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Follow Bill & Mary Ann on The Tales of the South Pacific - 47days - Fall 2015

WCB

By WCB,
in Holland America Line

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StartrainDD "Live from...." Rare

StartrainDD

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Bill & Mary Ann:

 

I really enjoy following your adventures. Thank you for sharing.

 

From what has been on the HAL boards, it seems on most ships there is a sandwich maker during the 'peak' lunch time, but afterwards it's the premade sandwiches. I don't know if you've ever checked to see if anyone is there during the noon hour?

 

I know I would certainly be missing the chips (not that I need them!) at the sandwich area.

 

I hope you enjoy the rest of your sea days back to San Diego!

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WCB "Live from...." Rare

WCB

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Report # 46 Sailing Towards San Diego November 13, 2015 Friday Partly cloudy, showers, & 80 degrees

 

Day number five at sea found the Amsterdam had sailed well over 12,000 nautical miles, with 1100 more to go to San Diego. The ship continued rocking and rolling through the night, although the winds this morning did not seem as strong. Even though our newsletter gave a high of 80 degrees, we doubt it was much above 75 degrees. We detected a slight chill in the wind that was not there yesterday. And far less humidity.

 

We think the final dance class for dancing With the Stars at Sea was this morning. The Amsterdam dancers and Gene were teaching the samba, although, we think the contestants are not quite in the same league as the “stars”. We suspect the finale will be on Sunday.

 

Even though we saw little of the filming, the photo gallery is offering two DVDs of this cruise. One of them shows the onboard events and highlights, while the second one featured the ports of call and the shore experiences. Each one is $34.95 or $59.95 for both. By the way, we did receive our “complimentary” photo of us, the Captain, and Henk M at the awards show in the Queens Lounge on Mariner night. Actually, they gave us two 8 x 10’s.

 

There was an ice cream social on the Lido deck at 2pm. Some of the talented chefs demonstrated ice carving out of chunks of ice. It’s always fun to guess what the final figures will be. A fish, penguin, or an eagle? A couple of stations were set up under tents with 5 gallon tubs of ice cream, and all the toppings you can imagine. Our host’s slogan of “eat, drink, and think thin” does not work here.

 

The final Filipino Crew Show took place at 3pm. This group always has so much fun performing their songs and dances of the Philippines. Nestor, our wine steward, has a special part in this show, dressed as both a man and a woman. He sings both parts, depending on what side he presents on the stage.

 

We went to the show lounge around 5pm, and listened to Annie Frances practice. She has been on many cruises we have sailed on, and she gets better every time we hear her sing.

 

A good movie was on TV, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Sure brought back memories of the old series on TV. They were ahead of their time now that we think about it. That’s one good thing about not going to the movies at home or getting them on cable TV (we have none where we live). Even if they are a few years old, they are new to us. This one bears watching twice, to get all of the details and the story line straight.

 

Guess we had better start to think about packing. With only three pieces of luggage, it should be a piece of cake. That is……if we did not purchase too much stuff. Glad we brought the nifty little hand scale that we got on the world cruise this year. Helps to keep our luggage at or under the 50 pounds. Of course, there is a scale plugged in at the head housekeeper’s office. But with the little scale, we can do this in the room.

 

Two more sea days left…..where did all that time go?

 

Bill & Mary Ann

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dchip

dchip

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I have enjoyed every word of your blog. We are looking forward to this same cruise in 2016. Do you know how much it was for a laundry package for the entire cruise? Trying to plan ahead. :D

 

Our son lives in Clayton. We spend a lot of time there.

 

Cheers, Denise

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The-Inside-Cabin Great Review Rare

The-Inside-Cabin

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Bill and MaryAnn,

 

 

 

Hope you took good care of the ship. We will be getting on it tomorrow (Sunday) for a western Carrabean cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

DD

 

 

You have the wrong ship. They are on the Amsterdam not the Nieuw Amsterdam. They arrive in San Diego on Monday and then theAmsterdam heads to Mexico.

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WCB "Live from...." Rare

WCB

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Report # 47 Sailing Towards San Diego November 14, 2015 Saturday Partly cloudy all day & 78 degrees

 

Have to admit, today has been the gloomiest of all. Gray skies, gray seas, with no hope of sun. The temps have dropped at least 10 degrees since yesterday too. The one good thing, however, is that the seas have become flatter, and the winds have died down.

 

Might as well drag out those suitcases, and get a jump on the packing. “Packing” is a dirty word for one of us. If there was no flight involved, it would be a piece of cake. When we ship our duffels from the world cruise, we don’t worry about weight, or even the size of the bags. The nice thing is that these bags get delivered a week after we get home. Now we have to schlep it.

 

A funny thing happened, where our stuff was not fitting in the three pieces of luggage we began with. Surely we must have used up most of the heavy toiletries during the six weeks we have been here. And we thought we had not bought much stuff. Turned out we were 25 pounds or so more than we realized. Instead of worrying about overweight luggage, we went right to the ship’s store, and bought an HAL rolling duffel bag, capable of holding up to 45 pounds. That should do it. Gotta work on the list to keep the packing lighter on these shorter cruises.

 

Wanting a break from the packing job, we went to the dining room for lunch. It sure was nice to be waited on by our friendly lunch staff. The only downside were the crabby people behind us, that cannot possibly be pleased at any mealtime. Today, they ordered food from the Lido, not from the dining room lunch menu. It was spaghetti with red meat sauce. Simple, right? Nope, the pasta was not angel hair, and it was overdone. Back it went. The sauce was cold. Back that went. By 1:15pm, their shared entrée arrived. Technically, the dining room closes at 1pm, but we know they must have been there until 2pm. Bet they complained about getting served so late……………..In fact, the rude man told the head waiter very loudly, that if their order was not perfect, he (the waiter) would be doing dishes in the kitchen the next time they saw him on another cruise. Cannot believe he said that. Takes all kinds to make the world go around, we guess. We have a massive amount of respect for the staff, since they seem to know how to handle these stressful situations quite well.

 

After our PM walk around the almost deserted promenade deck, we took the time to watch a Pacino movie, a fairly new one. It was good. He’s always good.

 

There was a farewell reception for the early dinner folks at 4:15pm. We picked up the last fifteen minutes of Gene’s talk and complimentary champagne/wine toast to another successful ending of a fun cruise. Guess the old disembarkation talk is gone, like some of the other traditions. This affair began with Regina and the HALCats, whom we have only seen once this trip. Their hangout is the Crow Nest late at night. Location Guide, Kainoa, followed with a brief recap of the trip, then Gene delivered his talk about the surveys we will all be getting online once we get home. Adding that it was of great importance to fill them out, he reminded everyone that he has the ability to track each and every one of us down, because he knows where we live. And growing up in Utah, he was no stranger to going door-to-door ringing door bells to get his message out. That got a roar from the crowd, although Gene admitted he may get in trouble with that remark. Nah, only with the Mormons…….

 

We had enough time to get to deck nine to see a very nice sunset before the sun disappeared behind the clouds. For the first time in three days, we saw some blue skies, with the prospects of the overcast breaking up. Perhaps tomorrow will be nice.

 

Dinner for us was in the Pinnacle Grill. Many other folks had the same idea, as the restaurant was filled to capacity. Even though we had to wait for a table to be set, our meal was delivered as usual………perfect and delicious. Our waiter made us a special foil “peacock” filled with tiny biscotti cookies that come with the coffee in here. How nice was that? While we enjoyed our bowls of macadamia nut ice cream, he was creating a mini woven ribbon lantern……like magic. It will be a nice reminder of our final meal in here, until the next time, next year, that is.

 

Bill & Mary Ann

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The-Inside-Cabin Great Review Rare

The-Inside-Cabin

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I wonder what makes people so miserable. You can only hope karma comes back to bite people like that. I can't believe it's almost over. So happy I won't have to wait long for my next "fix" from you come the new year :).

 

 

Those are the folks that you hope get a letter from HAL informing them that they would be happier on another cruise line and are banned from HAL going forward.

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Traveling Dot

Traveling Dot

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Thanks for letting me come along on your cruise (virtually). My husband and I had planned a cruise to the South Pacific in April, but it doesn't look like it will happen now that he has had a setback. :( Enjoyed my time on your trip. :) Can't wait for the World Cruise, I have been following you for the past few years and enjoy reading your adventures. Thank you again. :)

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cruz chic

cruz chic

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Those are the folks that you hope get a letter from HAL informing them that they would be happier on another cruise line and are banned from HAL going forward.

 

That would be great. I wish that Hal would do it. It reminds me of a couple I met years back. They complained about everything that was served. Since I'm very forward I asked why they cruise with Hal since they didn't appear to like the food. They told me they lived in NYC and were used to good food. It might have been best for them to stay there since a ship is not NYC.

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ger_77

ger_77

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Wow, you certainly have much more patience with the chronic complainers than I do. After a few times, I would have asked them why they didn't bother disembarking after a couple of days and fly home, because the cruise is obviously making them dreadfully unhappy and they are taking it out on the staff, which is very unfair.

 

Sorry you're getting kicked off very soon!

 

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

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Lizzie68

Lizzie68

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Wow, you certainly have much more patience with the chronic complainers than I do. After a few times, I would have asked them why they didn't bother disembarking after a couple of days and fly home, because the cruise is obviously making them dreadfully unhappy and they are taking it out on the staff, which is very unfair.

 

Sorry you're getting kicked off very soon!

 

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

 

I agree with you Ger, but likely I would be the person invited to leave the ship for being disruptive, LOL. After a couple of times of hearing that I'd likely lecture them on how to treat the staff, and say please and thank you as well.

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SJSULIBRARIAN

SJSULIBRARIAN

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Those are the folks that you hope get a letter from HAL informing them that they would be happier on another cruise line and are banned from HAL going forward.

 

I don't know what it takes for HAL to "Disinvite" a passenger but these folks definitely deserve it. I so admire the dining staff for putting up with these folks daily - it is definitely beyond the pale for people to behave as these folks have.

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Traveling Dot

Traveling Dot

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I don't know what it takes for HAL to "Disinvite" a passenger but these folks definitely deserve it. I so admire the dining staff for putting up with these folks daily - it is definitely beyond the pale for people to behave as these folks have.

 

On our last cruise there was one couple that came to the podium who had a reservation but where about an hour late (of course not their fault). :eek: They berated the man at the podium because their table was given to someone else. I stood there and had to bite my tongue to keep from saying something. I couldn't believe how they behaved. It was the person who took the reservations fault, it was not their fault they were late, and their table should not have been given to someone else. :eek:

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