Nov 8

Nov 8 Day 10 - Day at Sea

This morning begins pretty much like all of the previous nine days. I get my morning coffee at Grand Dutch Cafe on Deck 3 and proceed to work on my daily blog from the day before.

There is evidence that this is the last day of the cruise as the crew has placed luggage scales on every floor, outside the elevators so that guests can weigh their luggage. That is a nice touch I have not seen on any other cruise line.

It is very windy today, so Rickee and I decide to do our morning walk on the Promendade Deck instead of outside on Deck 11. It takes three laps around Promenade Deck to equal 1 mile (compared to 12 laps on Deck 11). And, the Promenade Deck offers protection from the sun and most of the wind.

This afternoon, we learned that tropical storm Nicole is on track to hit the east coast of Florida tomorrow which will delay our arrival into Port Everglades. At the very least, this will add another day to our sailing. Fortunately, our flights were booked through Holland America’s travel department so they are arranging to move our flights to the following day. This is a good reason to book your air through the cruise line.

We visit Guest Services to find out about how our Internet will work on the final day and to cancel the Luggage Direct program (where they deliver your checked luggage directly to the airline from the ship). While we are waiting in line at Guest Services, we overhear a guest yelling obscenities at one of the Guest Services supervisors. We could not understand the nature of his complaint, but he was getting right in her face and yelling obscenities. He even told her to “shut up” at one point. I was waiting for someone to call security. Had it gone any farther, I was considering stepping in between them and I think the gentlemen waiting in line behind me would have done so as well. The guy was way over the line. In fact, Holland America should ban him from ever sailing again. It was that bad.

We made sure to let our Guest Services rep know that we felt they were doing an amazing job under less than ideal conditions.

On our way back to our stateroom, we saw our room steward, Pande (right), and his assistant, Yoshua (left), in the hallway and thanked them for their great service.

*Yoshua (assistant) and Pande (steward) delivered excellent stateroom service*

For dinner this evening, we returned to Tamarind for our second time this cruise. Our first time was on embarkation day and we enjoyed it so much we had to try it again. We started with a cocktail in the Tamarind Bar.

Rickee tried something new tonight, the Thai Basil Szechuan Shrimp which she said was delicious. I had the Red Panang Chicken Curry which I ordered extra spicy. This is the best Thai curry I have had on a cruise ship and rivals any I have had on land, including one of the highest rated Thai restaurants in Bangok!

When we returned to our stateroom, we were concerned to find that a rodent had invaded our space and was resting on the bed. Can someone call an exterminator?