MORTECH
COMPUTERS
"No matter how much you have, you can always use MOR"
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MORTECH
COMPUTERS
"No matter how much you have, you can always use MOR"
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Day 1- Ft.
Lauderdale:
Once we were aboard the ship, we were allowed to roam about at will. We made our way to our staterooms and found a few surprises that were left for us there: 4 bottles of wine, fresh flowers, fruit bowls, an additional surprise for Mom and Angie (which will be explained later) and a gift card from our travel agent! Thank you Bertha and Pauwels Travel! We then set forth in search of somewhere to grab a bite to eat, since there wasn't time at all since early this morning. The Lido deck has a huge buffet style restaurant, with quite a variety of food to satisfy everyone's taste. Anyone that has ever been on a cruise ship knows that the food and service is absolutely top notch! I'll explain more on that later. After sampling some of the food at the Lido restaurant and taking advantage of the best deal on the ship in the Lido Bar, the "Bucket O'beer" which was 4 cans of beer in a bucket of ice for $10.00, we decided to explore the ship a bit more. It really is like a 5 star hotel on water and it is huge! The MS Zuiderdam is a Vista Class Ship and is 951 ft from bow (front of the ship) to stern (the back of the ship), 106 ft wide, 11 decks above sea level and several more below the 26-foot draft (the part under water). All decks are serviced by a total of 26 passenger and crew elevators. It weighs about 85,000 tons and can hold up to 1,824 guests and has a compliment of 806 crewmembers. In spite of its size it can travel at 24 knots and is powered by 5 diesel generators and 1 gas turbine for a total generation of 84,000 horsepower. The propulsion system consists of two ABB azipods and a number of bow thrusters for a total of 46,000 horsepower. It isn't quite the size of the QE-II or QM-II or the Voyager class ships of Royal Caribbean Lines, but it was a marvel to us nonetheless since we had never been on a cruise ship before. Before long we had to get ready for our passenger boat drill. This is a mandatory exercise for everyone aboard the ship. Each passenger has a specifically assigned lifeboat and we had to make sure we knew where to go and what to do in the event of some unforeseen disaster. (Oh come on, you've never seen a movie called Titanic?) Any way this exercise is required by maritime law, and the ship cannot set sail for open waters until that requirement is fulfilled. If you don't show up at your assigned lifeboat during the boat drill, they call your name over the loud speaker for all to hear! Fortunately everyone showed up at his or her lifeboat with life jackets on and after roll call, we were all dismissed. With that bit of business out of the way, it was time to get ready for our first meal in the Vista Dining Room. Dining on a cruiseship is a very big deal, and although it was the first day, and therefore not a "formal" day, we still had to change into appropriate attire- shirts with collars and slacks (no jeans/ shorts or T-shirts allowed) for the men and skirts and or slacks and a blouse for the women. This caused a bit of a problem since our cabin steward, Feria had not yet delivered our luggage. This was all a "cause and effect" issue created by the lateness in getting to port earlier that day, so everything was behind schedule as a result. Anyway, I managed to help Feria find our suitcases, so I helped him out, which I'm sure he appreciated. Before long we were on our way to dinner. Holland America prides itself on its service and although it was evident throughout the ship, it really showed in the main dining room. Since we had a party of 11, we had a special table right near the front of the dining room, which is located in the aft portion of the ship. It overlooked the ocean for a spectacular view. Our servers were: Tommy, and his assistant, Ahmed and our drink steward, Antonio. They made a point to memorize our names very quickly and they got to know our likes and dislikes over the rest of the evening. In fact by the third day, they could probably pick our meals as good as we could ourselves and we would be just as satisfied! In my travels as a footwear buyer and now as a footwear vendor, I have eaten in some of the best restaurants in Europe and North America so I am no stranger to fine cuisine... even still, The Vista Dining room under the tutelage of it's head Chef Robert Versteeg, and his fine staff, made quite an impression on all of us. Each day we were greeted with a new 5-course meal that made our taste buds very happy and our bathroom scales unhappy! Tommy, Ahmed and Antonio did such a fine job in making us all feel like kings and queens and made the kids feel like princes and princesses. About halfway through our first dinner, the ship finally undocked and the harbour pilot guided us out to sea en route to our first stop: Half Moon Cay...
After we had all eaten too much of what was a truly outstanding dinner, Angie and I took the kid's to their first "Club HAL" meeting in the Queen's Lounge, which, as the name implies is a special club for kids. The good folks at Holland America realize that the parents are going to want some "alone" time so they have created special programs for the kids. The talented staff of 8 members (4 of which were from Canada by the way), have arranged a variety of activities for different age groups. Robbie wasn't too interested at first since he wanted to go swimming in the pool... and since Club HAL is entirely voluntary, Angie stayed with the girls for a bit to get them going and I took Robbie to the pool for a swim. The swimming was actually kind of neat too since the sea was still quite rough due to the remnants of "Dennis" and the ship was a little rocky as a result. Not so much that it caused any problems with motion sickness mind you, but it did make for a wavy swim in the Lido Pool. Later, when Robbie saw all the neat things that his sisters got as a result of the games etc, he realized that Club HAL was worth checking out in greater detail! They were old enough to check themselves in or out of club activities and they always had their walkie talkies, so we always knew where they were. The nice thing about a cruise ship, is you are never more than 951 feet away from each other. After the kid's were safely in bed for the night and since Mom and Dad were taking it easy, Angie, Jim, Wendy, Joe and I decided to check out some of the many clubs on board. We met our 2 favourite people: Jimmy and Arnold the Bartenders... no matter where we went, we always seemed to end up with either Jimmy or Arnold as our mixologist! The first night since we were still getting to know the ship, we went on a bit of a good ol' fashioned pub-crawl. We started at the Ocean Bar, then on to the Odyssey Bar and then up to the Crow's Nest and finally to the Northern Lights nightclub... Forward to Day 2: Half Moon Cay- Bahamas: |
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