardy show for passengers)

Different looking people. The sikhs are from New York, I think, judging by the accents I overheard when they were ordering pizza.

At night the photographers set up and took photos of those that wanted them. Two nights were formal dress and three nights casual. Each night as we walked to dinner we went through the "photo gallery" of photos taken during the cruise. The Sikhs looked splendid in their formal gear. The photographers also wandered around (and around and around) the ship and on shore taking photos of people at different venues. There seemed to be a lot of unsold photos still on display when we left the ship.

There's a small casino to which I donated $15. The payoffs on video poker were awful! There's a spa, hair salon, shuffleboard, countless bars, a string quartet, card room, Internet cafe (with exorbitant prices), library -- it's a floating hotel, only more because of its isolation on the sea.

The evening's entertainment was a terrific revue of songs and acts from famous Broadway shows. The costumes were unbelievable and the singers and dancers really outdid themselves. These performers were never named, and that's too bad, since they were exceptionally talented.

Day Five (Thursday) George Town, Grand Caymans

Georgetown is a small town full of banks which have no rules other than "don't ask us because we don't tell." We hired a taxi driver who was delightful and drove us around, pointing out some obvious things,

like a Ritz Carlton

or an above-ground cemetery

...and not so obvious things, like Bill Gates's house


and a lava yard in a place call "Hell."

And a store that made rum cakes adjacent to a bakery.

Peter decided to explore on his own for a bit, while Carolyn and I discovered their jewelry store


and met some iguanas - behind bars ... outside another Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville.
We joined Peter just in time to beat the rush at the local Hard Rock Cafe where we had the indingenous food of hamburgers.

Back on board, the evening's repast was up to par, and the entertainment was a New Zealand magician/comedian, Leo Ward who was extra special. Leo's slight of hand kept us guessing, and his brand of humor reminded me of John Cleese.

Day Five (Friday) At Sea again

At this point we started heading back to Florida and the ship really picked up the pace. I wouldn't have believed a boat the size of this one could move so quickly. Wow. More book reading, watched the final Westerdam version of American Idol where the guy who won did a very credible rendition of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." And we played more Trivia... and lost. Dinner was again stupendous, and the evening entertainment was a collage of all of the entertainers. WOW.

Back to the cabin to pack and put the suitcases out by midnight for pick up.

Day Six. (Saturday) Back in Ft. Lauderdale

Up at the crack of dawn and stumbled up to the restaurant where we drank coffee and watched Port Everglades. Passengers "disembarked" in stages and everything went amazing smoothly. Even the customers agents didn't seem very interested in my new tshirts! A nice porter helped me with my bags across the street to my car. Carolyn and Peter's Lake Worth friends picked them up. We all headed to a seder!