Day 1—Embarkation and New Friends (Dec 19, 2010)

Day 1—Embarkation and New Friends (Dec 19, 2010)

This is it—the first day of my 2 week cruise.  Luckily none of the things I worried about happened.  I didn’t oversleep, my luggage arrived in San Diego, the Holland America representative was in baggage claim just like they said they would be, and I didn’t forget my passport.  Transfer to the dock, and check-in for the cruise went smoothly—it took 10 minutes from the time I left the bus, till I was on the ship. 

There were three ladies sitting behind me on the plane; as we were landing in San Diego, the woman in the window seat said, “I think that’s our ship.”  I turned around and asked if they were going on the Zaandam, and it turns out they were.  Two of the ladies, Suzette and Jolene, were rooming together.  The third lady I spoke to in the airport and although she knew the other two ladies, she was travelling alone—her name was Jill and she had lost her husband in March.  Turns out Jill lives about three blocks from me.

At the dock, I met another woman, Sharon, who was travelling alone.  Sharon is from Florida and was in San Diego visiting her son.  She had lost her husband just 3 short weeks ago, and decided just 3 days ago to book this cruise (she didn’t want to go back home yet, and she also didn’t want to “ruin” her son’s family Christmas, so she decided to take this cruise).  Sharon and I met up again on the ship later in the afternoon and decided to try to schedule dinner together.  I had an assigned table and she was on “Open Dining.”  We were hoping that there would be room at my table, but that didn’t work out.

Once on board the ship, I went to the Lido for lunch—the Lido is a buffet which had a good selection, and most people would think was a pretty good-sized buffet, for those of us who live in Las Vegas, it was actually smaller than some of the ones I’ve been to.  I tried the Asian food, primarily Indonesian, and it was good.  After lunch, I wandered around the ship trying to find my way around. 

There weren’t very many people on board—the ship almost seemed deserted, but it was still early yet. 

The rooms were ready by 1:30 and I eventually found my room and met my room steward, Handi.  He was very nice and said to let him know if I needed anything at all.  Every time I saw him in the hallway after that, he said, “Hello, Mrs. D." 

My cabin was smaller than a hotel room, but there was plenty of room for me.  The beds had been put together as a queen-size bed, and there as a small love-seat couch, a chair, a vanity with stool, plenty of closet and storage space, and small, but efficient bathroom with a shower (it did have a medicine cabinet, counter space and a shelf under the sink, so definitely enough storage space.

My travel agent had arranged for several gifts to be delivered to my cabin and when I got to my stateroom, I had two bottles of Champaign, a cheese and cracker tray, chocolate covered strawberries, a card that said I had a $100 shipboard credit, a bathrobe with a card that says compliments of American Express that I could take home (there were two other robes in the room that can be used), a card for a free dinner in the alternative steakhouse restaurant (normally costs an additional $20, a card for a free lunch in the alternative steakhouse (normally $10), and a card for a free 10 x 7 photo—boy am I glad I booked the cruise through American Express!

My friend from work has a friend, Vickie who knows several of the crew on board the Zaandam.  I met one of those friends that afternoon, Gede (pronounced kind of like good day with an Australian accent—“ga-day”), I met him in the afternoon when I stopped to ask him a question about dinner and lunch reservations for the other restaurants (so I could use my “gift cards”).  I asked him if he knew Vickie and he said, “Yes, she is a good friend of mine” and we chatted for a little while. 

At 4:15, I went to the “muster” at my designated lifeboat station and learned how to put on the life vest and listened to the safety briefing.  After that, I went back to my room and found all my luggage had been delivered—so my fear that my luggage would be delivered to the wrong ship was unfounded!  While I unpacked, the captain announced that our departure from San Diego would be delayed (not sure why).  Handi also stopped to be sure that had received all my luggage (how nice of him to check). 

Once unpacked, I decided to go out on deck and call my parents before turning off my cell phone for the next few days.  While I was talking to them, the ship’s horn blew and a few minutes later the ship started pulling away from the dock—we were on our way!!

Got dressed for dinner (dress was smart casual—no jeans, shorts, t-shirts, etc., for all dinners except the formal dinners). 

Met three nice ladies while waiting for the doors to open to the dining room—they are all travelling together and one of the ladies, Evelyn, lost her husband in April (can’t remember the other two ladies’ names).  There sure are a lot of widows on this trip.  Once the dining room doors opened, we all went to our assigned tables—mine was table 18.  To my surprise, the three ladies I had been talking to, followed me—they were also at table 18!  Altogether, my table of six included me, the three ladies I met outside the dining room, and another very nice couple (Jim and his wife, but can’t remember her name either).  Gedi (Vickie’s friend) was my waiter!  He welcomed me with a “Hello again, Miss D—I’m glad you are at my table.”

There were several choices on the menu and I opted for the tomato Florentine soup and roast beef, baked potato, and veggies.  I did ask Gede if I could get a copy of the menu and he said he would collect them all for me on the trip and give them to me on the last day—would be nice if he did this so I could create a nice scrapbook of my cruise (we’ll see).  I skipped some courses (there’s no way I could eat five courses every night), and even skipped dessert, but I did have a very nice cappuccino after dinner.

The show was just getting ready to start when we finished dinner, but I decided I had had a long enough day, so opted to skip the show and go to bed—hey, I’m on vacation, I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to, and there’s no reason to feel like I needed to do everything.

Came back to my cabin and my bed had been turned down, a chocolate left along with the breakfast room service menu, and a program for tomorrow’s activities.  Looked through the list of activities, then typed up these notes so I could remember the experience years from now.  The weather had been cold, gray, and rainy all day, and no one went outside very much.  Once the ship got out in the open ocean, the ship started rocking—wasn’t sure if I got seasick, so I had taken a seasick pill before we left and I was fine.  Well, off to bed to see if the ship will rock me sleep tonight (or toss me out of bed since it is starting to rock quite a bit as well as go up and down).