Day 15 - Saturday - 3/29/25 - At sea to Ft. Lauderdale

 On this last voyage day of the cruise, it was a pretty full day with all sorts of varied activities. After waking up at around 8 o'clock, we prepared for our day and went to the Lido for our customary breakfast. Our first event of the day was the Mariner recognition ceremony in the Tamarind bar. It was a pretty small event and only one person was recognized. However, all participants got to have a photo taken with the Captain and the assistant hotel general manager (the hotel GM was on personal leave). We chatted with another longtime cruiser and got some tips about the charter cruise, which for us starts tomorrow on the ship. The big issue is that except for earning cruise days and the ability to use CCL stock credit


We then went down to the World Stage for the City on a Sea presentation by Stephanie, Cruise & Travel Director. It honors all the people who live and work on the ship and gives a little bit of background about their functions and what happens behind the scenes. And at the end, there is a large outpouring of thanks from many crew members, which is reciprocated by the audience. I then elected to have a very quick lunch and nova hotdog and fries from the Dive In hotdog and burger bar. Angela visited the spa as one of our benefits of being loyal to Holland America.


I was able to eat a quick lunch to be able to secure front row seats in the Rolling Stone lounge for the Deal or No Deal game show. This is the first time we've seen it on Holland America but we've seen it many times on Princess and I rather enjoy watching it and estimating the banker's payoff offer to quit the game. The second player, a lady, won $250. We stayed in our seats for the next event which was a beginning line dancing class, which I watched as I'm generally not coordinated enough to do that kind of dancing. Angela, however, lapped it up and enjoyed herrself. Immediately following the line dancing class Stephanie interviewed the three female dancers from the step one dance company. It was an interesting interview and we learned a bit more about what's happening with the dancers and how they get recruited and then get on the ship. 


After the interview, I went up to the promenade deck and walked a bit over a mile in order to get my step count up above 5000 for the day. Angela joined me for part of it, but she had already got her steps in so she elected to sit in a lounge chair for much of it and read.


We did a specialty dinner tonight in Morimoto by Sea, which is located up on deck 11. It was a wonderful dinner and I had the calamari salad and angry lobster phad Thai followed by an assortment of sorbets for dessert. Angela did the calamari salad as well but she had chicken as her main dish and then a chocolate dessert. While it's an extra cost item at $55/person + service charge, I would highly recommend a meal in the Morimoto by Sea restaurant.








Our evening entertainment was a variety show of Trisha Kelly and Marc Yaffee sharing the stage for two short sets. But tonight being the last night of the cruise it was also a chocolate surprise night. The variety show was excellent and well attended.  Marc can deliver comedy at a machine gun pace!


Billboard Onboard was excellent and well attended and we watched two sets.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 22 - Saturday - 4/5/25 - Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Image
  Saturday morning on this  last day of the cruise found us waking up early at 615 to be at the 7:30 AM devotional with Gloria Gaither. Given her status as the wife of Bill Gaither the room was expected to be packed and so we wanted to get in the line early. By the time we got down to the line, it was already out to the casino. However, we were able to find a good seat in our normal section on the slope. Gloria gave me a wonderful devotional on the how's and why's of journaling and its importance. I found it really really good but I've been in the habit of writing daily accounts of our travels for the past 10 years. Rotterdam After the devotional time, we went up to the Lido and had our customary breakfast before gathering up our snorkeling gear and heading down to get a tender ticket in the Rolling Stone lounge. It turned out we didn't need a ticket as it was possible to go directly down to the first tender. So we did got on the tender and were over to the island by ab...
Read more

Day 16 - Sunday - 3/30/25 - Ft. Lauderdale Turnaround Day

Image
 Today was turnaround day and it actually turned out to be a fairly busy day. We had to be out of our room by 8:15 AM and so our alarms went off at 7 AM and we finished the last-minute packing and went up to the Lido for one final breakfast on this leg.  The Lido Marketplace was extremely busy and we finally found a seat and enjoyed a nice breakfast. We didn't need to be in the Pinnacle bar until 9 AM to do the immigration inspection. This week's cruise is a full charter cruise meaning that the sponsor of this cruise chartered the entire ship and they control the programming.  The casino is closed, alcohol promotion is eliminated, there are very few public announcements by Stephanie, our Cruise & Travel Director, there are no events scheduled by HAL except shore excursions, the casino is closed, and the charter group provides all the Main Stage and Rolling Stone lounge programming.  All of the restaurants are open as well as the shops and photo studio.  ...
Read more

Day 02 - Sunday - 3/16/25 - At Sea to Honduras

Image
 Sea days on these short Caribbean cruises are much different than sea days on the long voyages that we typically take. As a general rule for sea days on Caribbean cruises, there are very few learning activities such as lectures. They are filled with all sorts of activities related to shopping and relaxing around the pool or lounging in bars and lounges. It was a very sunny day, however, there was a very strong headwind. As for us today, we took the opportunity to really relax for the first time in a while. We didn't get up terribly early and it was nice to have a longer sleep. For breakfast I tried out the Eatery, which is the buffet on deck nine. I found my typical breakfast of congee which was a bit challenging in that nobody seemed to know where it was. But once found, it was delicious and I rather enjoyed it. A lot of today's activities were held in the Piazza and I started the day out watching a game of officers versus guests in a game called water pong. This game involve...
Read more