Nieuw Statendam 2018 Cruise to Florida

We're past the halfway point in our trans Atlantic crossing. Overnight there were harsher seas and a bit more motion. It wasn't enough to keep me awake and I continue to pretty much sleep through the night. Lance, our EXC guide, was the subject of the coffee chat with Ross, our CD. It was fun and interesting. One key factoid was that for every guest on this size ship, there are 300 other passengers on the same schedule. It's why we tend to see the same people every day. He was followed by Robin Ross presenting on Havana. It certainly increased our itch to visit. After a sushi lunch we watched another America's Test Kitchen presentation by Drake on cheese sandwiches and turkey soup. It was so delectable, I wanted to rush the stage for a taste! Don Mings presented his almost hour long session on the British expansion. It was filled with interesting side bar comments. While we walking our mile up on deck 11 with its view of a mildly wavy ocean and blu...

Today started just like any other day. But it turned out to be anything but just like any other day. After our customary LIDO breakfast, we attended the coffee chat where a female third officer was interviewed. Following that, Robin Ross presented a talk on visiting Cuba. His simple message was go! Today was the Mariner Reception where normally medallions signifying attainment of cruising levels of cruise days are presented. However, there were no medallions to be presented. Oops, the medallions were sent to the Bahamas in error and couldn't catch up with the ship. So photos were taken with the sample medallions and the real medallions will be mailed to the recipients. That had to be pretty embarrassing for the CD.   The Mariner lunch was really good and we were able to sit with four friends that we have previously cruised with on 3 different sets of cruises. Don Mings presented his talk on French Colonialism and I finished my Joshua Quinn thriller, and I photographed a nu...

Today I'll start with a little postscript from yesterday's blog post concerning the Hotel Director's coffee chat. He was asked about the dogs on board and what special things gave to happen with them on board. He noted that there are 5 service dogs on board. In order to get a service dog on board, it requires advance permission and written documents from Doctors indicating the need. A special department then makes all of the further arrangements. On board there is a special two grassy box setup on the Promenade Deck (#3), port side forward. Special sanitation procedures are in place including two times daily cleaning of the relief boxes. The dogs we have seen are well behaved. The second item to come out of Don's chat was that HAL changed their sourcing of fish. The fish now is flash frozen and when it's thawed on the ship, it's as if it were fresh. From what I see at the Distant Lands sushi at lunch and at the Sushi Restaurant, it's re...

Overnight there was a bit more motion to the ocean, but I'm finally sleeping full nights which is good. The clocks were rolled back an hour again last night. Our first event was the coffee chat with the hotel manager, Don, who was also the hotel manager on the rollout of the Koningsdam. It's was an interesting chat. $7.5 million was spent on startup furnishings like cutlery, napkins and the like. Additionally he noted the food cost for 2100 passengers for a week was $200,000 or about $13 per person per day. He estimated the waste food at about 4%. These coffee chats help bring insight into things one otherwise might not know. Afterwards, Robin Ross presented an EXC talk on the history of Reggae music with lots of sound clips. It was really good and his experience of 10's of years as a DJ was invaluable in the presentation. He's grown on me as a speaker. Atlys (corrected spelling from prior posts), the string quartet, performed a matinee on the Lincoln Center Stag...

Overnight the internet problems seemed to be fixed. We'll see if it stays fixed. The front desk even called back with a follow up if I found the internet problem fixed. This first sea day started with a coffee chat with the Cruise Director, Ross, and the Staff Captain who is from Belgium. He was also the staff captain on the Koningsdam and recently passed muster to become a captain when there is an opening. He had some cool banter responding to comments from the chief engineer who commented in a previous chat that all the deck crew does is stare out the window. We also learned that the life raft covers lost overboard during the Cartagena drill were not recovered by the divers. Following the chat, Captain Albert gave a full house presentation on the Golden Years of Cruising from 1900-1960. He spoke without notes for almost an hour giving much detail about how cruise ships developed and why. It was impressive and he'll be speaking again later in the cruise on...

The ship slid into its berth in the early morning darkness at 7:45am as we were eating breakfast. We met our little group of 3 other couples in the Dutch Cafe before heading off the ship to find our driver, Daniel. He showed up a few minutes later and took us in a wonderful trip along the west coast of Madeira Island, to the north coast, and back to the ship using the valley that runs north and south. Along the way we had a light lunch at a bakery, and sampled some liquors and wines along the way. We had been to many of the places on a previous visit. He explained a truism about Madeira: if you are not going up, you are going down. The roads are generally very twisty and going sharply up and down. Plus there are hundreds of tunnels. Back at the ship, we headed back to town to find some super glue for a nativity scene project Angela is working on. At one store, they happened to have a tube for their own use, but sold it to us. We walked back to the ship and reboa...

On this first Sunday of the cruise I was finally able to get 8 hours of sleep. After breakfast, we headed down to the Hudson Room to attend the interdenominational service that I didn't know whether or not I would be a volunteer leader of. On the elevator I met Bill, a pastor from Florida, who was also headed there and prepared to preach and lead the service. I deferred to him and we both didn't know if there would be hymnals there or not. Fortunately there were! We had 40-50 in attendence which was pretty good. After church we attended Lance's presentation on The secret language of Ships  ( all about markings and flags). Following a light lunch, we joined other 5 Star and President's Club members for the first presentation by Drake of America's Test Kitchen on the World Stage. While it was good, the real stage set will be loaded once we reach Fort Lauderdale.   I spent the remainder of the afternoon backing up yesterday's Canon camera Malaga pi...