SAILING SLOWLY BACK TO TAMPA

Thursday, January 26, 2017         Sunny / 73 F

At Sea / ms Oosterdam

This morning I am writing from the balcony as I overlook the vast sea and listen to the gentle waves that reflect a gentle sun. The Oosterdam sails slowly back to Tampa and I am truly enjoying the time to reflect and read and write.  This cruise has totally erased the “madness” of the Getaway cruise last January/February, so peaceful, so accommodating.

We definitely miss our dear family, but this is sure easier than facing ice and snow every day. Even if Erie has had some thaws, I would be wearing layers and layers of shirts and leggings and pants and thick downy coats, and boots, peaking out my upstairs balcony onto a snow covered street and a driveway that my car slides down when I leave. Instead, I can wear a swimsuit on a balcony on the sea. Our peaceful getaway!

The everyday routine has been getting up at 7 or 7:30 a.m. with coffee, croissants, and fresh fruit. On sea days I have enjoyed the balcony while TK swims. Our daily “guide,” On Location, reports the schedule for the day.  There is Mass every day, a fitness class, sales in the shops, seminars on jewelry-watches-bamboo-ports-shopping in the ports depending on the day, card and bridge player meetups, spa seminars, ping pong challenges, cooking shows with the chefs, trivia games, afternoon teas, dance classes, movies, art auctions, and the Windows 10 classes, all scheduled in varying forms every day.

On this ship there is a “music walk” each day at Lincoln Center, today’s options are the violinists, “Fresh Perspectives,” and “French Connection.” Three different performances.

The Billboard Onboard venue has “Hot Country,” Piano Celebration,” and “All Request” scheduled today. The “BB King’s Blues Club” features BB King’s all stars today.   Usually there is a show on the Main Stage twice a day (the singers/dancers/the comedian/the “Five O Clock Somewhere duo”) twice an evening but today’s show will be done once at 3 p.m. A recent movie is shown in the movie theater four times a day. After it is shown onscreen, guests can access the movie in their staterooms. (e.g. Sully, Criminal Intelligence, the Jason Bourne movie)

You can see that we have plenty of choices of things to do, but we have done very little!

We have not tried any of the specialty restaurants aboard, Pinnacle (steak and seafood--$10 pp lunch; $35/ pp dinner) and Canaletto (Italian--$15/pp).

The Vista is the 2 floor main dining room where we have eaten every evening. Dive In is the hamburger, hotdog, and chicken sandwich restaurant at the pool—where I like the burgers and fries just a little too much.

The Lido Market is the breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffet—I have only sat with TK there, but every day there is a carving station with turkey, pork, or beef. On this ship the servers handle all the food and give the guests what they want, so it is a buffet, but controlled. One can eat as much as one wants, but I think this is for health reasons. Other offerings at the Lido include Asian cuisine, Italian pasta bar, and all the accompaniments with all of the above, vegetables, breads, fruits, desserts, ice cream, pizza of all sorts, and on and on.  There is food for gluten free, vegans, and vegetarians, too.

Hold on, the sea is calling me!

Large black pelican soaring by our balcony

I listened to the sea and read until TK returned to the room—pelicans were circling the ship, and a large black one was most unusual. Probably freighters and other ships toss food to them and they follow ships.

The last Windows 10 class covered Movie Maker. Hopefully I will remember at least some of what I have learned! While I was studying in class TK was packing. When I returned I decided to pack after dinner—long ago I said packing was not going to take a day away from the fun.

After the best genuine mushroom soup, the prime rib at dinner was absolutely great! The Baked Alaska was tasty too.  It’s a good thing dinner was so good because we got really attached to Mariyadi and Haris.

A new take on Baked Alaska

Haris, Janie, Mariyadi in the Oosterdam dining room

We returned to the room and I was in for some heavy duty packing. The room was a mess and I did not exactly throw things into any suitcase, but it was not pretty. We had to put four of the suitcases outside the room for the porters to carry off the ship in the morning.  It is very important to make sure one keeps the clothes one needs for the next day in the room. I almost packed all of my shoes, but thankfully I remembered to check for them.

Four suitcases ready to be placed in the hall outside stateroom's door

We really enjoyed this cruise. Sometimes it is a good thing to be among the youngest on the ship!

TK’s Takes: Room service was good. He did not see many sea birds or fish, except for a few flying fish. The bath towels were as big as beach towels. We had very good weather. There were so many electrical outlets and USB charging ports [generally speaking there is one outlet in the room with the right voltage for Americans and he has to bring an extension cord for his C-Pap machine]

He also told me that water started sprinkling on the pool deck—he knew just what it was, but people were scrambling to get out of the “rain.” Because of his service and job in the U.S. Navy, he knew they were cleaning the smoke stacks.  He was very talkative while I was packing tonight!