October 13, 2022
We awoke to another time change. We are now 3 hours ahead of home. 25 hour days are much easier on the body than the current 23 hour days. The internet is becoming a big headache. The ship is small by cruise ship standards but 1400 people trying to get online through satellite internet is a problem. You pay HAL for the number of devices you want to connect to the internet. Each device adds hundreds to the bill. I brought along a travel router that solves this problem. As long as I have it and we are together, we can both use the internet with the one device package we purchased. In our room we can both use iphones, MacBooks, and ipads. It doesn’t make the connection faster but it does allow multiple devices to be used. Once set it works great but like any piece of technology it fails for no apparent reason. Often.
We slept in some and had lunch. I caught up on some reading and Terri power walked. After lunch we did team trivia. I’ve learned that some trivia questions are used over and over and most of the teams know the answer. Largest mammal. Largest Bird. The only mammal that can fly. We met some folks from Salt Lake City and from Brisbane. Hard to hide the accent. We also met a couple from Manhattan. Hard to hide the accent.
When in Kindergarten you talk about what you hope to be. In your 20s you talk about who you are. In your 50s you talk about what you did. 60s you talk about what you are going to do. On this kind of cruise where everyone is post-career, there is very little of this kind of talk. Everyone is the same. I ask the gentlemen next to me if he was sure about where those bones were located in the human body. He said ”yes, I’m a doctor”. No one seated was impressed or unimpressed. It was just ”what it is”. We had a question about what the term ”piano” meant. Every musician knows the answer. ”I’m a musician and it means soft”. It had the same effect as ”I’m a doctor”.
Wine tasting was at 2pm in the dining room. This is one of the perks we earned for being 4 star mariners. We tried 2 white and two red from the Northeaster United States. I’m not big on wine. I think I gave each a 2. All of the swirling, smelling and staring at the wine didn’t change the taste. I’d rather have grapes. Terri was with me on the scoring except the last one. She gave it an 8. I was impressed with the cheese, grapes, and crackers. Yummy. Would go great with a bottle of Red Stripe. Mon.
The evening entertainment was the corporate sponsored group. Usually referred to as the Holland American Singers and Dancers. This group was referred to as the Zaandam singers and dancers in reference to the name of our ship. On past cruises they have been outstanding. Very polished and fun to watch and listen to. This group, not so much. Our cruise director, Jeremy, did say it was their first of 10 shows. It did look like a first performance. Harmony was off in spots as was timing in dancing. The show was call Swing Time and had nothing but great classics that they sang and danced to. The singers did not know how to swing. The vocalists were satisfactory singers but were not singing the correct style. They are young and have a way to go. 6 is all I could give.
The water ocean is producing huge swells. If you aren’t sea worthy, this is where it will show up.
Tomorrow is a mandatory covid 19 antigen self test. The entire ship will do this and the results go to the captain. If no one had Covid when they boarded Monday, and they don’t have it now, will the Captain release the feed bag or mask requirement? We are waiting.…